While tragedy declined, with comedy the case was different, for its changes were progressive. Most writers divide Greek comedy into the Old, the Middle, and the New; and although the boundary lines between the three orders are very indistinct, each has certain well-defined characteristics. It is asserted, as we have elsewhere noted, that the chief subjects of the first were the politics of the day and the characters and deeds of leading persons; that the chief peculiarity of the second, in which the action of the chorus was much curtailed, was the exclusion of personal and political criticism, and the adoption of parodies of the gods and ridicule of certain types of character; and that the New Comedy, in which the chorus disappeared, aimed to paint scenes and characters of domestic life. The Middle Comedy, however, still continued to be in some degree personal and political, and even in the New Comedy these features of the Old are frequently apparent. Aristoph'anes, the leader of the Old Comedy, toward the close of his life produced The Frogs--a work that signalized the transition from the Old to the Middle Comedy. The latter school, however, took its rise in Sicily, and its most distinguished authors were Antiph'anes, probably of Athens, born in 404, and Alex'is of Thu'rii, born about 394. The New Comedy arose after Athens had fallen under Macedonian supremacy, and as many as sixty-four poets belong to this period, the later of whom composed their plays in Alexandria, in the time of Alexander's successors. The founder of this school was Phile'mon of Soli, in Cilicia, born about 360 B.C. Of his ninety plays fragments of fifty-six remain. The majority of these have been described as "elegant but not profound reflections on the 'changes and chances of this mortal life.'" A late critic chooses the following fragment as illustrative of Philemon, and at the same time favorable to his reputation: Have faith in God, and fear; seek not to know him; For thou wilt gain naught else beyond thy search; Whether he is or is not, shun to ask: As one who is, and sees thee, always fear him. --Trans. by J. A. SYMONDS. MENANDER.