Chapter IX: Part 9

—— “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 unknown 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 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 consequence, 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 courtezan, 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 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 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 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 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 opportunity 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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.

PACUVIUS,

who was the nephew of Ennius(328), by a sister of that poet, was born at Brundusium, in the year 534. At Rome he became intimately acquainted with Lælius, who, in Cicero’s treatise _De Amicitiâ_, calls Pacuvius his host and friend: He also enjoyed, like Terence, the intimacy of Scipio Africanus; but he did not profit so much as the comic writer by his acquaintance with these illustrious Romans for the improvement of his style. There is an idle story, that Pacuvius had three wives, all of whom successively hanged themselves on the same tree; and that lamenting this to Attius, who was married, he begged for a slip of it to plant in his own garden(329); an anecdote which has been very seriously confuted by Annibal di Leo, in his learned Memoir on Pacuvius. This poet also employed himself in painting: he was one of the first of the Romans who attained any degree of eminence in that elegant art, and particularly distinguished himself by the picture which he executed for the temple of Hercules, in the _Forum Boarium_(330). He published his last piece at the age of eighty(331); after which, being oppressed with old age, and afflicted with perpetual bodily illness, he retired, for the enjoyment of its soft air and mild winters, to Tarentum(332), where he died, having nearly completed his ninetieth year(333). An elegant epitaph, supposed to have been written by himself, is quoted, with much commendation, by Aulus Gellius, who calls it _verecundissimum et purissimum_(334). It appears to have been inscribed on a tombstone which stood by the side of a public road, according to a custom of the Romans, who placed their monuments near highways, that the spot where their remains were deposited might attract observation, and the departed spirit receive the valediction of passing travellers:

“Adolescens, tametsi properas, hoc te saxum rogat,
Uti ad se aspicias; deinde, quod scriptum est, legas.
Hic sunt poetæ Marcei Pacuviei sita
Ossa. Hoc volebam nescius ne esses—Vale(335).”

Though a few fragments of the tragedies of Pacuvius remain, our opinion of his dramatic merits can be formed only at second hand, from the observations of those critics who wrote while his works were yet extant. Cicero, though he blames his style, and characterizes him as a poet _male loquutus_(336), places him on the same level for tragedy as Ennius for epic poetry, or Cæcilius for comedy; and he mentions, in his treatise _De Oratore_, that his verses were by many considered as highly laboured and adorned.—“Omnes apud hunc ornati elaboratique sunt versus.” It was in this laboured polish of versification, and skill in the dramatic conduct of the scene, that the excellence of Pacuvius chiefly consisted; for so the lines of Horace have been usually interpreted, where, speaking of the public opinion entertained concerning the different dramatic writers of Rome, he says,—

“Ambigitur quoties uter utro sit prior: aufert
Pacuvius docti famam senis, Attius alti.”

And the same meaning must be affixed to the passage in Quintilian,—“Virium tamen Attio plus tribuitur; Pacuvium videri doctiorem, qui esse docti adfectant, volunt(337).” Most other Latin critics, though on the whole they seem to prefer Attius, allow Pacuvius to be the more correct writer.

The names are still preserved of about 20 tragedies of Pacuvius—_Anchises_, _Antiope_, _Armorum Judicium_, _Atalanta_, _Chryses_, _Dulorestes_, _Hermione_, _Iliona_, _Medus_, _Medea_, _Niptra_, _Orestes et Pylades_, _Paulus_, _Peribœa_, _Tantalus_, _Teucer_, _Thyestes_. Of these the _Antiope_ was one of the most distinguished. It was regarded by Cicero as a great national tragedy, and an honour to the Roman name.—“Quis enim,” says he, “tam inimicus pene nomini Romano est, qui Ennii Medeam, aut Antiopam Pacuvii, spernat, aut rejiciat?” Persius, however, ridicules a passage in this tragedy, where Antiope talks of propping her melancholy heart with misfortunes, by which she means, (I suppose,) that she fortunately had so many griefs all around her heart, that it was well bolstered up, and would not break or bend so easily as it must have done, had it been supported by fewer distresses—

“Sunt quos Pacuviusque et verrucosa moretur
Antiope, ærumnis cor luctificabile fulta.”

The _Armorum Judicium_ was translated from Æschylus. With regard to the _Dulorestes_, (Orestes Servus,) there has been a good deal of discussion and difficulty. Nævius, Ennius, and Attius, are all said to have written tragedies which bore the title of _Dulorestes_; but a late German writer has attempted, at great length, to show that this is a misconception; and that all the fragments, which have been classed with the remains of these three dramatic poets, belong to the _Dulorestes_ of Pacuvius, who was in truth the only Latin poet who wrote a tragedy with this appellation. What the tenor or subject of the play, however, may have been, he admits is difficult to determine, as the different passages, still extant, refer to very different periods of the life of Orestes; which, I think, is rather adverse to his idea, that all these fragments were written by the same person, and belonged to the same tragedy, unless, indeed, Pacuvius had utterly set at defiance the observance of the celebrated unities of the ancient drama. On the whole, however, he agrees with Thomas Stanley, in his remarks on the _Chœphoræ_ of Æschylus, that the subject of the _Chœphoræ_, which is the vengeance taken by Orestes on the murderers of his father, is also that of the _Dulorestes_ of Pacuvius(338). Some of the fragments refer to this as an object not yet accomplished:—

