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By Root 16146 0

Tragedy, prefixed to Brutus, he actually boasts of having introduced the Roman senate on the stage in red mantles. "The Greeks," as he asserts, "font paraitre ses acteurs (tragic) sutir des especes d'echasses, le visage couvert d'un masque quti exprime la douleur d'un cotd et la joye de l'autre!" The only circumstance upon which lie could possibly have founded such an accusation is, that in these comedy masks were worn with one eyebrow drawn up and the other down, to denote a busy-body or inquisitive medler.

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Several ancient tragedies, viz: Eumenides, Philoctetes, and AEdipus et Colonos, besides many pieces of Euripides, have a happy and enlivening termination.

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The only historical tragedies by Grecian authors were The Capture of Miletus by Phrynicus and the Persians of AEschylus.

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The foundation of all the erroneous opinions on the subject of the old Greek comedy (Voltaire's opinion particularly) may be found in the comparison between Aristophanes and Menander, in Plutarch.

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Schlegel says justly, that Harlequin and Pulcinello descend in a direct line from the buffoons of the ancient Romans. On Greek vases are seen also dresses like theirs-long breeches and waistcoats with arms, articles worn by neither Greeks nor Romans except upon the stage. At present Zanni is one of the names of Harlequin, and Sannio in the Latin farces was a buffoon — who had a shaven head, and a dress patched together of all colors.

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In Racine's Berenice Antiochus says to the queen

Je me suis tu cinq ans

Madame, et vais encore me taire plus long tems,

and to give a direct proof of his intention, recites immediately no less than fifty verses in a breath.

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In Voltaire's scruples about unity of place he has committed a thousand blunders. In the Mort deCaesar the scene is in the Capitol, but the people seem not to know their precise situation. On one occasion Cesar exclaims, "Courons au Capitole!"

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Denis deSallo's "Journal des Scavans," in 1665 may be considered as the origin of Literary Journals or Reviews.

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Sous ce tombeau git Le Sage abattu

Par le cisean de la Parque importune,

S'il ne fut pas ami de la fortune

I fut toujours ami de la vertu,

was Le Sage's epitaph.

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These lines although extremely French are forcible,

Et comme un jeune caur est bientot enflan-me

Il me vit, il m'aiula, je le vis, je l'aimai.

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On Cardinal Richelieu, Benserade made the following epitaph:

Cy gist — ouy gist par la mort bleu

Le Cardinal de Richelieu,

Et ce qui cause mon ennuy

Ma pension avec lui.

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The Jesuits called Crebillon 'Puer ingeniosus, sed insignis nebulo.'

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Dr. E. Young published "A true Estimate of Human Life, Part I," dedicated to Queen Anne, and describing the shades of existence. The second part, however, which should have contained the lights never appeared.

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The " Batrachomyomachia," is nothing, more than a burlesque poem, much in the manner of Aristophanes, and doubtfully attributed to Homer. Philip Melnethon however, wrote a commentary to prove the poet's object was to excite a hatred for tumults and sedition. Pierre La Seine going a step farther, thinks the intention was to recommend to young men temperance in eating and drinking.

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"Amare et sapere vix Deo conceditur," is not Seneca's as generally supposed.

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The heathen poets are mentioned three times in the New Testament. Aratus in the seventeenth chapter of Acts — Menander in the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians — also Epimenides.

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"Semper sub Sextis perdita Roma fuit,"

was a line written during the pontificate of Alexander VI. Sextus Tarquinius provoked by his tyranny the expulsion of the kings of Rome. Urban VI. began the great schism of the West. Alexander VI astonished the world by the enormity of his crimes, and Pius VI did not falsify the saying.

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A letter was once addressed from Rome " Alla sua Excellenza Seromfidevi," in London. It caused much perplexity at the Post-office and British Museum, and after foiling the acumen