History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Age. Vol. I

by John Colin Dunlop

TERENCE,

which are perhaps the most valuable remains that have descended to us among the works of antiquity. This celebrated dramatist, the delight and ornament of the Roman stage, was born at Carthage, about the 560th year of Rome. In what manner he came or was brought thither is uncertain. He was, in early youth, the freedman of one Terentius Lucanus in that city, whose name has been perpetuated only by the glory of his slave. After he had obtained his freedom, he became the friend of Lælius, and of the younger Scipio Africanus[299]. His Andria was not acted till the year 587—two years, according to the Eusebian Chronicle, after the death of Cæcilius; which unfortunately throws some doubt on the agreeable anecdote recorded by Donatus, of his introduction, in a wretched garb, into the house of Cæcilius, in order to read his comedy to that poet, by whom, as a mean person, he was seated on a low stool, till he astonished him with the matchless grace and elegance of the Andria, when he was placed on the couch, and invited to partake the supper of the veteran dramatist. Several writers have conjectured, it might be to another than to Cæcilius that Terence read his comedy[300]; or, as the Andria is not indisputably his first comedy, that it might be one of the others which he read to Cæcilius[301]. Supposing the Eusebian Chronicle to be accurate in the date which it fixes for the death of Cæcilius, it is just possible, that Terence may have written and read to him his Andria two [pg 176]years previous to its representation. After he had given six comedies to the stage, Terence left Rome for Greece, whence he never returned. The manner of his death, however, is altogether uncertain. According to one report, he perished at sea, while on his voyage from Greece to Italy, bringing with him an hundred and eight comedies, which he had translated from Menander: according to other accounts, he died in Arcadia for grief at the loss of those comedies, which he had sent before him by sea to Rome. In whatever way it was occasioned, his death happened when he was at the early age of thirty-four, and in the year 594 from the building of the city.

Andria,—acted in 587, is the first in point of time, and is usually accounted the first in merit, of the productions of Terence. Like most of his other comedies, it has a double plot. It is compounded of the Andrian and Perinthian of Menander; but it does not appear, that Terence took his principal plot from one of those Greek plays, and the under-plot from the other. He employed both to form his chief fable; and added the characters, on which the under plot is founded, from his own invention, or from some third play now unknown to us.

At the commencement of the play, Simo, the father of Pamphilus, informs Sosia of his son’s love for Glycerium. In consequence of a report of this attachment spreading abroad, Chremes refuses his daughter, who had previously been promised to Pamphilus in marriage: Simo, however, still pretends to make preparations for the nuptials, in order more accurately to ascertain the state of his son’s affections. Charinus, the lover of Chremes’ daughter, is in despair at the prospect of this union; but he is comforted by the assurances of Pamphilus, that he would do every thing in his power to retard it. By this time, Davus, the slave of Pamphilus, discovers, that it is not intended his master’s marriage should in reality proceed; and, perceiving it is a pretext, he advises Pamphilus to declare that he is ready to obey his father’s commands. Glycerium, meanwhile, gives birth to a child; but Simo believes, that her reported delivery was a stratagem of Davus, to deter Chremes from acceding to his daughter’s marriage with Pamphilus. Simo, however, at length prevails on him to give his consent. Pamphilus is thus placed in a most perplexing dilemma with all parties. His mistress, Glycerium, and her attendants, believe him to be false; while Charinus thinks that he had deceived him; and, as he had given his consent to the marriage, he can form no excuse to his father or Chremes for not concluding it. Hence his rage [pg 177]against Davus, and new stratagems on the part of the slave to prevent the nuptials. He contrives that Chremes should overhear a conversation between him and Mysis, Glycerium’s attendant, concerning the child which her mistress bore to Pamphilus, and Chremes in consequence instantly breaks off from his engagement. In this situation, Crito arrives to claim heirship to Chrysis, the reputed sister of Glycerium. He discloses, that Glycerium having been shipwrecked in infancy, had been preserved by his kinsman, the father of Chrysis; and, from his detail, it is discovered, that she is the daughter of Chremes. There is thus no farther obstacle to her marriage with Pamphilus; and the other daughter of Chremes is of course united to Charinus.

The long narrative with which the Andria, like several other plays of Terence, commences, and which is a component part of the drama itself, is beautiful in point of style, and does not fail to excite our interest concerning the characters. We perceive the compassion and even admiration of Simo for Glycerium, and we feel that, if convinced of her respectable birth and character, he would have preferred her to all others, even to the daughter of Chremes. Glycerium, indeed, does not appear on the stage; but her actual appearance could scarcely have added to the interest which her hapless situation inspires. Simo is the model of an excellent father. He is not so easily duped by his slaves as most of the old men in Plautus; and his temper does not degenerate, like that of many other characters in the plays of Terence, either into excessive harshness, or criminal indulgence. His observations are strikingly just, and are the natural language of age and experience. Chremes, the other old man, does not divide our interest with Simo; yet we see just enough of his good disposition, to make us sympathize with his happiness in the discovery of a daughter. Pamphilus is rendered interesting by his tenderness for Glycerium, and respect for his father. Davus supports the character of a shrewd, cunning, penetrating slave; he is wholly devoted to the interests of Pamphilus, but is often comically deterred from executing his stratagems by dread of the lash of his old master. The part of Crito, too, is happily imagined: His apprehension lest he be suspected of seeking an inheritance to which he has no just title, and his awkward feelings on coming to claim the wealth of a kinswoman of suspicious character, are artfully unfolded. Even the gossip and absurd flattery of the midwife, Lesbia, is excellent. The poet has also shewn considerable address in portraying the character of Chrysis, who was supposed to be the sister of Glycerium, but had died [pg 178]previous to the commencement of the action. In the first scene, he represents her as having for a long while virtuously struggled with adverse fortune, and having finally been precipitated into vice rather by pressure of poverty than depravity of will; and afterwards, in the pathetic account which Pamphilus gives of his last conference with her, we insensibly receive a pleasing impression of her character, and forget her errors for the sake of her amiable qualities. All this was necessary, in order to prevent our forming a disadvantageous idea of Glycerium, who had resided with Chrysis, but was afterwards to become the wife of Pamphilus, and to be acknowledged as the daughter of Chremes.

This play has been imitated in the Andrienne of Baron, the celebrated French actor. The Latin names are preserved in the dramatis personæ, and the first, second, and fifth acts, have been nearly translated from Terence. In the fourth, however, instead of the marriage being interrupted by Davus’s stratagem, Glycerium, hearing a report of the falsehood of her lover, rushes on the stage, throws herself at the feet of Chremes, and prevails on him to break off the intended match between his daughter and Pamphilus. But, though the incidents are nearly the same, the dialogue is ill written, and is very remote from the graceful ease and simplicity of Terence.

Steele’s Conscious Lovers is the best imitation of the Andria. The English play, it will be remembered, commences in a similar manner with the Latin comedy, by Sir John Bevil relating to an old servant, that he had discovered the love of his son for Indiana, an unknown and stranger girl, by his behaviour at a masquerade. The report of this attachment nearly breaks off an intended marriage between young Bevil and Lucinda, Sealand’s daughter. Young Bevil relieves the mind of Myrtle, the lover of Lucinda, by assuring him that he is utterly averse to the match. Still, however, he pretends to his father, that he is ready to comply with his wishes; and, meanwhile, writes to Lucinda, requesting that she would refuse the offer of his hand. Myrtle, hearing of this correspondence having taken place, without knowing its import, is so fired with jealousy that he sends Bevil a challenge. Sealand, being still pressed by Sir John to bestow his daughter in marriage, waits on Indiana, in order to discover the precise nature of her relations with Bevil. She details to him her story; and, on his alluding to the probability of the projected nuptials being soon concluded, she tears off, in a transport of passion, a bracelet, by which Sealand discovers, that she is a daughter whom he had lost, and who, while [pg 179]proceeding to join him in the East Indies, had been carried into a French harbour, where she first met with young Bevil.

An English translator of Terence remarks, “That Steele has unfolded his plot with more art than his predecessor, but is greatly his inferior in delineation of character. Simo is the most finished character in the Latin piece, but Sir John Bevil, who corresponds to him, is quite insignificant. Young Bevil is the most laboured character in the Conscious Lovers, but he is inferior to Pamphilus. His deceit is better managed by Terence than Steele. Bevil’s supposed consent to marry is followed by no consequence; and his honest dissimulation, as he calls it, is less reconcilable to the philosophic turn of his character, than to the natural sensibility of Pamphilus. Besides, the conduct of the latter is palliated, by being driven to it by the artful instigations of Davus, who executes the lower part of the stratagems, whereas Bevil is left entirely to his own resources.” Bevil, indeed, in spite of his refinement and formality, his admiration of the moral writers, and, “the charming vision of Mirza consulted in a morning,” is a good deal of a Plato-Scapin. Indiana, who corresponds to Glycerium, is introduced with more effect than the ladies in the French plays imitated from Terence. Her tearing off her ornaments, however, in a fit of despair, at the conclusion, is too violent. It is inconsistent with the rest of her character; and we feel that she would not have done so, had not the author found that the bracelet was necessary for her recognition as the daughter of Sealand. The under plot is perhaps better managed in the English than in the Latin play. Myrtle sustains a part more essential to the principal fable than Charinus; and his character is better discriminated from that of Bevil than those of the two lovers in the Andria. The part of Cimberton, the other lover of Lucinda, favoured by Mrs Sealand, is of Steele’s own contrivance; and of course, also, the stratagem devised by Bevil, in which Myrtle and Tom pretend to be lawyers, and Myrtle afterwards personates Sir Geoffry Cimberton, the uncle of his rival.

