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here the counterpart to the conclusion of 'The Clouds:' as, in the former play, young Pheidippides gives up the turf, at his father's request, only to become a word-splitting philosopher and an undutiful son; so here the father is weaned from the law-courts, and persuaded to mix in more refined society, only to turn out a "grey iniquity" like Falstaff. The moral, if there be one, is somewhat hard to find. It may possibly be contained in a few words of the Chorus, which speak of the difficulty and the danger of a sudden change in all the habits of a man's life. Or is it necessary always for the writer of burlesques, any more than for the poet, to supply his audience with any moral at all? Might it not be quite enough to have raised a laugh at the absurd termination of the son's attempt to reform the father, and the tendency of all new converts to run into extremes?