Discusses the literary history of Greek comedy, the productions of the plays, their metre and rhythm, and the works of Aristophanes, Menander, Epicharnus, Cratinus, the School of Crates, and Eupolis. "All the greatest poets of Greece committed the same unintended offence: their overwhelming excellence thrust into partial or complete oblivion the merits of their less august fellow-writers. Aristophanes was so unquestionably the finest comic playwright of the fifth century that not a single work even of Cratinus has survived. This eclipsing power is still felt in our histories of literature, few readers of which are likely to divine that several of the now fragmentary plays were superior to some written by the master himself and still entirely extant. In this book I have naturally discussed Aristophanes and Menander at length and with deep pleasure; but my chief reason for undertaking it was an ambition to offer an adequate and illuminating account of numerous minor yet most engaging playwrights." [Preface].