“Utinam nunc maturescam ingenio, ut meum patrem
Ulcisci queam.” ——

The _Hermione_ turned on the murder of Pyrrhus by Orestes at the instigation of Hermione. Cicero, in his Treatise _De Amicitia_, mentions, in the person of Lælius, the repeated acclamations which had recently echoed through the theatre at the representation of the _new play_ of his friend Pacuvius, in that scene where Pylades and Orestes are introduced before the king, who, being ignorant which of them is Orestes, whom he had predetermined should be put to death, each insists, in order to save the life of his friend, that he himself is the real person in question. Delrio alleges that the _new play_ here alluded to by Cicero was the _Hermione_; but that play, as well as the _Dulorestes_, related to much earlier events than the friendly contest between Pylades and Orestes, which took place at the court of Thoas, King of Tauris, and was the concluding scene in the dramatic life of Orestes, being long subsequent to the murder of his mother, his trial in presence of the Argives, or absolution at Athens before the Areopagus. Accordingly, Tiraboschi states positively that this _new play_ of Pacuvius, which obtained so much applause, was his _Pylades et Orestes_(339).

In the _Iliona_, the scene where the shade of Polydorus, who had been assassinated by the King of Thrace, appears to his sister Iliona, was long the favourite of a Roman audience, who seem to have indulged in the same partiality for such spectacles as we still entertain for the goblins in _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_.

All the plays above mentioned were imitated or translated by Pacuvius from the Greek. His _Paulus_, however, was of his own invention, and was the first Latin tragedy formed on a Roman subject. Unfortunately there are only five lines of it extant, and these do not enable us to ascertain, which Roman of the name of Paulus gave title to the tragedy. It was probably either Paulus Æmilius, who fell at Cannæ, or his son, whose story was a memorable instance of the instability of human happiness, as he lost both his children at the moment when he triumphed for his victory over Perseus of Macedon.

From no one play of Pacuvius are there more than fifty lines preserved, and these are generally very much detached. The longest passages which we have in continuation are a fragment concerning Fortune, in the _Hermione_—the exclamations of Ulysses, while writhing under the agony of a recent wound, in the _Niptra_, and the following fine description of a sea-storm introduced in the _Dulorestes_:—

“Interea, prope jam occidente sole, inhorrescit mare;
Tenebræ conduplicantur, noctisque et nimbûm occæcat nigror;
Flamma inter nubes coruscat, cœlum tonitru contremit,
Grando, mista imbri largifluo, subita turbine præcipitans cadit;
Undique omnes venti erumpunt, sævi existunt turbines,
Fervet æstu Pelagus.” ——

Such lines, however, as these, it must be confessed, are more appropriate in epic, or descriptive poetry, than in tragedy.

It does not appear that the tragedies of Pacuvius had much success or popularity in his own age. He was obliged to have recourse for his subjects to foreign mythology and unknown history. Iphigenia and Orestes were always more or less strangers to a Roman audience, and the whole drama in which these and similar personages figured, never attained in Rome to a healthy and perfect existence. Comedy, on the other hand, addressed itself to the feelings of all. There were prodigal sons, avaricious fathers, and rapacious courtezans, in Rome as well as in Greece(340). But it requires a certain cultivation of mind and tenderness of heart to enjoy the representation of a regular tragedy. The plebeians thronged to the theatre for the sake of merriment, and the patricians were still too much occupied with the projects of their own ambition, to weep over the woes of Antigone or Electra.

Pacuvius, accordingly, had fewer imitators than Plautus. Indeed, for a long period he had none of much note, except

ATTIUS,

or Accius, as he is sometimes, but improperly, called, who brought forward his first play when thirty years old, in the same season in which Pacuvius, having reached the age of eighty, gave his last to the public(341). Now, as Pacuvius would be eighty in 614, Attius, according to this calculation, must have been born in 584. It has been questioned, however, if he was born so early, since Valerius Maximus relates a story of his refusing to rise from his place on the entrance of Julius Cæsar into the College of Poets, because in that place they did not contest the prize of birth, but of learning(342),—which disrespect, if he came into the world in 584, he could not have survived to offer to the dictator, Julius Cæsar, who was not born till 654. This collector of anecdotes, however, may probably allude either to some other poet of the name of Attius, or to some other individual of the Julian family, than the Julius Cæsar who subverted the liberties of his country. At all events it is evident, that Attius lived to extreme old age. If born in 584, he must have been 63 years old at the birth of Cicero, who came into the world in 647. Now, Cicero mentions not only having seen him, but having heard from his own mouth opinions concerning the eloquence of his friend D. Brutus, and other speakers of his time(343). Supposing this conversation took place even when Cicero was so young as seventeen, Attius must have lived at least to the age of eighty.