In the Journal des Debuts M. Maspero, the well-known French
Egyptologist, has given an interesting account of the recent discovery of lost writings of Menander. The die. covert' of the papyri was made by M. Gustave Lefebvre about fifteen months ago, and was kept secret for ten months while the ground was thoroughly searched. There is no ancient author about whom our curiosity has been more piqued than about Menander. Hitherto only certain fragments, each of a few lines, have been known to us. We have had to take his reputation on trust. Caesar said that Terence was only one half of Menander ; Quintilian, always discriminating, praised Menander without reserve ; indeed, all the ancients united in acclamation of this perfect master of form and phrase and human emotion. In him, we were told, the Attic genius culminated. Unhappily, the new discoveries leave us still unsatisfied, and a little perplexed. Di. Lefebvre has pieced together thirteen hundred and twenty-eight lines, which apparently come from four different plays, and even then do not give continuous passages. The characters, says M. Maspero, are rather conventional. Still, there may be room for delicacy, grace, and wit in the writing ; but M. Maspero's conclusion is that Menander will remain for most people "a great man on the evidence of others."
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