The Andria has also suggested those scenes of Moore’s Foundling, which relate to the love of young Belmont, and the recognition of Fidelia as the daughter of Sir Charles Raymond.

Eunuchus.—Though, in modern times, the Andria has been the most admired play of Terence, in Rome the Eunuchus was by much the most popular of all his performances, and he received for it 8000 sesterces, the greatest reward which poet had ever yet obtained[302]. In the Andria, indeed, [pg 180]there is much grace and delicacy, and some tenderness; but the Eunuchus is so full of vivacity and fire, as almost to redeem its author from the well-known censure of Cæsar, that there was no vis comica in his dramas.

The chief part of the Eunuchus is taken from a play of the same title by Menander; but the characters of the parasite and captain have been transferred into it from another play of Menander, called Kolax. There was an old play, too, by Nævius, founded on the Kolax; but Terence, in his prologue, denies having been indebted to this performance.

The scenes of the Eunuchus are so arranged, that the main plot is introduced by that which is secondary, and which at first has the appearance of being the principal one. Phædria is brought on the stage venting his indignation at being excluded from the house of the courtezan Thais, for the sake of Thraso, who is the sole braggart captain exhibited in the plays of our author. Thais, however, succeeds in persuading Phædria that she would admit Thraso only for two days, in order to obtain from him the gift of a damsel who had originally belonged to the mother of Thais, but after her death had been sold to the captain. Phædria, vying in gifts with Thraso, presents his mistress with an Ethiopian eunuch. The younger brother of Phædria, who is called Chærea, having accidentally seen the maid presented to Thais by Thraso, falls in love with her, and, by a stratagem of his father’s slave Parmeno, he is introduced as the eunuch to the house of Thais, where he does not in all respects consistently support the character he had assumed. After Chærea had gone off, his adventure was discovered; and Pythias, the waiting maid of Thais, in revenge for Parmeno’s fraud, tells him that Chærea, having been detected, was about to be made precisely what he had pretended to be. Parmeno, believing this report, informs the father of Chærea, who instantly rushes into the house of Thais, (to which, by this time, his son had ventured to return,) and being there relieved from his sudden apprehension, he consents the more readily to the marriage of Chærea with the girl whom he had deluded, and who is now discovered to be an Athenian citizen, and the sister of Chremes. In this paroxysm of good humour, he also agrees that Phædria should retain Thais as his mistress. Thraso and his parasite, Gnatho, having been foiled in an attack on the house of Thais, enter into terms, and, at the persuasion of Gnatho, Thraso is admitted into the society of Phædria, and is allowed to share with him the favours of Thais.

There are thus, strictly speaking, three plots in the Eunu[pg 181]chus, but they are blended with inimitable art. The quarrel and reconciliation of Thais and Phædria promote the marriage of Chærea with Pamphila, the girl presented by Thraso to Thais. This gift again produces the dispute between Phædria and Thais, and gives room for the imposture of Chærea. It is unfortunate that the regard in which the ancient dramatists held the unity of place, interposed between the spectators and the representation of what would have been highly comical—the father discovering his son in the eunuch’s habit in the house of Thais, the account of which has been thrown into narrative. At the conclusion Thraso is permitted, with consent of Phædria, to share the good graces of Thais; but, as has been remarked by La Harpe[303] and Colman[304], and as indeed must be felt by every one who reads the play, this termination is scarcely consistent with the manners of gentlemen, and it implies the utmost meanness in Phædria to admit him into his society, or to allow him a share in the favours of his mistress, merely that he may defray part of the expense of her establishment.

The drama, however, is full of vivacity and intrigue. Through the whole piece the author amuses us with his pleasantries, and in no scene discovers that his fund of entertainment is exhausted. Most of the characters, too, are happily sketched. Under Thais, Menander is supposed to have given a representation of his own mistress Glycerium. On the general nature of the parts of the parasite and braggart captain, something has been said while treating of the dramas of Plautus; but Terence has greatly refined and improved on these favourite characters of his predecessor. Gnatho is master of a much more delicate and artful mode of adulation than former flatterers, and supports his consequence with his patron, at the same time that he laughs at him and lives on him. He boasts, in the second scene of the second act, that he is the founder of a new class of parasites, who ingratiated themselves with men of fortune and shallow understandings, solely by humouring their fancies and admiring what they said, instead of earning a livelihood by submitting to blows, the ridicule of the company, and all manner of indignities, like the antiquated race of parasites whom Plautus describes as beaten, kicked, and abused at pleasure:—

“Et hîc quidem, hercle, nisi qui colaphos perpeti

Potis parasitus, frangique aulas in caput,

Vel ire extra portam trigeminam ad saccum libet.”

The new parasite, of whom Gnatho may be considered as the representative, had been delineated in the characters of Theophrastus, and has more resemblance to Shakspeare’s Osrick, or to the class of parasites described by Juvenal as infesting the families of the Great in the latter ages of Rome[305]. Thraso, the braggart captain, in the Eunuchus, is ridiculous enough to supply the audience with mirth, without indulging in the extravagant bluster of Pyrgopolinices. A scene in the fourth act gives the most lively representation of the conceit and ridiculous vanity of this soldier, who, calling together a few slaves, pretends to marshal and draw them up as if they formed a numerous army, and assumes all the airs of a general. This part is so contrived, that nothing could have more happily tended to make him appear ridiculous though he says nothing extravagant, or beyond what might naturally be expected from the mouth of a coxcomb. One new feature in Thraso’s character is his fondness for repeating his jests, and passion for being admired as a wit no less than a warrior. There is, perhaps, nowhere to be found a truer picture of the fond and froward passion of love, than that which is given us in the character of Phædria. Horace and Persius, when they purposely set themselves to expose and exaggerate its follies, could imagine nothing beyond it. The former, indeed, in the third satire of his second book, where he has given a picture of the irresolution of lovers, has copied part of the dialogue introduced near the commencement of the Eunuchus.

The love, however, both of Phædria and Chærea is more that of temperament than sentiment: Of consequence, the Eunuchus is inferior to the Andria in delicacy and tenderness; but there are not wanting passages which excel in these higher qualities. Addison has remarked[306], that Phædria’s request to his mistress, on leaving her for a few days, is inimitably beautiful and natural—

“Egone quid velim?

Cum Milite isto præsens, absens ut sies;

Dies noctesque me ames: me desideres:

Me somnies: me expectes: de me cogites:

Me speres: me te oblectes: mecum tota sis:

Meus fac sis postremo animus, quando ego sum tuus.”

This demand was rather exorbitant, and Thais had some reason to reply—Me miseram!

There is an Italian imitation of the Eunuchus in La Talanta, a comedy by Aretine, in which the courtezan who gives [pg 183]the name to the play corresponds with Thais, and her lover Orfinio to Phædria,—the characteristic dispositions of both the originals being closely followed in the copy. A youth, from his disguise supposed to be a girl, is presented to La Talanta by Tinca, the Thraso of the piece, who, being exasperated at the treatment he had received from the courtezan, meditates, like Thraso, a military attack on her dwelling-house; and, though easily repulsed, he is permitted at the conclusion, in respect of his wealth and bounty, to continue to share with Orfinio the favours of La Talanta.

There is more lubricity in the Eunuchus of Terence, than in any of his other performances; and hence, perhaps, it has been selected by Fontaine as the most suitable drama for his imitation. His Eunuque, as he very justly remarks in his advertisement prefixed, “n’est qu’une mediocre copie d’un excellent original.” Fontaine, instead of adapting the incidents to Parisian manners, like Moliere and Regnard, in their delightful imitations of Plautus, has retained the ancient names, and scene of action. The earlier part is a mere translation from the Latin, except that the character of Thais is softened down from a courtezan to a coquette. The next deviation from the original is the omission of the recital by Chærea, of the success of his audacious enterprize—instead of which, Fontaine has introduced his Chærea professing honourable and respectful love to Pamphile. In the unravelling of the dramatic plot, the French author has departed widely from Terence. There is nothing of the alarm concerning Chærea given by Thais’ maid to Parmeno, and by him communicated to the father: The old man merely solicits Parmeno to prevail on his sons to marry:—

“Il se veut desormais tenir clos et couvert,

Caresser, les pieds chauds, quelque Bru qui lui plaise,

Conter son jeune temps, et banqueter a son aise.”

