of something like formal critical examination of particular books and authors that Greek preserves for us in Dionysius of Halicarnassus. It is, however, extremely rash to conclude, as has sometimes been concluded, that because we find so much tendency towards [Sidenote: _Other criticism in Comedy._] literary criticism in Aristophanes, we should find a proportionate amount in other Comic writers (at least in those of the Old Comedy, who had perhaps most genius and certainly most _parrhesia_), if their works existed. The contrary opinion is far more probable. For though we have nothing but fragments, often insignificant in individual bulk, of the writers of the Old Comedy except Aristophanes, and of all the writers of the Middle—nothing but fragments, though sometimes not insufficient in bulk, of Menander, Philemon, and the other writers of the New—yet it must be remembered that these fragments are extremely numerous, and that in a very considerable number of cases, fragments as they are, they give a fair glimpse of context and general tone. I do not hesitate to say, after most careful examination of the collections of Meineke and his successors, that there are not more than one or two faint and doubtful approaches to our subject discoverable there. The passage of Pherecrates[27] on which M. Egger chiefly relies to prove his very wide assertion that “il n’y a peut-être pas un seul poète” of the Old Comedy “qui n’ait mêlé la critique littéraire à ses fictions comiques” deals with music, not literature. And it is exceedingly rash to argue from titles, which, as we know from those of the plays remaining to us in their entirety, bore as little necessary relation to contents in ancient as in modern times. Footnote 27: This passage, which is twenty-five lines long, is from the play _Chiron_, and may be found at p. 110 of the Didot edition of Meineke’s _Poet. Com. Græc. Fragmenta_. Egger (p. 40) only gives it in translation. It is not in the least literary but wholly _musical_ in subject, Music appearing in person and complaining of the alteration of the lyre from seven strings to twelve.