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Rh who promulgates his warlike oracles to delude men's minds, the trumpeter, the armourer, and the singer of war-songs—are all dismissed by the triumphant vine-dresser with ignominy and contempt.

One little point in this play is worth notice, as a trait of generous temper on the part of the dramatist. Cleon, his great personal enemy, was now dead. He has not been able to restrain himself from aiming a blow at him even now, as one of those whom he looks upon, justly or unjustly, as the authors of the miseries of Greece. But he holds his hand half-way. When Mercury is descanting upon some of these evils which went near to the ruin of Athens, he is made to say that "the Tanner"—i.e., Cleon—was the cause of them. Trygæus interrupts him,—

This forbearance towards his dead enemy is turned off, it is true, with a jest to the effect that anything bad which Mercury could say of him now would be a reproach to that ghostly company of which the god had especial charge; but even under the sarcasm we may willingly think there lies a recognition of the great principle, that the faults of the dead should be buried with them.

The comedy of 'Lysistrata,' which was produced some ten years later, deals with the same subject from quite a different point of view. The war has now