Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/280

152 and took all for an idle dream born of the fumes of indigestion, or produced by the dizzy motion of his voyage. In this opinion, he told it at his departure to the priest, who admiring the extraordinary relation, registered it in hieroglyphics at Canopus.

The day when he came to Alexandria was one on which the king had appointed games to Apollo and the Muses, and honours and rewards for such writers as should appear in them. This he took for a happy omen at his entrance, and, not to lose an opportunity of showing himself, repaired immediately to the public theatre; where, as if every thing was to favour him, the very first accident gave his spleen a diversion, which we find at large in the proem of the seventh book of Vitruvius. It happened that when the poets had recited, six of the judges decreed the prizes with a full approbation of all the audience. From this, Aristophanes alone dissented, and demanded the first prize for a person whose bashful and interrupted manner of speaking made him appear the most disgustful: for he, says the judge, is alone a poet, and all the rest reciters; and they who are judges should not approve thefts, but writings. To maintain his assertion, those volumes were produced from whence they had been stolen: upon which, the king ordered them to be formally tried for theft, and dismissed with infamy; but placed Aristophanes over his library, as one, who had given a proof of his knowledge in books. This passage Zoilus often