The Birds of Aristophanes has been acted at Cambridge this
week with singular success. The Birds is the great comedy in which, according to Ottfried Muller, Aristophanes satirised Athenian plausibility and credulity, in the persons of Plausible and Hopeful, of whom the former persuades the Birds to found that splendid castle-in-the-air, Clondcuckootown,— without believing in it himself,—while the latter drinks his fill -of illusions for which there is no real excuse at all. The fun poked at the Greek Divinities appears to have been very well represented at Cambridge, the scene between the Divine Com- missioners and Plausible being one of the best in the play. We have given some account of the performance in another -column, but may add here that Mr. John O'Connor's scenery was universally admired, and that the various Birds,—especially the Swan,—were costumed with even more effect than in the old Greek theatre itself. We Englishmen hardly know what -true comedy is by anything in our own literature. The laughter .of Aristophanes contained satire, imagination, fancy, humour, and light-heartedness, in a combination which has never since been even approached.
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