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Rh some resemblance might be found between Protagoras and D'Alembert, or between the brilliant, versatile, and unprincipled Philip of Orleans and Alcibiades. With Alcibiades there was certainly some party or friendly relation with Euripides; but it is vain to speculate on its nature. Whatever it was, it would do the tragic poet no good with Aristophanes; and if the story be true that Alcibiades and his associates marred the first and hindered the second representation of "The Clouds," the baffled and irritated satirist may have suspected Euripides of having a hand in his failure, and for that, and perhaps other weightier reasons, have put him down in his black book.

Certain it is that Aristophanes regarded Euripides with a feeling seemingly compounded of fear and contempt—of contempt for him as a scenic artist, and fear of him as a corrupter of youth. Yet it is difficult to detect the cause for such hostility; political motives can hardly have been at the root of it. Did Aristophanes detest the war with Peloponnesus, and yearn for the return of peace? so did Euripides. Did he regard the middle class of citizens as the pith and marrow of the commonwealth? Euripides thought so too. The husbandman who tilled his little plot of ground they both set above the shopkeeper, who applauded the demagogue of the hour, and spent, or more properly idled away, half his time on the stone benches of the Pnyx. Did the comic writer love Athens in his heart of hearts, though he often told her from the stage that she was a dolt and a dupe? the tragic vriter loved her no less, and paid her