It is curious to observe in the Clouds of Aristophanes that while the main object of the poet is to ridicule Socrates, and through him to expose what he considers the corrupt state of education in Athens, he does not disdain to mingle with his low buffoonery the loftiest flights of the imagination--reminding us of the not unlike anomaly of Shakspeare's sublime simile of the "cloud-capp'd towers," in the Tempest. In one part of the play, Strepsi'ades, who has been nearly ruined in fortune by his spendthrift son, goes to Socrates to learn from him the logic that will enable him "to talk unjustly and--prevail," so that he may shirk his debts! He finds the master teacher suspended in air, in a basket, that he may be above earthly influences, and there "contemplating the sun," and endeavoring to search out "celestial matters." To the appeal of Strepsiades, Socrates, interrupted in his reveries, thus answers: Socrates. Old man, sit you still, and attend to my will, and hearken in peace to my prayer. (He then addresses the Air.) O master and king, holding earth in your swing, O measureless infinite Air; And thou, glowing Ether, and Clouds who enwreathe her with thunder and lightning and storms, Arise ye and shine, bright ladies divine, to your student, in bodily forms. Then we have the farther prayer of Socrates to the Clouds, in which is pictured a series of the most sublime images, colored with all the rainbow hues of the poet's fancy. We are led, in imagination, to behold the dread Clouds, at first sitting, in glorious majesty, upon the time-honored crest of snowy Olympus --then in the soft dance beguiling the nymphs "'mid the stately advance of old Ocean"--then bearing away, in their pitchers of sunlight and gold, "the mystical waves of the Nile," to refresh and fertilize other lands; at one time sporting on the foam of Lake Mæo'tis, and at another playing around the wintry summits of Mi'mas, a mountain range of Ionia, The farther invocation of the Clouds is thus continued: Socrates. Come forth, come forth, ye dread Clouds, and to earth your glorious majesty show; Whether lightly ye rest on the time-honored crest of Olympus, environed in snow, Or tread the soft dance 'mid the stately advance of old Ocean, the nymphs to beguile, Or stoop to enfold, with your pitchers of gold, the mystical waves of the Nile, Or around the white foam of Mæotis ye roam, or Mimas all wintry and bare, O hear while we pray, and turn not away from the rites which your servants prepare. Then the chorus comes forward and answers, as if the Clouds were speaking: