* * * * * Beneath the pleasantry of Aristophanes is a substratum of solid sense; as is apparent in “the Birds,” an ingenious play in which the woodland songsters take characters. It was produced at a time when the Athenians, puffed up with vanity, confidently looked for the reduction of Sicily and the dominion of Greece. Aristophanes alone, at this critical period, ventured to raise the note of warning, and satirize their foolish ambition. The choruses in this drama ring with the sweet music of the wild woods; they were rendered by twenty-four performers plumed so as to represent as many different kinds of birds. The Hoopoe thus calls his fellows to a mass-meeting:— “Hoop! hoop! Come in a troop, Come at a call One and all, Birds of a feather, All together. Birds of an humble gentle bill Smooth and shrill, Dieted on seeds and grain, Rioting on the furrowed plain, Pecking, hopping, Picking, popping, Among the barley newly sown. Birds of bolder, louder tone, Lodging in the shrubs and bushes, Mavises and Thrushes. On the summer berries browsing, On the garden fruits carousing, All the grubs and vermin smouzing. You that in an humbler station, With an active occupation, Haunt the lowly watery mead, Warring against the native breed, The gnats and flies, your enemies; In the level marshy plain Of Marathon pursued and slain. You that in a squadron driving From the seas are seen arriving, With the Cormorants and Mews, Haste to land and hear the news! All the feathered airy nation, Birds of every size and station, Are convened in convocation. For an envoy, queer and shrewd, Means to address the multitude, And submit to their decision A surprising proposition, For the welfare of the state. Come in a flurry, With a hurry, scurry, Hurry to the meeting and attend to the debate.” FRERE.