BY
John Dunlop,
AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF FICTION.

James Kay, Jun. Printer,
S. E. Corner of Race & Sixth Streets,
Philadelphia.

Contents.

[pg iii]

PREFACE.

There are few subjects on which a greater number of laborious volumes have been compiled, than the History and Antiquities of Rome. Everything connected with its foreign policy and civil constitution, or even with the domestic manners of its citizens, has been profoundly and accurately investigated. The mysterious origin of Rome, veiled in the wonders of mythological fable—the stupendous increase of its power, rendered yet more gigantic by the mists of antiquity—its undaunted heroes, who seem to us like the genii of some greater world—its wide dominion, extended over the whole civilized globe—and, finally, its portentous fall, which forms, as it were, the separation between ancient and modern times, have rendered its civil and military history a subject of prevailing interest to all enlightened nations. But, while its warlike exploits, and the principles of its political institutions, have been repeatedly and laboriously investigated, less attention, perhaps, [pg iv]has been paid to the history of its literature, than to that of any other country, possessed of equal pretensions to learning and refinement; and, in the English language at least, no connected view of its Rise, its Progress, and Decline, has been as yet presented to us. When the battles of Rome have been accurately described, and all her political intrigues minutely developed—when so much inquiry and thought have been bestowed, not only on the wars, conquests, and civil institutions of the Romans, but on their most trivial customs, it is wonderful that so little has been done to exhibit the intellectual exertions of the fancy and the reason, of their most refined and exalted spirits.

It cannot, indeed, be denied, that the civil history of Rome, and her military operations, present our species in a lofty aspect of power, magnanimity, and courage—that they exhibit the widest range and utmost extent of the human powers in enterprize and resources—and that statesmen or philosophers may derive from them topics to illustrate almost every political speculation. Yet, however vast and instructive may be the page which unfolds the eventful history of the foreign hostilities and internal commotions of the Roman people, it can hardly be more interesting than the analogies between their literary attainments and the other circumstances of their condition;—the peculiarities of their literature, its peculiar origination, and the peculiar effects which it produced. The literature of a people may indeed, in one sense, be regarded as the most attractive feature of its history. It is at once the effect of leisure and refinement, and the means of increasing and perpetuating the civilization from which it springs. Literature, as a late writer has powerfully and eloquently demonstrated, pos[pg v]sesses an extensive moral agency, and a close connection with glory, liberty, and happiness[1]; and hence the history of literature becomes associated with all that concerns the fame, the freedom, and the felicity of nations. “There is no part of history,” says Dr Johnson, “so generally useful, as that which relates the progress of the human mind—the gradual improvement of reason—the successive advances of science—the vicissitudes of learning and ignorance, which are the light and darkness of thinking beings—the extinction and resuscitation of arts, and the revolutions of the intellectual world. If accounts of battles and invasions are peculiarly the business of princes, the useful or elegant arts are not to be neglected[2].” If, then, in the literary history of Rome, we do not meet with those dazzling events, and stupendous results, which, from their lustre and magnitude, still seem, as it were, placed at the summit of human affairs, we shall find in it more intelligence and order, in consequence of its progress being less dependent on passion and interest. The trophies, too, of the most absolute power, and the most unlimited empire, seem destined, as if by a moral necessity, to pass away: But the dominion which the writers of Rome exercise over the human mind, will last as long as the world, or at least as long as its civilization—

“Alas, for Tully’s voice, and Virgil’s lay,

And Livy’s pictured page!—But these shall be

Her resurrection; all beside—decay[3].”

There are chiefly two points of view, in which literary history may be regarded as of high utility and importance. The [pg vi]first is the consideration of the powerful effect of literature on the manners and habits of the people among whom it flourishes. It is noble, indeed, in itself, and its productions are glorious, without any relative considerations. An ingenious literary performance has its intrinsic merits, and would delight an enthusiastic scholar, or contemplative philosopher, in perfect solitude, even though he himself were the only reader, and the work the production of a Being of a different order from himself. But what renders literature chiefly interesting, is the influence which it exercises on the dignity and happiness of human nature, by improving the character, and enlarging the capacity, of our species. A stream, however grand or beautiful in itself, derives its chief interest from a consideration of its influence on the landscape it adorns; and, in this point of view, literature has been well likened to “a noble lake or majestic river, which imposes on the imagination by every impression of dignity and sublimity. But it is the moisture that insensibly arises from them, which, gradually mingling with the soil, nourishes all the luxuriance of vegetation, and fructifies and adorns the surface of the earth[4].”

Literature, however, has not in all ages denoted, with equal accuracy, the condition of mankind, or been equally efficacious in impelling their progress, and contributing to their improvement. In the ancient empires of the East, where monarchies were despotic, and priests the only scholars, learning was regarded by those who were possessed of it rather as a means of confirming an ascendancy over the vulgar, than of improving their condition; and they were more desirous to perpetuate the subjection, than contribute to the melioration of mankind. Ac[pg vii]cordingly, almost every trace of this confined and perverted learning has vanished from the world. In the freer states of antiquity, as the republics of Greece and Rome, letters found various outlets, by which their improving influence was imparted, more or less extensively, to the bulk of the citizens. Dramatic representations were among the most favourite amusements, and oratorical displays excited among all classes the most lively interest. Such public exhibitions established points of contact, from which light was elicited. The mind of the multitude was enriched by the contemplation of superior intellect, and mankind were, to a certain extent, united by the reception of similar impressions, and the excitement of similar emotions.

