(To _Charon_.) Pull away, my old friend,
For at last there's an end
To their croak, croak, croak.

(_Bacchus pays his two obols, and is landed_)


[1] The comic performances of the Athenians were usually brought
out at a festival of Bacchus, which lasted for three days. The
first of these was devoted to the tapping of their wine-casks;
the second to boundless jollity (Plato specifies a town, but not
Athens, every single inhabitant of which was found in a state of
intoxication on one of these festivals,) and the third to
theatrical exhibitions in the temple of the patron of the feast.
In this state of excitement it will be easily imagined that some
coarser ingredients were required by the clever but licentious
rabble of Athens, to whom these representations were more
particularly addressed, besides the better commodities of rich
poetry and wit; and hence the deformities which have been so much
complained of in the writings of Aristophanes.

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NOTES OF A READER.

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