A political Aristophanes, taking advantage of his lyrical Bacchic
licence, was found too much for political Athens. I would not ask to have
him revived, but that the sharp light of such a spirit as his might be
with us to strike now and then on public affairs, public themes, to make
them spin along more briskly.
He hated with the politician's fervour the sophist who corrupted
simplicity of thought, the poet who destroyed purity of style, the
demagogue, 'the saw-toothed monster,' who, as he conceived, chicaned the
mob, and he held his own against them by strength of laughter, until
fines, the curtailing of his Comic licence in the chorus, and ultimately
the ruin of Athens, which could no longer support the expense of the
chorus, threw him altogether on dialogue, and brought him under the law.
After the catastrophe, the poet, who had ever been gazing back at the men
of Marathon and Salamis, must have felt that he had foreseen it; and that
he was wise when he pleaded for peace, and derided military coxcombry,
and the captious old creature Demus, we can admit.
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