Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/28

 18 Journal of Philology. preserved a hint of such an interpretation of the plot of the " Birds," eagerly as their congenial minds would have welcomed such a suggestion ; and a discovery which has escaped the pene- tration of all the critics of Alexandria, Pergamos and Byzantium, is reserved for a barbarian Professor twenty-two centuries after date. To my mind it is quite clear that had any such subtle series of double entendres been originally conceived by the Poet, instead of the Professor, he would have left his audience then as completely in the dark as his critics afterwards. The holyday crowd which assembled at the Dionysia went to the theatre to get rid of serious impressions, not to receive them, to laugh at obvious fun, not to puzzle over a painful enigma. According to Siivern's conception, the "Birds" would not be an old comedy at all, but merely an acted charade. The old comedy retained, throughout, its original " autosche- diastic" character ; the plot was eminently simple, and was never adhered to with uniform consistency ; the poet always preferred his joke to his plot, and systematically sacrificed the consistency of his characters to the first pun that offered. How small was the demand which he made on the acuteness of his audience may be seen by the pains which he takes in the " Knights" to make them recognize Cleon without the character- istic nose (230 sqq.) : icai fir) 8e8iff, ov yap eariv e^yKao-pevos. vrro row 8eovs yap avrbv ov8es fjdeXe rav crKcvonoiav eiKao-ai. irdvros ye prjv yvaadfjaerai' t6 yap Biarpov 8({-i6v. How then could they be expected to recognize " two single gentlemen rolled into one" in Peisthetaerus ? or that strange combination of a familiar genus and obscure individual in Euel- pides ? This Essay of Suvern's is one of the many attempts which dull commentators have so often made upon works of imagina- tion and humour to find some hidden signification, whether meta- physical thesis or hard matter of fact, beneath the brilliant surface, " and give the astonished Bard a meaning all their own." Indeed, neither prose nor verse is safe from the interpretation of dunces. Lucian, Rabelais, Cervantes, Butler, Boileau, Pope, have each had a Dennis in turn. Pope's burlesque commentary