This wish is doubly accomplished, by the discovery that Pamphile is of reputable birth, and by Phædria’s reconciliation with Thais. While making such changes on the conclusion, and accommodating it in some measure to the feelings of the age, I am surprised that the French author retained that part of the compact with Thraso, by which he is to remain in the society of Phædria merely to be fleeced and ridiculed.

The Eunuchus is also the origin of Le Muet by Bruyes and Palaprat, who laboured in conjunction, like our Beaumont and Fletcher, and who have made such alterations on the Latin drama as they thought advisable in their age and country. In this play, which was first acted in 1691, a young man, who [pg 184]feigns to be dumb, is introduced as a page in a house where his mistress resided. But although an Ethiopian eunuch, which was an article of state among the ancients, may have attracted the fancy of Thais, it is not probable that the French countess should have been so desirous to receive a present of a dumb page. Those scenes in which the credulous father is made to believe that his son had lost the power of speech, from the effects of love and sorcery, and is persuaded, by a valet disguised as a doctor, that the only remedy for his dumbness is an immediate union with the object of his passion, are improbable and overcharged. The character of the parasite is omitted, and instead of Thraso we have a rough blunt sea captain, who had protected Zayde when lost by her parents.

The only English imitation of the Eunuchus is Bellamira, or the Mistress, an unsuccessful comedy by Sir Charles Sedley, first printed in 1687. In this play the scene lies in London, but there is otherwise hardly any variation in the incidents; and there is no novelty introduced, except Bellamira and Merryman’s plot of robbing Dangerfield, the braggart captain of the piece, an incident evidently borrowed from Shakspeare’s Henry IV.

Heautontimorumenos. The chief plot of this play, which I think on the whole the least happy effort of Terence’s imitation, and which, of all his plays, is the most foreign from our manners, is taken, like the last-mentioned drama, from Menander. It derives its Greek appellation from the voluntary punishment inflicted on himself by a father, who, having driven his son into banishment by excess of severity, avenges him, by retiring to the country, where he partakes only of the hardest fare, and labours the ground with his own hands. The deep parental distress, however, of Menedemus, with which the play opens, forms but an inconsiderable part of it, as the son, Clinia, returns in the second act, and other incidents of a comic cast are then interwoven with the drama. The plan of Clitopho’s mistress being brought to the house both of Menedemus and his neighbour Chremes, in the character of Clinia’s mistress, has given rise to some amusing situations: but the devices adopted by the slave Syrus, to deceive and cheat the two old men, are too intricate, and much less ingenious than those of a similar description in most other Latin plays. One of his artifices, however, in order to melt the heart of Chremes, by persuading him that Clitopho thinks he is not his son, has been much applauded; particularly the preparation for this stratagem, where, wisely concluding that one would best contribute to the imposition who was himself de[pg 185]ceived, he, in the first place, makes Clitopho believe that he is not the son of his reputed father.

Terence himself, in his prologue, has called this play double, probably in allusion to the two plots which it contains. Julius Scaliger absurdly supposes that it was so termed because one half of the play was represented in the evening, and the other half on the following morning[307]. It has been more plausibly conjectured, that the original plot of the Greek play was simple, consisting merely of the character of the Self-tormentor Menedemus, the love of his son Clinia for Antiphila, and the discovery of the real condition of his mistress; but that Terence had added to this single fable, either from his own invention, or from some other Greek play, the passion of Clitopho for Bacchis, and the devices of the slave in order to extract money from old Chremes[308]. These two fables are connected by the poet with much art, and form a double intrigue, instead of the simple argument of the Greek original.

Diderot has objected strongly to the principal subject which gives name to this play, and to the character of the self-tormenting father. Tragedy, he says, represents individual characters, like those of Regulus, Orestes, and Cato; but the chief characters in comedy should represent a class or species, and if they only resemble individuals, the comic drama would revert to what it was in its infancy.—“Mais on peut dire,” continues he, “que ce pere là n’est pas dans la nature. Une grande ville fourniroit a peine dans un siecle l’example d’une affliction aussi bizarre.” It is observed in the Spectator[309], on the other hand, that though there is not in the whole drama one passage that could raise a laugh, it is from beginning to end the most perfect picture of human life that ever was exhibited.

There has been a great contest, particularly among the French critics, whether the unities of time and place be preserved in Heautontimorumenos. In the year 1640, Menage had a conversational dispute, on this subject, with the Abbé D’Aubignac, with whom he at that period lived on terms of the most intimate friendship. The latter, who contended for the strictest interpretation of the unities, first put his arguments in writing, but without his name, in his “Discours sur la troisieme comedie de Terence; contre ceux qui pensent qu’elle n’est pas dans les regles anciennes du poeme dramatique.” Menage answered him in his “Reponse au discours,” &c.; and, in 1650, he published both in his Miscellanea, [pg 186]without leave of the author of the Discours. This, and some disrespectful expressions employed in the Reponse, gave mortal offence to the Abbé, who, in 1655, wrote a reply to the answer, entitled “Terence Justifié, &c. contre les Erreurs de Maistre Gilles Menage, Avocat en Parlement.” This designation of Maistre, proved intolerable to the feelings of Menage. Hearing that the tract was full of injurious expressions, he declared publicly and solemnly, that he never would read it; but being afterwards urged to peruse it by some good-natured friends, he consulted the casuists of the Sorbonne, and the College of Jesuits, on the point of conscience; and having at last read it with their approval, he wrote a full reply, which was not published till after the death of his opponent.

In these various tracts, it was maintained by the Abbé, that unity of time was most strictly preserved in the Heautontimorumenos, as a less period than twelve hours was supposed to pass during the representation, the longest space to which, by the rules of the drama, it could be legitimately prolonged. Of course he adduces arguments and citations, tending to restrict, as far as possible, the period of the dramatic action. In the third scene of the second act, it is said vesperascit, and in the first scene of the third act, Luciscit hoc jam. Now the Abbé, giving to the term vesperascit the signification, “It is already night,” was of opinion, that the action commenced as late as seven or eight in the evening, when Menedemus returned to Athens from his farm; that the scene of the drama is supposed to pass during the Pithœgia, or festivals of Bacchus, held in April, at which season not more than nine hours intervened between twilight and dawn; that the festival continued the whole night, and that none of the characters went to bed, so that the continuity of action was no more broken than the unity of time. Menage, on the other hand, contended that at least fifteen hours must be granted to the dramatic action, but that this extension implied no violation of the dramatic unities, which, according to the precepts of Aristotle, would not have been broken, even if twenty-four hours had been allotted. He successfully shews, however, that fifteen hours, at least, must be allowed. According to him, the play opens early in the evening, while Menedemus is yet labouring in his field. The festivals were in February; and he proves, from a minute examination, that the incidents which follow after it is declared that luciscit, must have occupied fully three hours. Some of the characters, he thinks, retired to rest, but no void was thereby left in the action, as the two lovers, Bacchis, and the slaves, sat [pg 187]up arranging their amorous stratagems. Madame Dacier adopted the opinion of Aubignac, which she fortified by reference to a wood engraving in a very ancient MS. in the Royal Library, which represents Menedemus as having quitted his work in the fields, and as bearing away his implements of husbandry.

The poet being perhaps aware that the action of this comedy was exceptionable, and that the dramatic unities were not preserved in the most rigid sense of the term, has apparently exerted himself to compensate for these deficiencies by the introduction of many beautiful moral maxims: and by that purity of style, which distinguishes all his productions, but which shines, perhaps, most brightly in the Heautontimorumenos.

That part of the plot of this comedy, where Clitopho’s mistress is introduced as Clinia’s mistress, into the house of both the old men, has given rise to Chapman’s comedy, All Fooles, which was first printed in 1605, 4to., and was a favourite production in its day. In this play, by the contrivance of Rynaldo, the younger son of Marc Antonio, a lady called Gratiana, privately married to his elder brother Fortunio, is introduced, and allowed to remain for some time at the house of their father, by persuading him that she is the wife of Valerio, the son of one of his neighbours, who had married her against his parent’s inclination, and that it would be an act of kindness to give her shelter, till a reconciliation could be effected. By this means Fortunio enjoys the society of his bride, and Valerio, her pretended husband, has, at the same time, an admirable opportunity of continuing his courtship of Bellonora, the daughter of Marc Antonio.

Adelphi.—The principal subject of this drama is usually supposed to have been taken from Menander’s Adelphoi; but it appears that Alexis, the uncle of Menander, also wrote a comedy, entitled Adelphoi; so that perhaps the elegant Latin copy may have been as much indebted to the uncle’s as to the nephew’s performance, for the delicacy of its characters and the charms of its dialogue. We are informed, however, in the prologue, that the part of the drama in which the music girl is carried off from the pander, has been taken from the Synapothnescontes of Diphilus. That comedy, though the version is now lost, had been translated by Plautus, under the title of Commorientes. He had left out the incidents, however, concerning the music girl, and Terence availed himself of this omission to interweave them with the principal plot of his delightful drama—“Minus existimans laudis proprias scribere quam Græcas transferre.”

