1H 



MEXAXDER. ARRIUS. 



MENDELSSOHN, HOSES. 



M 



of plefiarsun, or at least of copying, all 

 rawer than the imaginative poet. Ai 

 termed UM new comedy (that, namely, 



i UM eon of DiopeiU.es and Hfistrato, WM crosseyed, and yet 

 tended eoooch. 'The same authority Mya that be WM inordinately 

 ed to woman. He wrote more than one hundred comedies, of 

 only fncttMtrt* remain, but in spite of this fertility, and 

 KB the uwst adinind writer of his time, he WM only eight times 

 Hu maeter WM Theophrastus, according to the testimony of 



All antiquity screes in praise of Menander. We learn from Ovid 

 (Trie*.,* ii 370) that his plots all turned on love, and that in bis time 

 the piays of Menander wen common children'! books. Julius Caaar 

 alli Terence " dimidiatu* Menmnder," having reference to his 

 ill fissi j imfr-M-- of the Athenian dramatist. Plutarch preferred 

 him to Aristophanes, and Dion Chrysostomus to all the writers of the 

 old comedy. Quintiliaii (' lost. Orat..' x. 1. 69), gives him unqualified 

 praise M a delineator of manners. From these notices, from the plays 

 of Terence, and from an awkward compliment passed upon him by 

 Aristophanes the grammarian, we may infer Menander to have been 

 an adminhle painter of real life. His effeminate and immoral habits, 

 Issues* in his verses, which subjected him to the charge 



or at least of copying, all point to the man of fashion 

 And indeed the writer of what is 

 dy, which satirised characters, not 



is) had more occasion for knowledge of the world than for higher 

 qualities. It has been observed that then is very little of the humor- 

 ous in the fragments of Menander which remain ; but we cannot judge 

 of a play by fragmenta. Sheridan's plays, if reduced to the same state, 

 would be open to a similar charge, although he was the. most witty 

 viii. r of his age. The essential aim of the comedy of manners is to 

 xcite interest and smiles, not laughter. The plays of Menander were 

 probably very limple in the dramatic action. Terence did not keep 

 to this simplicity, but, M he tells us himself, he added to the main 

 plot tome subordinate one taken from a different piece of Menauder ; 

 thus, M he says, making one piece out of two. 



Between the time of Aristophanes and that of Menander a great 

 change must have taken place in the Athenian character, which WM 

 probably mainly brought about by the change in the political condition 

 of the Athenian state. The spirit of the people bad declined from the 



1 Aristophanes at a 

 Greece ; and in the 

 nearly extinguished the 



spirit that once animated the conquerors of Marathon and Plata*. 

 Mannen probably bad not changed for the better in Athens, though 

 the obscenity and ribaldry of Aristophanes would no longer have been 

 tolerated. The transition from coarseness of expression to a decent 

 propriety of language marks the history of literature in every country. 

 Thu* the personal satin and the coarseness which characterised the 

 old comedy wen no longer adapted to the age and circumstances in 

 which Menander lived, and then remained nothing for him to attempt 

 M a dramatist, but the new species of comedy in which, by the unani- 

 mous judgment of all antiquity, be attained the highest excellence. 

 The fragments of Meuander an principally preserved in Athenams, 

 , and the Greek lexicographer* and grammarians. A good 

 edition of the fragments of Menander and Philemon, by 

 e, WM published at Berlin, 1828, 8vo. It seems possible that 

 of the plays of Menander may yet exist; at least then is 

 evidcbot to the fact of BOOM of the plays having been in existence in 

 the 17th century. ('Journal of Education,' i 188.) Many of the 

 fragments of Maunder have been well translated by Cumberland in 



llu ' t !! * 



01 UM AUMnian SUM. me spirit ol tue people bad d 

 obi* patriotism which characterised the plays of A 

 time when Athens WM struggling for supremacy in Qr 

 time of Msamnder, Macedonian influence had nearly < 



MENANDER, ARRIUS, a Roman jurist, of the time of Scverus 

 and Caraealla. The only work of hi* mentioned in the Florentine 

 Index is four books on Muitaria. Then are six excerpts from Menander 

 m the I 'igitt. 



MEN A .S UER, PROTECTOR, a Greek writer, who lived at Constan- 

 tinople duriiiK the latter half of UM 6th century. He WM one of tho 

 emperors body guards, whence be derived the surname of Protector. 

 ('Cod. Tbeodue.,' t 24.) He wrote history oi the EMtern empire 

 fro*. AA M to A.D. 682, in eight books, of which considerable 



i , H u,. , Sttovt Legmtionumi . mttributed 



The beet edition of Menander is 



AWKU BEN ISRAEL. . ceUbrUed Jewish Rabbi, wu born 



t^. 1 ? 04 - , "* *" do * tod in HoU " d . wi ' ith "' 

 ^J"^^ P* to "" * Pcuto of tho 

 l!^.*** ** i hto > > woeededhis tutor, JUbbi 



s.l 



, and he soon after commenced hi* work 

 V on which his reputation M one of the most 

 ~ '- of Jewish theologian* chiefly rest*. At the age 

 ?I*.^ " " fortune through tb. confiscation of hi* father s 

 WblOM Speak. Inquisition ; and in consequence of this loss 



^T""^ 4*TX lt V ""-fcyof "Wch he grievously 



on aoeount of UM interruptions which it caused to his 



ecjuM over to EngUnd during the Protectorate, and WM 



Mly received b Cromwell, from whom be obtained some favours 



intjpn. He died at Amsterdam about 1649. 



eh lived on term* of intimacy with several of the most 



learned men of his age, by whom he WM highly esteemed for hi] 

 erudition and moral worth. Qrotius testified his respect for the 

 Rabbi's learning by consulting him on the most difficult points of 

 theology, and by recommending his works, especially the ' Conciliador,' 

 to the attention of biblical students. Menasseh WM strongly attached 

 to Judaism, and some of his works an disfigured by the introductiou 

 of invectives against Jesus Christ. 



