various other ways he enlivened and recommended his doctrines by
humorous illustration. It is said that he even went to the theatre to
see himself caricatured, laughed as heartily as any, and stood up to
show the audience how correctly his ill-favoured countenance had been
reproduced. This story may be questioned, and it has been observed that
he was not insensible to ridicule, for he said shortly before his death
that no one would deride him any longer. We are told that he spent some
of his last days in versifying the fables of Æsop.

We now return from theoretical to practical life, from the philosophers
to the public. Nothing exhibits more forcibly the variable character of
humour than that, while philosophers in their "thinking shops" were
laughing at the follies of the world, the populace in the theatre were
shaking their sides at the absurdities of sages. Ordinary men did not
appreciate abstract views, nor understand abstruse philosophic humour,
indeed it died out almost as soon as it appeared, and was only
contemporary with a certain epoch in the mental history of Greece. Every
popular man is to a great extent a reflection of the age in which he
lives, "a boat borne up by a billow;" and what, in this respect is true
generally, is especially so with regard to the humorist, who seeks a
present reward, and must be in unison with the characters of those he
has to amuse. He depends much on hitting the current fancies of men by
small and subtle allusions, and he must have a natural perception of
fitness, of the direction in which he must go, and the limits he must
not transgress. The literature of an epoch exhibits the taste of the
readers, as well as that of the authors.

We shall thus be prepared to find that the mind of Aristophanes,
although his views were aristocratic, harmonized in tone with that of
the people, and that his humour bears the stamp of the ancient era in