The title, which is supposed to be imperfect, is derived from two brothers, on whose contrasted characters the chief subject and amusement of the piece depend. Demea, the elder, who lived in the country, had past his days in thrift and labour, and was remarkable for his severe penurious disposition. Micio, the younger brother, was, on the contrary, distinguished by his indulgent and generous temper. Being a bachelor, he had adopted Æschinus, his brother’s eldest son, whom he brought up without laying much restraint on his conduct. Ctesipho, the other son of Demea, was educated with great strictness by his father, who boasted of the regular and moral behaviour of this child, which, as he thought, was so strongly contrasted with the excesses of him who had been reared under the charge of his brother. Æschinus at length carries off a music girl from the slave-merchant, in whose possession she was. Hence fresh indignation on the part of Demea, and new self-congratulation on the system of education he had pursued with Ctesipho: Hence, too, the deepest distress on the part of an unfortunate girl, to whom Æschinus had promised marriage; and also of her relations, at this proof of his alienated affections. At last, however, it is discovered that Æschinus had run off with the music girl, for the sake, and at the instigation, of his brother Ctesipho. The play accordingly concludes with the union of Æschinus and the girl to whom he was betrothed, and the total change of disposition on the part of Demea, who now becomes so complete a convert to the system of Micio, that he allows his son to retain the music girl as his mistress.

The plot of the Adelphi may thus be perhaps considered as double; but the interest which Æschinus takes in Ctesipho’s amour, combines their loves so naturally, that they can hardly be considered as distinct or separate; and the details by which the plot is carried on, are managed with such infinite skill, that the intrigue of at least four acts of the Adelphi is more artfully conducted than that of any other piece of Terence. At the commencement of the play, Micio summons his servant Storax, whom he had sent to find out Æschinus; but as the servant does not appear, Micio concludes that the youth had not yet returned from the place where he had supped on the preceding evening, and is in consequence overwhelmed with all the tender anxiety of a father concerning an absent son. This alarm gives us some insight into the character of the young man, and explains the interest Micio takes in his welfare, without shewing too plainly the art and design of the author. His uneasiness, by naturally leading him to reflect on the situation of the family, and the doubtful part he had him[pg 189]self acted, brings in less awkwardly than usual one of those long soliloquies, in which the domestic affairs of the speaker are explained by him for the sake of the audience. Demea is then introduced, having just learned, on his arrival in the city, that Æschinus had carried off the music girl. His character and predominant feelings are finely marked in the account which he gives of this outrage, dwelling on every minute particular, and exaggerating the offences of Æschinus. This passage, too, acquires additional zest and relish, on a second perusal of the play, when it is known that the son so much commended is chiefly in fault. The grief of the mother of the girl, who was betrothed to Æschinus, and the honest indignation of her faithful old servant Geta, are highly interesting. The interview of Micio with his adopted son, after he had discovered the circumstances of this connection, is eminently beautiful. His delicate reproof for the young man’s want of confidence, in not communicating to him the state of his heart—the touches of good humour, mildness, and affection, which may be traced in every line of Micio’s part of the dialogue, as well as the natural bursts of passion, and ingenuous shame, in Æschinus, are perhaps more characteristic of the tender and elegant genius of Terence, than any other scene in his dramas. But the triumph of comic art, is the gradation of Demea’s anger and distresses—his perfect conviction of the sobriety of his son, who, he is persuaded by Syrus, had shewn the utmost indignation at the conduct of Æschinus, and had gone to the country in disgust, when in fact he was at that moment seated at a feast—then his perplexity on not finding him at the farm, and his learning that Æschinus, having violated a free citizen, was about to be married to her, though she had no portion. Even his meeting Syrus intoxicated augments his rage, at the general libertinism and extravagance of the family. At length the climax of events is finally completed, by discovering that the music girl had been carried off for the sake of his favourite son, and by finding him at a carousal with his brother’s dissolute family.

With this incident the fable naturally concludes, and it is perhaps to be regretted that Terence had not also ended the drama with the third scene of the fifth act, where Demea breaks in upon the entertainment. The conversion of Demea, indeed, with which the remaining scenes are occupied, grows out of the preceding events. He had met, during the course of the play, with many mortifications—his anger, complaints, and advice, had been all neglected and slighted—he had seen his brother loved and followed, and found himself shunned; but such a change in long-confirmed habits could [pg 190]hardly have been effected in so short a period, or by a single lesson, however striking and important. His complaisance, too, is awkward, and his generosity is evidently about to run into profusion.

But if all this be an impropriety, what shall we say of the gross absurdity of Micio, a bachelor of sixty-five, marrying an old woman, the mother of Æschinus’ bride, (and whom he had never seen but once,) merely out of complaisance to his friends, who seemed to have no motive in making the request, except that she was quite solitary, had nobody to care for her, and was long past child-bearing—

—— “Parere jam diu hæc per annos non potest:

Nec, qui eam respiciat, quisquam est; sola est.”

Micio had all along been represented as possessed of so much judgment, good sense, and knowledge of the world, that this last piece of extravagance destroys the interest we had previously felt in the character. Donatus, who has given us some curious information in his excellent commentary on Terence, with regard to the manner in which he had altered his comedies from the original Greek, says, that in the play of Menander, the old Bachelor has no reluctance at entering into a state of matrimony.—“Apud Menandrum, Senex de nuptiis non gravatur.” The English translator of Terence thinks, that the Latin poet, by making Micio at first express a repugnance to the proposed match, has improved on his model; but it appears to me, that this only makes his unbounded complaisance more improbable and ridiculous. Indeed the incongruity and inconsistence of the concluding scenes of the Adelphi, have been considered so great, that a late German translator of Terence has supposed that they did not form a component part of the regular comedy, but were in fact the Exodium, a sort of afterpiece, in which the characters of the preceding play were usually represented in grotesque situations, and with overcharged colours[310].

So much for the plot of the Adelphi, and the incidents by which the conclusion is brought about. With regard to the characters of the piece, Æschinus is an excellent delineation of the elegant ease and indifference of a fine gentleman. In one scene, however, he is represented as a lover, full of tenderness, and keenly alive to all the anxieties, fears, and emotions of the passion by which he is affected. In the parts of Demea and Micio, the author has violated the precept of Horace with regard to a dramatic character:

—— “Servetur ad imum

Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.”

During four acts, however, the churlishness of Demea is well contrasted with the mildness of Micio, whose fondness and partiality for his adopted son are extremely pleasing. “One great theatrical resource,” says Gibbon, “is the opposition and contrast of characters which thus display each other. The severity of Demea, and easiness of Micio, throw mutual light; and we could not be so well acquainted with the misanthropy of Alceste, were it not for the fashionable complaisant character of Philinte[311].” Accordingly, in the modern drama, we often find, that if one of the lovers be a gay companion, the other is grave and serious; like Frankly and Bellamy, in the Suspicious Husband, or Absolute and Faulkland in the Rivals. Yet in the Adelphi, the contrast, perhaps, is too direct, and too constantly obtruded on the attention of the audience. It has the appearance of what is called antithesis in writing, and, in the conduct of the drama, has the same effect as that figure in composition. Diderot, in his Essay on Dramatic Poetry, also objects to these two contrasted characters, that, being drawn with equal force, the moral intention of the drama is rendered equivocal; and that we have something of the same feeling which every one has experienced while reading the Misanthrope of Moliere, in which we can never tell whether Alceste or Philinte is most in the right, or, more properly speaking, farthest in the wrong.—“On diroit,” continues he, “au commencement du cinquieme acte des Adelphes, que l’auteur, embarassé du contraste qu’il avoit etabli, a été contraint d’abandonner son but et de renverser l’interet de sa piece. Mais qu’est il arrivé: c’est qu’on ne scait plus a qui s’interesser; et qu’apres avoit eté pour Micion contre Demea, on finit sans savoir pour qui l’on est. On desireroit presque un troisieme pere qui tint le milieu entre ces deux personnages, et qui en fit connoitre le vice.”

It is not unlikely, however, that this sort of uncertainty was just the intention of Terence, or rather of Menander. It was probably their design to show the disadvantages resulting from each mode of education pursued, and hence, by an easy inference, to point out the golden mean which ought to be preserved by fathers; for, if Demea be unreasonably severe, the indulgence of Micio is excessive, and his connivance at the disorders of Ctesipho, which he even assisted him to support, is as reprehensible, as the extraordinary sentiment which he utters at the commencement of the comedy:—

“Non est flagitium, mihi crede, adolescentulum

Scortari, neque potare; non est: neque fores effringere.”

This, though the breaking doors was an ordinary piece of gallantry, is, it must be confessed, rather loose morality. But some of the sentiments in the drama are equally remarkable for their propriety, and the knowledge they discover of the feelings and circumstances of mankind; as,

“Omnes, quibus res sunt minus secundæ, magis sunt, nescio quomodo,

Suspiciosi: ad contumeliam omnia accipiunt magis;

Propter suam impotentiam se semper credunt negligi.”

