It cannot be doubted that he possessed to an astonishing fulness the talent so little known in the ancient world, and which has exalted our Shakspeare in lofty preeminence above the rest of mankind, of portraying nature in every condition of human life. We have heard of, and frequently read many terse and witty compliments to the genius of Shakspeare, on account of his intimacy with nature; but we know of none superior to that paid to Menander by the great Byzantian grammarian Aristophanes, who, on reading his comedies exclaimed in an ecstasy, "O MENANDER! O NATURE! WHICH OF YOU HAVE COPIED THE WORKS OF THE OTHER?" Ovid held him in no less admiration; and Plutarch has been lavish in his praise: the old rhetoricians recommend his works as the true and perfect patterns of every thing beautiful and graceful in public speaking. Quintilian advises an orator to seek in Menander for copiousness of invention, for elegance of expression, and all that universal genius which is able to accommodate itself to persons, things, and affections: but that which appears to us more decisive than any other eulogy bestowed upon him, is the opinion of Caesar, who, praising his favourite Terence, calls him a half-Menander, thereby leaving upon record his testimony that Menander had twice the merit of the greatest comic poet of Rome. Such was the poet from whom the mob of Athens snatched the laurel to bestow it upon a mean and execrable scribbler, and to one hundred of whose comedies the prize was denied, while only eight of them were rewarded with it. From the death of Menander which happened in his fifty-second year, not a dramatic poet arose, nor a circumstance occurred relating to the art in Greece, worthy of commemoration: here, therefore, history drops the dramatic poetry of that country, till in a future page the merits of the ancient and modern drama come to be viewed in comparison with each other, and proceeds to commemorate some of the Grecian actors.