is indicative rather of the convivial 'abandon' of men of vigorous constitutions, than of the more deliberate and fastidious epicureanism of the poets of a later age.
Another criticism of Horace upon Plautus—
Gestit enim nummum in loculos demittere—
may very probably be true, and is by no means to his discredit. The same charge has been brought against some of the most facile and productive creators in modern times, such as Scott, Dickens, and Balzac, and, to a certain extent, even Shakspeare. To the poets of Nature, or of the higher thought and emotions of men, the pure enjoyment of their art may afford sufficient happiness. In so far as they are true to their higher genius, they are, or ought to be, more independent than any other class of men of the pleasures which money can give. But artists whose power consists in vividly realising and representing the various activities, passions, and enjoyments of life, may feel, in their own experience, some of the craving and of the satisfaction which they are called on to describe. Nor is it unnatural that they should take any legitimate means of securing for themselves some share in the objects of desire, which are the moving forces of their imaginary world. In the large place which the details of good living fill in his plays, Plautus exaggerates a tendency which is discernible in the more decorous fictions of Scott and Dickens. In the important part which he assigns to money in many of his dramas, in his business-like mention of specific sums, in the frequency of his illustrations from the practice of keeping accounts, he shows a resemblance to Balzac. The experience of his life must have impressed upon him the value of money. The fact that he saved enough in his early employment in connexion with the stage to embark on mercantile speculations is a proof of early thrift and prudence and of a wish to raise himself in the world. In all this he was merely exhibiting one of the most common characteristics of the middle class among his countrymen.
Horace adds the further criticism, that so long as he could make money he was indifferent to the artistic merits of his pieces,—
Securus cadat an recto stet fabula talo;—
and this criticism is to a great extent true. His object was to give the largest amount of immediate amusement[31]. He was not a careful artist like Terence, studying either finish of style, perfect consistency in the development of his characters, or the working out of his plots to a harmonious conclusion. It was owing to the irrepressible vitality and strong human nature which he could not help imparting to his careless execution, that his plays have survived many more elaborate compositions. Yet he shows a rude kind of consciousness of his art in such passages as that in which he makes Pseudolus compare himself to the poet who creates out of nothing—
Set quasi poeta, tabulas quom cepit sibi,
Quaerit quod nusquamst gentium, reperit tamen[32];
and he speaks of the pleasure which he took in his play 'Epidicus[33].' Cicero also testifies to the joy which he derived from two of the works of his old age, the Pseudolus and the Truculentus[34]. But his delight was that of a vigorous creator, not of a painstaking artist.