And afterwards,—

“Ita vita ’st hominum, quasi, quum ludas tesseris;

Si illud, quod maxime opus est jactu, non cadit,

Illud, quod cecidit forte, id arte ut corrigas.

* * * * *

Nunquam ita quisquam bene subducta ratione ad vitam fuit,

Quin res, ætas, usus, semper aliquid adportet novi,

Aliquid moneat, ut illa, quæ te scire credas, nescias;

Et quæ tibi putâris prima, in experiundo repudies.”

A play possessing so many excellencies as the Adelphi, could scarcely fail to be frequently imitated by modern dramatists. It has generally been said, that Moliere borrowed from the Adelphi his comedy L’Ecole des Maris, where the brothers Sganarelle and Ariste, persons of very opposite dispositions, bring up two young ladies intrusted to their care on different systems; the one allowing a proper liberty—the other, who wished to marry his ward, employing a constant restraint, which, however, did not prevent her from contriving to elope with a favoured lover. The chief resemblance consists in the characters of the two guardians—in some of the discussions, which they hold together on their opposite systems of management—and some observations in soliloquy on each other’s folly. Thus, for example, Demea, the severe brother in Terence, exclaims:

—— “O Jupiter,

Hanccine vitam! hoscine mores! hanc dementiam!

Uxor sine dote veniet: intus Psaltria est:

Domus sumptuosa: adolescens luxu perditus:

Senex delirans. Ipsa, si cupiat, Salus,

Servare prorsus non potest hanc familiam[312].”

In like manner, Sganarelle, the corresponding character in Moliere:—

“Quelle belle famille! un vieillard insensé!

Une fille maitresse et coquette suprême!

Des valets impudents! Non, la Sagesse même

N’en viendroit pas à bout, perdroit sens et raison,

A vouloir corriger une telle maison[313].”

Indeed, were it not for the minute resemblance of particular passages, I would think it as likely, that Moliere had been indebted for the leading idea of his comedy to the second tale of the eighth night of Straparola, an Italian novelist of the sixteenth century, from whom he unquestionably borrowed the plot of his admirable comedy, L’Ecole des Femmes. The principal amusement, however, in the Ecole des Maris, which consists of Isabelle complaining to her guardian, Sganarelle, of her lover, Valere, has been suggested by the third novel, in the third day of Boccaccio’s Decameron.

A much closer imitation of the Adelphi than the Ecole des Maris of Moliere may be found in the Ecole des Peres, by Baron, author of the Andrienne. The genius of this celebrated actor seems to have been constrained by copying from Terence, which has deprived his drama of all air of originality, while, at the same time, his alterations are such as to render it but an imperfect image of the Adelphi. It were, therefore, to be wished, that he had adhered more closely to the Roman poet, or, like Moliere, deviated from him still farther. His exhibition of Clarice and Pamphile, the mistresses of the two young men, on the stage, has no better effect than the introduction of Glycerium in his Andrienne. The characters of Telamon and Alcée are so altered, as to preserve neither the strength nor delicacy of those of Micio and Demea; while the change of disposition, which the severe father undergoes in the fifth act, has been neither rejected nor retained: He accedes to the proposals for his children’s happiness, but his complaisance is evidently forced and sarcastic; and he ultimately, in a fit of bad humour, breaks off all connection with his family:

“J’abandonne les Brus, les Enfans, et le Frere;

Je ne saurois deja les souffrir sans horreur,

Et je les donne tous au diable de bon cœur.”

Diderot had evidently his eye on the characters of Micio and Demea in drawing those of M. d’Orbesson and Le Commandeur, in his Comedie Larmoyante, entitled Le Pere de Famille. The scenes between the Pere de Famille and his son, St Albin, who had long secretly visited Sophie, an un[pg 194]known girl in indigent circumstances, seem formed on the beautiful dialogue, already mentioned, which passes between Micio and his adopted child.

The Adelphi is also the origin of Shadwell’s comedy, the Squire of Alsatia. Spence, in his Anecdotes[314], says, on the authority of Dennis the critic, that the story on which the Squire of Alsatia was built, was a true fact. That the whole plot is founded on fact, I think very improbable, as it coincides most closely with that of the Adelphi. Sir William and Sir Edward Belfond are the two brothers, while Belfond senior and junior correspond to Æschinus and Ctesipho. The chief alteration, and that to which Dennis probably alluded, is the importance of the part assigned to Belfond senior; who, having come to London, is beset and cozened by all sorts of bankrupts and cheats, inhabitants of Alsatia, (Whitefriars,) and by their stratagems is nearly inveigled into a marriage with Mrs Termagant, a woman of infamous character, and furious temper. The part of Belfond junior is much less agreeable than that of Æschinus. His treatment of Lucia evinces, in the conclusion, a hard-hearted infidelity, which we are little disposed to pardon, especially as we feel no interest in his new mistress, Isabella. On the whole, though the plots be nearly the same, the tone of feeling and sentiment are very different, and the English comedy is as remote from the Latin original, as the grossest vulgarity can be from the most simple and courtly elegance. The Squire of Alsatia, however, took exceedingly at first as an occasional play. It discovered the cant terms, that were before not generally known, except to cheats themselves; and was a good deal instrumental towards causing the great nest of villains in the metropolis to be regulated by public authority[315].

In Cumberland’s Choleric Man, the chief characters, though he seems to deny it in his dedicatory epistle to Detraction, have also been traced after those of the Adelphi. The love intrigues, indeed, are different; but the parts of the half-brothers, Manlove and Nightshade, (the choleric-man,) are evidently formed on those of Micio and Demea; while the contrasted education, yet similar conduct, of the two sons of Nightshade, one of whom had been adopted by Manlove, and the father’s rage on detecting his favourite son in an amorous intrigue, have been obviously suggested by the behaviour of Æschinus and Ctesipho.

The philanthropic speeches of Micio have been a constant [pg 195]resource both to the French dramatists and our own, and it would be endless to specify the various imitations of his sentiments. Those of Kno’well, in Ben Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour, have a particular resemblance to them. His speech, beginning—

“There is a way of winning more by love[316],”

is evidently formed on the celebrated passage in Terence,—

“Pudore et liberalitate liberos,” &c.

Hecyra—Several of Terence’s plays can hardly be accounted comedies, if by that term be understood, dramas which excite laughter. They are in what the French call the genre serieux, and are perhaps the origin of the comedie larmoyante. The events of human life, for the most part, are neither deeply distressing nor ridiculous; and, in a dramatic representation of such incidents, the action must advance by embarrassments and perplexities, which, though below tragic pathos, are not calculated to excite merriment. Diderot, who seems to have been a great student of the works of Terence, thinks the Hecyra, or Mother-in-law, should be classed among the serious dramas. It exhibits no buffoonery, or tricks of slaves, or ridiculous parasite, or extravagant braggart captain; but contains a beautiful and delightful picture of private life, and those distresses which ruffle “the smooth current of domestic joy.” It was taken from a play of Apollodorus; but, as Donatus informs us, was abridged from the Greek comedy,—many things having been represented in the original, which, in the imitation, are only related. In the Hecyra, a young man, called Pamphilus, had long refused to marry, on account of his attachment to the courtezan Bacchis. He is at length, however, constrained by his father to choose a wife, whose gentleness and modest behaviour soon wean his affections from his mistress. Pamphilus being obliged to leave home for some time, his wife, on pretence of a quarrel with her mother-in-law, quits his father’s house; and Pamphilus, on his return home, finds, that she had given birth to a child, of which he supposed that he could not have been the father. His wife’s mother begs him to conceal her disgrace, which he promises; and affecting extraordinary filial piety, assigns as his reason for not bringing her home, the capricious behaviour of which she had been guilty towards his mother. That lady, in con[pg 196]sequence, offers to retire to the country. Pamphilus is thus reduced to the utmost perplexity; and all plausible excuses for not receiving his wife having failed, his father suspects that he had renewed his intercourse with Bacchis. He, accordingly, sends for that courtezan, who denies the present existence of any correspondence with his son; and, being eager to clear the character as well as to secure the happiness of her former lover, she offers to confirm her testimony before the family of the wife of Pamphilus. During the interview which she in consequence obtains, that lady’s mother perceives on her hand a ring which had once belonged to her daughter, and which Bacchis now acknowledges to have received from Pamphilus, as one which he had taken from a girl whom he had violated, but had never seen. It is thus discovered by Pamphilus, that the lady to whom he had offered this injury before marriage was his own wife, and that he himself was father of the child to whom she had just given birth.

