The Lately Discovered Fragments of Menander

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Excerpt from The Lately Discovered Fragments of Menander: Edited With English Version, Revised Text, and Critical and Explanatory Notes When some fifteen years ago the tombs of Egypt gave back to the world the long lost Polity of Athens, I pleased myself with the hope, though not venturing to look forward to that hope being accomplished, that the same abodes of the dead might one day give into our hands a comedy of Menander. This hope has now to a great extent been realized, for muti lated and imperfect as these fragments are, they are yet of such a nature as to give the highest pleasure to those capable of enjoying them, and we know now, what we had to take on trust before, that the critics of antiquity were not mistaken in their judgment of the man, who holds the same place among the authors of the New Comedy, as Aristophanes does among those of the Old. In vigour no doubt, as might be expected, considering the degenerate age in which he ¿ourished, he falls short of that mighty genius, and yet judging from the specimens before us, he shows himself well entitled to be inscribed on that roll of honour, in which the great name of Aristophanes appears along with those masters of the tragic art, Sophocles and Euripides. We are now in a position to realize how correctly the ablest man of a most accomplished generation estimated the di¿'erence between our author and his imitator Terence, and to appreciate the excellence of his criticism, though the verses in which it is conveyed are execrable. Indeed, much as I admire Terence (i mean his three great plays, The Eunuch, The self-tormenter, and the Woman of Andros, which I name in the order of their merit), I feel as though I could no longer relish the copy, now that I know the original. The Bacchides of Plautus, which seems to be based on the Al: eganarau of Menander, is no doubt a play not to be despised, .but though I acknowledge Plautus to be a. Great. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.