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Rh cheap sign-board," while the other retorts by comparing him to "a plucked blackbird."

The Choral song that follows is one of the gems of that elegance of fancy and diction which, here and there, in the plays of Aristophanes, almost startle us by contrast with the broad farce which forms their staple, and show that the author possessed the powers of a true poet as well as of a clever satirist.

Ye children of man! whose life is a span,

Protracted with sorrow from day to day,

Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous,

Sickly calamitous creatures of clay!

Attend to the words of the sovereign birds,

Immortal, illustrious lords of the air,

Who survey from on high, with a merciful eye,

Your struggles of misery, labour, and care.

Whence you may learn and clearly discern

Such truths as attract your inquisitive turn;

Which is busied of late with a mighty debate,