The fable of this play is more simple than that of Terence’s other performances, in all of which he had recourse to the expedient of double plots. This, perhaps, was partly the reason of its want of success on its first and second representations. When first brought forward, in the year 589, it was interrupted by the spectators leaving the theatre, attracted by the superior interest of a boxing-match, and rope-dancers. A combat of gladiators had the like unfortunate effect when it was attempted to be again exhibited, in 594. The celebrated actor, L. Ambivius, encouraged by the success which he had experienced in reviving the condemned plays of Cæcilius, ventured to produce it a third time on the stage[317], when it received a patient hearing, and was frequently repeated. Still, however, most of the old critics and commentators speak of it as greatly inferior to the other plays of Terence. Bishop Hurd, on the contrary, in his notes on Horace, maintains, that it is the only one of his comedies which is written in the true ancient Grecian style; and that, for the genuine beauty of dramatic design, as well as the nice coherence of the fable, it must appear to every reader of true taste, the most masterly and exquisite of the whole collection. Some scenes are doubtless very finely wrought up,—as that between Pamphilus and his mother, after he first suspects the disgrace of his wife, and that in which it is revealed to him by his wife’s mother. The passage in the second scene of the first act, containing the picture of an amiable wife, who has succeeded in effacing from the heart of her husband the love of a dissolute cour[pg 197]tezan, has been highly admired. But, notwithstanding these partial beauties, and the much-applauded simplicity of the plot, there is, I think, great want of skilful management in the conduct of the fable; and if the outline be beautiful, it certainly is not so well filled up as might have been expected from the taste of the author. In the commencement, he introduces the superfluous part of Philotis, (who has no concern in the plot, and never appears afterwards,) merely to listen to the narrative of the circumstances and situation of those who are principal persons in the drama. It is likewise somewhat singular, that Pamphilus, when told by the mother of the injury done to his wife, should not have remembered his own adventure, and thus been led to suspect the real circumstances. This communication, too, ought, as it probably did in the Greek original, to have formed a scene between Pamphilus and his wife’s mother; but, instead of this, Pamphilus is introduced relating to himself the whole discourse which had just passed between them. At length, the issue of the fable is disclosed by another long soliloquy from the courtezan. Indeed, all the plays of Terence abound in soliloquies very inartificially introduced; and there is none of them in which he has so much erred in this way as in the Hecyra. The wife of Pamphilus, too, the character calculated to give most interest, does not appear at all on the stage; and the whole play is consumed in contests between the mother-in-law and the two fathers. The characters of these old men,—the fathers of Pamphilus and his wife,—so far from being contrasted, as in the Adelphi, have scarcely a shade of difference. Both are covetous and passionate; very ready to vent their bad humour on their wives and children, and very ready to exculpate them when blamed by others. The uncommon and delicate situation in which Pamphilus is placed, exhibits him in an interesting and favourable point of view. He wishes to conceal what had occurred, yet is scarcely able to dissemble. Parmeno, the slave of Pamphilus, a lazy inquisitive character, is humorously kept, through the whole course of the play, in continual employment, and total ignorance. Sostrata’s mild character, and the excellent behaviour of Bacchis, show, that in this play, Terence had attempted an innovation, by introducing a good mother-in-law, and an honest courtezan, whose object was to acquire a reputation of not resembling those of her profession. It appears from the Letters of Alciphron and from Athenæus, that there actually was a Greek courtezan of the name of Bacchis, distinguished from others of her class, in the time of Menander, by disinterestedness, and comparative modesty of demeanour. This circumstance, added to the [pg 198]fact of Menander having written a play, entitled Glycerium, (which was the name of his mistress,) leads us to believe that the Greek comedies sometimes represented, not merely the general character of the courtezan, but individuals of that profession; and that probably the Bacchis of Apollodorus, and his imitator Terence, may have been the courtezan of this name, who rejected the splendid offers of the Persian Satrap, to remain the faithful mistress of the poor Meneclides[318].

Phormio—like the last mentioned play, was taken from the Greek of Apollodorus, who called it Epidicazomenos. Terence named it Phormio, from a parasite whose contrivances form the groundwork of the comedy, and who connects its double plot. In this play two brothers had gone abroad, each leaving a son at home, one of whom was called Antipho, and the other Phædria, under care of their servant Geta. Antipho having fallen in love with a woman apparently of mean condition, in order that he might marry her, yet at the same time possess a plausible excuse to his father for his conduct, persuades Phormio to assume the character of her patron. Phormio accordingly brings a suit against Antipho, as her nearest of kin, and he, having made no defence, is ordained in this capacity, according to an Athenian law, to marry the supposed orphan. About the same time, Phædria, the other youth, had become enamoured of a music girl; but he had no money with which to redeem her from the slave merchant. The old men, on their return home, are much disconcerted by the news of Antipho’s marriage, as it had been arranged between them that he should espouse his cousin. Phormio, at the suggestion of Geta, avails himself of this distress, in order to procure money for redeeming Phædria’s music girl. He consents to take Antipho’s wife home to himself, provided he gets a portion with her, which being procured, is immediately laid out in the purchase of Phædria’s mistress. After these plots are accomplished, it is discovered that Antipho’s wife is the daughter of his uncle, by a woman at Lemnos, with whom he had an amour before marriage, and that she had come to Athens during his absence in search of her father. This is found out at the end of the third act, but the play is injudiciously protracted, after the principal interest is exhausted, with the endeavours of the old men to recover the portion which had been given to Phormio, and the dread of Chremes lest the story of his intrigue at Lemnos should come to the knowledge of his wife. The play accordingly languishes after the discovery, notwithstanding all the author’s attempts to [pg 199]support the interest of the piece by the force of pleasantry and humour.

The double plot of this play has been said to be united, by both hingeing on the part of the parasite. But this is not a sufficient union either in tragedy or comedy. I cannot, therefore, agree with Colman, “that the construction of the fable is extremely artful,” or that “it contains a vivacity of intrigue perhaps even superior to that of the Eunuch, particularly in the catastrophe. The diction,” he continues, with more truth, “is pure and elegant, and the first act as chastely written as that of the Self-Tormentor itself. The character of Phormio is finely separated from that of Gnatho, and is better drawn than the part of any parasite in Plautus. Nausistrata is a lively sketch of a shrewish wife, as well as Chremes an excellent draught of a hen-pecked husband, and more in the style of the modern drama than perhaps any character in ancient comedy, except the miser of Plautus. There are also some particular scenes and passages deserving of all commendation, as the description of natural and simple beauty in the person of Fannia, and that in which Geta and Phædria try to inspire some courage into Antipho, overwhelmed by the sudden arrival of his father[319].”

It is curious that this play, which Donatus says is founded on passions almost too high for comedy, should have given rise to the most farcical of all Moliere’s productions, Les Fourberies de Scapin. a celebrated, though at first, an unsuccessful play, where, contrary to his usual practice, he has burlesqued rather than added dignity to the incidents of the original from which he borrowed. The plot, indeed, is but a frame to introduce the various tricks of Scapin, who, after all, is a much less agreeable cheat than Phormio: His deceptions are too palpable, and the old men are incredible fools. As in Terence, there are two fathers, Argante and Geronte, and during the absence of the former, his son Octave falls in love with and marries a girl, whom he had accidentally seen bewailing the death of her mother. At the same time, Leandre, the son of Geronte, becomes enamoured of an Egyptian, and Scapin, the valet of Octave, is employed to excuse to the father the conduct of his son, and to fleece him of as much money as might be necessary to purchase her. The first of these objects could not well be attained by Terence’s contrivance of the law-suit; and it is therefore pretended that he had been forced into the marriage by the lady’s brother, who was a bully, (Spadassin,) and to whom the father agrees to give a large [pg 200]sum of money, that he might consent to the marriage being dissolved. It is then discovered that the girl whom Octave had married is the daughter of Geronte, and the Egyptian is found out, by the usual expedient of a bracelet, to be the long lost child of Argante. Many of the most amusing scenes and incidents are also copied from Terence, as Scapin instructing Octave to regulate his countenance and behaviour on the approach of his father—his enumeration to the father of all the different articles for which the brother of his son’s wife will require money, and the accumulating rage of Argante at each new item. Some scenes, however, have been added, as that where Leandre, thinking Scapin had betrayed him, and desiring him to confess, obtains a catalogue of all the Fourberies he had committed since he entered his service, which is taken from an Italian piece entitled Pantalone, Padre di Famiglia. He has also introduced from the Pedant Joué of Cyrano Bergerac, the device of Scapin for extorting money from Geronte, which consists in pretending that his son, having accidentally gone on board a Turkish galley, had been detained, and would be inevitably carried captive to Algiers, unless instantly ransomed. In this scene, which is the best of the play, the struggle between habitual avarice and parental tenderness, and the constant exclamation, “Que diable alloit il faire dans cette galere du Turc,” are extremely amusing. Boileau has reproached Moliere for having

“Sans honte à Terence allié Tabarin,”

in allusion to the scene where Scapin persuades Geronte that the brother, accompanied by a set of bullies, is in search of him, and stuffs him, for concealment, into a sack, which he afterwards beats with a stick. This is compounded of two scenes in the French farces, the Piphagne and the Francisquine of Tabarin, and, like the originals from which it is derived, is quite farcical and extravagant:—

“Dans ce sac ridicule ou Scapin s’enveloppe,

Je ne reconnois plus l’auteur du Misanthrope[320].”

