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.