Grecians, who were ignorant of the Roman satire--but over all the
moderns in succeeding ages, excepting Boileau and your lordship.

And thus I have given the history of satire, and derived it as far
as from Ennius to your lordship--that is, from its first rudiments
of barbarity to its last polishing and perfection; which is, with
Virgil, in his address to Augustus -


"Nomen fama tot ferre per annos, . . .
Tithoni prima quot abest ab origine Caesar."


I said only from Ennius, but I may safely carry it higher, as far as
Livius Andronicus, who, as I have said formerly, taught the first
play at Rome in the year ab urbe condita CCCCCXIV. I have since
desired my learned friend Mr. Maidwell to compute the difference of
times betwixt Aristophanes and Livius Andronicus; and he assures me
from the best chronologers that Plutus, the last of Aristophanes'
plays, was represented at Athens in the year of the 97th Olympiad,
which agrees with the year urbis conditae CCCLXIV. So that the
difference of years betwixt Aristophanes and Andronicus is 150; from
whence I have probably deduced that Livius Andronicus, who was a
Grecian, had read the plays of the old comedy, which were satirical,
and also of the new; for Menander was fifty years before him, which
must needs be a great light to him in his own plays that were of the
satirical nature. That the Romans had farces before this, it is
true; but then they had no communication with Greece; so that
Andronicus was the first who wrote after the manner of the old
comedy, in his plays: he was imitated by Ennius about thirty years