The chief improvement which Moliere has made on Terence is the reservation of the discovery to the end; but the double discovery is improbable. The introduction of Hyacinthe and Zerbinette on the stage, is just as unsuccessful as the attempt of Baron to present us, in his Andrienne, with a lady corresponding to Glycerium. Moliere’s Hyacinthe is quite insipid [pg 201]and uninteresting, while Zerbinette retains too much of the Egyptian, and is too much delighted with the cheats of Scapin, to become the wife of an honest man.

From the above sketches some idea may have been formed of Terence’s plots, most of which were taken from the Greek stage, on which he knew they had already pleased. He has given proofs, however, of his taste and judgment, in the additions and alterations made on those borrowed subjects; and I doubt not, had he lived an age later, when all the arts were in full glory at Rome, and the empire at its height of power and splendour, he would have found domestic subjects sufficient to supply his scene with interest and variety, and would no longer have accounted it a greater merit—“Græcas transferre quam proprias scribere.”

Terence was a more rigid observer than his Roman predecessors of the unities of time and place. Whatever difference of opinion may be entertained with regard to the preservation of these unities in tragedy, since great results are often slowly prepared, and in various quarters, there can be no doubt that they are appropriate in comedy, which, moving in a domestic circle, and having no occasion to wander, like the tragic or epic muse, through distant regions, should bring its intrigue to a rapid conclusion. Terence, however, would have done better not to have adhered so strictly to unity of place, and to have allowed the scene to change at least from the street or portico in front of a house, to the interior of the dwelling. From his apparently regarding even this slight change as inadmissible, the most sprightly and interesting parts of the action are often either absurdly represented as passing on the street, though of a nature which must have been transacted within doors, or are altogether excluded. A striking example of the latter occurs in the Eunuchus, where the discovery of Chærea by his father in the eunuch’s garb has been related, instead of being represented. Plautus, who was of bolder genius, varies the place of action, when the variation suits his great purpose of merriment and jest.

But though Terence has perhaps too rigidly observed the unities of time and place, in none of his dramas, with a single exception, has that of plot been adhered to. The simplicity and exact unity of fable in the Greek comedies would have been insipid to a people not thoroughly instructed in the genuine beauties of the drama. Such plays were of too thin contexture to satisfy the somewhat gross and lumpish taste of a Roman audience. The Latin poets, therefore, bethought themselves of combining two stories into one, and this junction, which we call the double plot, by affording the oppor[pg 202]tunity of more incidents, and a greater variety of action, best contributed to the gratification of those whom they had to please. But of all the Latin comedians, Terence appears to have practised this art the most assiduously. Plautus has very frequently single plots, which he was enabled to support by the force of drollery. Terence, whose genius lay another way, or whose taste was abhorrent from all sort of buffoonery, had recourse to the other expedient of double plots; and this, I suppose, is what gained him the popular reputation of being the most artful writer for the stage. The Hecyra is the only one of his comedies of the true ancient cast, and we know how unsuccessful it was in the representation[321]. In managing a double plot, the great difficulty is, whether also to divide the interest. One thing, however, is clear, that the part which is episodical, and has least interest, should be unravelled first; for if the principal interest be exhausted, the subsidiary intrigue drags on heavily. The Andrian, Self Tormentor, and Phormio, are all faulty in this respect. On the whole, however, the plots of Terence are, in most respects, judiciously laid: The incidents are selected with taste, connected with inimitable art, and painted with exquisite grace and beauty.

Next to the management of the plot, the characters and manners represented are the most important points in a comedy; and in these Terence was considered by the ancients as surpassing all their comic poets.—“In argumentis,” says Varro, “Cæcilius palmam poscit, in ethesi Terentius.” In this department of his art he shows that comprehensive knowledge of the humours and inclinations of mankind, which enabled him to delineate characters as well as manners, with a genuine and apparently unstudied simplicity. All the inferior passions which form the range of comedy are so nicely observed, and accurately expressed, that we nowhere find a truer or more lively representation of human nature. He seems to have formed in his mind such a perfect idea both of his high and low characters, that they never for a moment forget their age or situation, whether they are to speak in the easy indifferent tone of polished society, or with the natural expression of passion. Nor do his paintings of character consist merely of a single happy stroke unexpectedly introduced: His delineations are always in the right place, and so harmonize with the whole, that every word is just what the person might be supposed to say under the circumstances in which he is placed:—

“Contemplez de quel air un pere dans Terence,

Vient d’un fils amoureux gourmander l’imprudence;

De quel air cet amant ecoute ses leçons,

Et court chez sa maitresse oublier ces chansons:

Ce n’est pas un portrait, un image semblable;

C’est un amant, un fils, un pere veritable[322].”

The characters, too, of Terence are never overstrained by ridicule, which, if too much affected, produces creatures of the fancy, which for a while may be more diverting than portraits drawn from nature, but can never be so permanently pleasing. This constitutes the great difference between Plautus and Terence, as also between the new and old comedy of the Greeks. The old comedy presented scenes of uninterrupted gaiety and raillery and ridicule, and nothing was spared which could become the object of sarcasm. The dramatic school which succeeded it attracted applause by beauty of situation and moral sentiment. In like manner, Terence makes us almost serious by the interest and affection which he excites for his characters. In the Andria we are touched with all Pamphilus’ concern, we feel all his reflections to be just, and pity his perplexity. The characters of Terence, indeed, are of the same description with those of Plautus; but his slaves and parasites and captains are not so farcical, nor his panders and courtezans so coarse, as those of his predecessor. The slave-dealers in the Adelphi and Phormio are rather merchants greedy of gain than shameless agents of vice, and are not very different from Madame La Ressource, in Regnard’s elegant comedy, Le Joueur. His courtezans, instead of being invariably wicked and rapacious, are often represented as good and beneficent. It was a courtezan who received the dying mother of the Andrian, and, while expiring herself, affectionately intrusted the orphan to the generous protection of Pamphilus. It is a courtezan who, in the Eunuchus, discovers the family of the young Pamphila, and, in the Hecyra, brings about the understanding essential to the happiness of all. From their mode of life, and not interposing much beyond their domestic circle, the manners of modest women were not generally painted with any great taste by the ancients; but Terence may perhaps be considered as an exception. Nausistrata is an excellent picture of a matron not of the highest rank or dignity, as is also Sostrata in the Hecyra.

The style of wit and humour must of course correspond with that of the characters and manners. Accordingly, the plays of Terence are not much calculated to excite ludicrous emotions, and have been regarded as deficient in comic force. [pg 204]His muse is of the most perfect and elegant proportions, but she fails in animation, and spirit. It was for this want of the vis comica that Terence was upbraided by Julius Cæsar, in lines which, in other respects, bear a just tribute of applause to this elegant dramatist:—

“Tu quoque tu in summis, O dimidiate Menander,

Poneris, et merito, puri sermonis amator:

Lenibus atque utinam scriptis adjuncta foret vis

Comica, ut æquato virtus polleret honore

Cum Græcis, neque in hac despectus parte jaceres.

Unum hoc maceror, et doleo tibi deesse, Terenti.”

From the prologue to the Phormio we learn that a clamour had also been raised by his contemporaries against Terence, because his dialogue was insipid, and wanted that comic heightening which the taste of the age required:—

“Quas fecit fabulas,

Tenui esse oratione et scriptura levi.”

The plays of Terence, it must be admitted, are not calculated to excite immoderate laughter, but his pleasantries are brightened by all the charms of chaste and happy expression—thus resembling in some measure the humour with which we are so much delighted in the page of Addison, and which pleases the more in proportion as it is studied and contemplated. There are some parts of the Eunuchus which I think cannot be considered as altogether deficient in the vis comica, as also Demea’s climax of disasters in the Adelphi, and a scene in the Andria, founded on the misconceptions of Mysis.

The beauties of style and language, I suppose, must be considered as but secondary excellences in the drama. Were they primary merits, Terence would deserve to be placed at the head of all comic poets who have written for the stage, on account of the consummate elegance and purity of his diction. It is a singular circumstance, and without example in the literary history of any other country, that the language should have received its highest perfection, in point of elegance and grace, combined with the most perfect simplicity, from the pen of a foreigner and a slave. But it so happened, that the countryman of Hannibal, and the freedman of Terentius Lucanus, gave to the Roman tongue all those beauties, in a degree which the courtiers of the Augustan age itself did not surpass. Nor can this excellence be altogether accounted for by his intimacy with Scipio and Lælius, in whose families the Latin language was spoken with hereditary purity, since it could only have been the merit of his dramas which first [pg 205]attracted their regard; and indeed, from an anecdote above related, of what occurred while reading his Andria to a dramatic censor, it is evident that this play must have been written ere he enjoyed the sunshine of patrician patronage. For this Ineffabilis amœnitas, as it is called by Heinsius, he was equally admired by his own contemporaries and by the writers in the golden period of Roman literature. He is called by Cæsar puri sermonis amator, and Cicero characterizes him as—

“Quicquid come loquens, ac omnia dulcia dicens.”