The following are bin chief works: 1, 'Conciliador nel Penta- 

 teucho,' published in Spanish at Amsterdam in 10:12. A Lathi trans- 

 lation of this work, by Diunysius You, WM published at Frankfurt in 

 1633, with the title, ' Conciliator, sive do Convenient Locorum S. 

 Scriptural quo pugnan inter se vidcuUr.' 2, ' De Reenmctione 

 Mortuorum,' Arast, 1636. 3, 'De Cnatioue Problemate xxx.,' Atnst., 

 1635. 4, 'DeTermino Vita- Libri iii.,' Auist, 1639. 6, 'Spes Israelis,' 

 and in Spanish, ' Esperanza de Israel,' Lond., 1650. 6, ' A Defence of 

 the Jews in England,' Lond., 1656. 7, An edition of the Uebnw Bible, 

 in 2 vola. 4 to, Amst, 1635. 



MENDELSSOHN, MOSES, WM born at Dessau, in 1729, where his 

 father Mendel was a schoolmaster. Being a Jew, he instructed his 

 son in the Hebrew language and the elements of Jewish learning, 

 though he caused him to be instructed iu the Talmud by other*. The 

 celebrated work of Maimonides, ' Monh Nevochim,' (the guide to the 

 wanderers) he studied with such Eeal that an impaired constitution 

 and a distorted spine were luting marks of his application. This 

 work however seems to have strengthened his mental powers. In 

 1742 he went to Berlin, where he subsisted on the small bounties of 

 the members of his own persuasion ; but his miiid was greatly im- 

 proved by his intercourse with men of superior intellect. Israel 

 Moses, a Jewish mathematician, urged him to read Euclid's ' Elements,' 

 a physician named Kitsch instructed him iii Latin ; and by the aid of 

 Dr. Aaron Salomon Guiupurtz, he became acquainted with modern 

 literature. He lived for some time in a very humble condition, until 

 a rich silk-manufacturer, mimed Bernard, took him into his house M 

 instructor to his children. He subsequently became a superiutendent 

 in the factory, and was ultimately taken into partnership, liis inti- 

 macy with Leasing began in 1754, and is said to hare been of the 

 greatest advantage to him. Philosophy now became his favourite 

 study, and his first work was his ' Briefe iiber die Euiptiuduugen' 

 (letters on the sensations). He published other philosophical works 

 from time to time, and gained a high reputation lor acutcui-ss rather 

 than for originality of thought : his excellent moral character also 

 greatly contributed to the respect in which his religious authority was 

 held. His ' Jerusalem, oder iiber Religiose Macht und JudetUum ' 

 (Jerusalem, or an essay on the interference of the state in matters of 

 religion and Judaism) appeared in 1783. He had begun a philoso- 

 phical work entitled ' Murgeustundeu ' (morning hours), of which the 

 the first volume was published, when ho received Jacobi's ' Essay on 

 the Doctrine of Spinoza.' He thought that this essay charged his 

 friend Leasing (thu deceased) with Spinozism ; a charge then much 

 more heavy than at present, when many German philosophers are 

 avowed admirers of Spinoza. The zeal with which he defended his 

 friend by a written answer excited him to such a degree, that a cold, 

 which he subsequently took, was sufficient to terminate his existence 

 in 1786. 



As on instance of the successful pursuit of knowledge under diffi- 

 culties, Mendelssohn is immortalised; and to do him full justice, the 

 circumstances of hia life must be remembered by the reader of his 

 works, one of which has been translated into almost every European 

 language; this is his ' Phssdon,' a dialogue on the immortality of the 

 soul, held between Socrates and his disciples. The characters an 

 taken from Plato's dialogue of the same name, and the descriptive 

 parts an mere translations of the original. The Jewish philosopher 

 however has made Socrates produce new arguments in place of those 

 attributed to him by his disciple Plato; thinking these new arguments 

 better adapted to the conviction of modern renders. The following is 

 his principal and indeed his only peculiar argument, the rust of the 

 dialogue being employed in its defence, and in expressions of reliance 

 on the goodness of the Deity. For every change three things are 

 required : first, a state of the changeable thing prior to its change ; 

 secondly, tho state that follows the change ; and thirdly, a middle 

 state, as change does not take place at once, but by degrees. Between 

 being and not-being there is no middle state. Now the soul being 

 simple, and not, Ma compound body, capable of resolution into parts, 

 must, if it perish, be absolutely annihilated ; and iu its change from 

 death to life, it must pass at once from being to not-being, without of 

 course going through any middle state ; a change which, according to 

 the three requisitions of change, is impossible. Thus by ' roductio ad 

 abaurdurn ' the immortality of the soul WM proved. Kant, iu his 

 ' (Jritik der reinen Vernuuft ' (second edition, it is not iu the first 

 edition : see the complete edition of Kant's works, by M. Rosenkranz, 

 Leipzig), has shown tho futility of Mendelssohn's argument, whilq, he 

 admits: his acuteneu in perceiving that mere incapability of resolution 

 into parts WM of itself not sufficient to preserve the immortality of 

 the ioul, M had been supposed by many philosophers of the tnno. 

 Mendelssohn, by assuming that change must be gradual and not 

 sudden, thought that he hid established his point, a* thu soul, being 

 simple, could not admit of gradual resolution. Kant however shows 

 that we may conceive a gradual annihilation even without resolution 