Even in the last age of Latin poetry, and when his pure simplicity was so different from the style affected by the writers of the day, he continued to be regarded as the model of correct composition. Ausonius, in his beautiful poem addressed to his grandson, hails him on account of his style, as the ornament of Latium—

“Tu quoque qui Latium lecto sermone, Terenti,

Comis, et adstricto percurris pulpita socco,

Ad nova vix memorem diverbia coge senectam[323].”

Among all the Latin writers, indeed, from Ennius to Ausonius, we meet with nothing so simple, so full of grace and delicacy—in fine, nothing that can be compared to the comedies of Terence for elegance of dialogue—presenting a constant flow of easy, genteel, unaffected discourse, which never subsides into vulgarity or grossness, and never rises higher than the ordinary level of polite conversation. Of this, indeed, he was so careful, that when he employed any sentence which he had found in the tragic poets, he stripped it of that air of grandeur and majesty, which rendered it unsuitable for common life, and comedy. In reading the dialogue of Simo in the Andria, and of Micio in the Adelphi, we almost think we are listening to the conversation of Scipio Africanus, and the mitis sapientia Læli. The narratives, in particular, possess a beautiful and picturesque simplicity. Cicero, in his treatise De Oratore, has bestowed prodigious applause on that with which the Andria commences. “The picture,” he observes, “of the manners of Pamphilus—the death and funeral of Chrysis—and the grief of her supposed sister, are all represented in the most delightful colours.”—Diderot, speaking of the style of Terence, says, “C’est une onde pure et transparente, qui coule toujours egalement, et qui ne prend de [pg 206]vitesse, que ce qu’elle en reçoit de la pente et du terrein. Point d’esprit, nul etalage de sentiment, aucune sentence qui ait l’air epigrammatique, jamais de ces definitions qui ne seroient placées que dans Nicole ou la Rochefoucauld.”

As to what may be strictly called the poetical style of Terence, it has been generally allowed that he has used very great liberties in his versification[324]. Politian divided his plays (which in the MSS. resemble prose) into lines, but a separation was afterwards more correctly made by Erasmus. Priscian says, that Terence used more licenses than any other writer. Bentley, after Priscian, admitted every variety of Iambic and Trochaic measure; and such was the apparent number of irregular quantities, and mixture of different species of verse, that Westerhovius declares, that in order to reduce the lines to their original accuracy, it would be necessary to evoke Lælius and Scipio from the shades. Mr Hawkins, in his late Inquiry into the Nature of Greek and Latin poetry, has attempted to show that the whole doctrine of poetical licenses is contrary to reason and common sense; that no such deviation from the laws of prosody could ever have been introduced by Terence; and that where his verses apparently require licenses, they are either corrupt and ill-regulated, or may be reduced to the proper standard, on the system of admitting that all equivalent feet may come in room of the fundamental feet or measures. On these principles, by changing the situation of the quantities, by allowing that one long syllable may stand for two short, or vice versa, there will not be occasion for a single poetical license, which is in fact nothing less than a breach of the rules of prosody.

After having considered the plays of Plautus and of Terence, one is naturally led to institute a comparison between these two celebrated dramatists. People, in general, are very apt to judge of the talents of poets by the absolute merits of their works, without at all taking into view the relative circumstances of their age and situation, or the progress of improvement during the period in which they lived. No one recollects that Tasso’s Rinaldo was composed in ten months, and at the age of seventeen; and, in like manner, we are apt to forget the difference between writing comedies while labouring at a mill, and basking in the Alban villa of Scipio or Lælius. The improvement, too, of the times, brought the works of Terence to perfection and maturity, as much as his own genius. It is evident, that he was chiefly desirous to recommend himself to [pg 207]the approbation of a select few, who were possessed of true wit and judgment, and the dread of whose censure ever kept him within the bounds of correct taste; while the sole object of Plautus, on the other hand, was to excite the merriment of an audience of little refinement. If, then, we merely consider the intrinsic merit of their productions, without reference to the circumstances or situation of the authors, still Plautus will be accounted superior in that vivacity of action, and variety of incident, which raise curiosity, and hurry on the mind to the conclusion. We delight, on the contrary, to linger on every scene, almost on every sentence, of Terence. Sometimes there are chasms in Plautus’s fables, and the incidents do not properly adhere—in Terence, all the links of the action depend on each other. Plautus has more variety in his exhibition of characters and manners, but his pictures are often overcharged, while those of Terence are never more highly coloured than becomes the modesty of nature. Plautus’s sentences have a peculiar smartness, which conveys the thought with clearness, and strikes the imagination strongly, so that the mind is excited to attention, and retains the idea with pleasure; but they are often forced and affected, and of a description little used in the commerce of the world; whereas every word in Terence has direct relation to the business of life, and the feelings of mankind. The language of Plautus is more rich and luxuriant than that of Terence, but is far from being so equal, uniform, and chaste. It is often stained with vulgarity, and sometimes swells beyond the limits of comic dialogue, while that of Terence is puro simillimus amni. The verses of Plautus are, as he himself calls them, numeri innumeri; and Hermann declares, that, at least as now printed, omni vitiorum genere abundant[325]. Terence attends more to elegance and delicacy in the expression of passion—Plautus to comic expression. In fact, the great object of Plautus seems to have been to excite laughter among the audience, and in this object he completely succeeded; but for its attainment he has sacrificed many graces and beauties of the drama. There are two sorts of humour—one consisting in words and action, the other in matter. Now, Terence abounds chiefly in the last species, Plautus in the first; and the pleasantries of the older dramatist, which were so often flat, low, or extravagant, finally drew down the censure of Horace, while his successor was extolled by that poetical critic as the most consummate master of dramatic art. “In short,” says Crusius, “Plautus is more gay, Terence more chaste—the first [pg 208]has more genius and fire, the latter more manners and solidity. Plautus excels in low comedy and ridicule, Terence in drawing just characters, and maintaining them to the last. The plots of both are artful, but Terence’s are more apt to languish, whilst Plautus’s spirit maintains the action with vigour. His invention was greatest; Terence’s, art and management. Plautus gives the stronger, Terence a more elegant delight. Plautus appears the better comedian of the two, as Terence the finer poet. The former has more compass and variety, the latter more regularity and truth, in his characters. Plautus shone most on the stage; Terence pleases best in the closet. Men of refined taste would prefer Terence; Plautus diverted both patrician and plebeian[326].”

Some intimations of particular plays, both of Plautus and Terence, have already been pointed out; but independently of more obvious plagiarisms, these dramatists were the models of all comic writers in the different nations of Europe, at the first revival of the drama. Their works were the prototypes of the regular Italian comedy, as it appeared in the plays of Ariosto, Aretine, Ludovico Dolce, and Battista Porta. In these, the captain and parasite are almost constantly introduced, with addition of the pedante, who is usually the pedagogue of the young innamorato. Such erudite plays were the only printed dramas (though the Commedie dell’ Arte were acted for the amusement of the vulgar,) till the beginning of the 17th century, when Flaminio Scala first published his Commedie dell’ Arte. The old Latin plays were also the models of the earliest dramas in Spain, previous to the introduction of the comedy of intrigue, which was invented by Lopez de Rueda, and perfected by Calderon. We find the first traces of the Spanish drama in a close imitation of the Amphitryon, in 1515, by Villalobos, the physician of Charles V., which was immediately succeeded by a version of Terence, by Pedro de Abril, and translations of the Portuguese comedies of Vasconcellos[327], which were themselves written in the manner of Plautus. There is likewise a good deal of the spirit of Plautus and Terence in the old English comedy, particularly in the characters. A panegyrist on Randolph’s Jealous Lovers, which was published in 1632, says, “that it [pg 209]should be conserved in some great library, that if through chance or injury of time, Plautus and Terence should be lost, their united merit might be recognized. For, in this play, thou hast drawn the pander, the gull, the jealous lover, the doating father, the shark, and the crust wife.”

The consideration of the servile manner in which the dramatists, as well as novelists, of one country, have copied from their predecessors in another, may be adduced in some degree as a proof of the old philosophical aphorism, Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu; and also of the incapacity of the most active and fertile imagination, greatly to diversify the common characters and incidents of life. One would suppose, previous to examination, that the varieties, both of character and situation, would be boundless; but on review, we find a Plautus copying from the Greek comic writers, and, in turn, even an Ariosto scarcely diverging from the track of Plautus. When we see the same characters only in new dresses, performing the same actions, and repeating the same jests, we are tempted to exclaim, that everything is weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, and are taught a lesson of melancholy, even from the Mask of Mirth.

While Plautus, Cæcilius, Afranius, and Terence, raised the comic drama to high perfection and celebrity, Pacuvius and Attius attempted, with considerable success, the noblest subjects of the Greek tragedies.