Still, however, the history of any part of ancient literature is, in respect of its influence on the condition of states, far less important than that of modern nations. From the high price and scarcity of books, a restriction was imposed on the diffusion of knowledge. “A bulwark existed between the body of mankind and the reflecting few. They were distinct nations inhabiting the same country; and the opinions of the one, speaking comparatively with modern times, had little influence on the other[5].” The learned, in those days, wrote only or chiefly for the learned and the great. They neither expected nor cultivated the approbation of the mass of mankind. An extensive and noisy celebrity was interdicted. It was only with the more estimable part of his species that the author was united by that sympathy which we term the Love of Fame. He was the head, not of a numerous, but of a select community. By [pg viii]nothing short of the highest excellence could he hope for the approbation of judges so skilful, or expect an immortality so difficult to be preserved. While this may, perhaps, have contributed to the polish and perfection of literary works, it is obvious that the general influence of letters must have been less humanizing, and must have had less tendency to unite and assimilate mankind. Even philosophers, whose peculiar business was the instruction of their species, had no mode of disseminating or perpetuating their opinions, except by the formation of sects and schools, which created for the masters, pupils who were the followers of his creed, and the depositaries of his claims to immortality.

It is the invention of the art of printing which has at length secured the widest diffusion, and an unlimited endurance, to learning and civilization. As a stone thrown into the sea agitates (it has been said) more or less every drop in the expanse of ocean, so every thought that is now cast into the fluctuating but ceaseless tide of letters, will more or less affect the human mind, and influence the human condition, throughout all the habitable globe, and “to the last syllable of time.”

It is this, and not the height to which individual genius has soared, that forms the grand distinction between ancient and modern literature. The triumph of modern literature consists not in the point of elevation to which it has attained, but in the extent of its conquests—the extent to which it has refined and quickened the mass of mankind. It would be difficult to adjust the intellectual precedence of Newton and Archimedes—of Bacon and Aristotle—of Shakspeare and Homer—of Thucydides and Hume: But it may be declared with certainty, that the people of modern nations, in consequence of literature be[pg ix]ing more widely diffused, have become more civilized and enlightened. The Indus and Oronoko, rolling amid woods and deserts their waste of waters, may seem superior to the Thames in the view of the mere admirer of the grandeur and magnificence of nature; but how inferior are they in the eye of the philosopher and historian!

With regard to the Romans, in particular, they are allowed to have been a civilized nation, powerfully constituted, and wisely governed, previous to the existence of any author in the Latin language. Their character was formed before their literature was created: their moral and patriotic dignity, indeed, had reached its highest perfection, in the age in which their literature commenced—the age of Lælius and Africanus. Except in the province of the drama, it always continued a patrician attribute; and though intellectual improvement could not have facilitated the inroads of vice and guilty ambition, it certainly proved inadequate to stem the tide of moral corruption, to mitigate the sanguinary animosities of faction, or to retard the establishment of despotism.

Literary history is, secondly, of importance, as being the index of the character and condition of a people—as holding up a mirror, which reflects the manners and customs of remote or ancient nations. The less influence, however, which literature exercises, the less valuable will be its picture of life and manners. It must also be admitted, that from a separate cause, the early periods, at least, of Roman literature, possess not in this point of view any peculiar attractions. When literature is indigenous, as it was in Greece, where authors were guided by no antecedent system, and their compositions were shaped on no [pg x]other model than the objects themselves which they were occupied in delineating, or the living passions they portrayed, an accurate estimate of the general state of manners and feeling may be drawn from works written at various epochs of the national history. But, at Rome, the pursuit of literature was neither a native nor predominant taste among the people. The Roman territory was always a foreign soil for letters, which were not the produce of national genius, but were naturalized by the assiduous culture of a few individuals reared in the schools of Greece. Indeed, the early Roman authors, particularly the dramatic, who, of all others, best illustrate the prevalent ideas and sentiments of a nation, were mere translators from the Greek. Hence, those delineations, which at first view might appear to be characteristic national sketches, are in fact the draught of foreign manners, and the mirror of customs which no Roman adopted, or of sentiments in which, perhaps, no Roman participated.

Since, then, the literature of Rome exercised but a limited influence on the conduct of its citizens, and as it reciprocally reflects but a partial light on their manners and institutions, its history must, in a great measure, consist of biographical sketches of authors—of critical accounts of their works—and an examination of the influence which these works have exercised on modern literature. The authors of Rome were, in their characters, and the events of their lives, more interesting than the writers of any ancient or modern land. The authors who flourished during the existence of the Roman Republic, were Cato the Censor, Cicero, and Cæsar; men who (independently of their literary claims to celebrity) were unrivalled in their own age and country, and have scarcely been surpassed [pg xi]in any other. I need not here anticipate those observations which the works of the Roman authors will suggest in the following pages. Though formed on a model which has been shaped by the Greeks, we shall perceive through that spirit of imitation which marks all their literary productions, a tone of practical utility, derived from the familiar acquaintance which their writers exercised with the business and affairs of life; and also that air of nationality, which was acquired from the greatness and unity of the Roman republic, and could not be expected in literary works, produced where there was a subdivision of states in the same country, as in Greece, modern Italy, Germany, and Britain. We shall remark a characteristic authority of expression, a gravity, circumspection, solidity of understanding, and dignity of sentiment, produced partly by the moral firmness that distinguished the character of the Romans, their austerity of manners, and tranquillity of temper, but chiefly by their national pride, and the exalted name of Roman citizen, which their authors bore. And, finally, we shall recognise that love of rural retirement which originated in the mode of life of the ancient Italians, and was augmented by the pleasing contrast which the undisturbed repose and simple enjoyments of rural existence presented to the bustle of an immense and agitated capital. In the last point of view that has been alluded to—the influence which these works have exercised on modern letters—it cannot be denied that the literary history of Rome is peculiarly interesting. If the Greeks gave the first impulse to literature, the Romans engraved the traces of its progress deeper on the world. “The earliest writers,” as has been justly remarked, “took possession of the most striking objects for description, and the most probable occurrences for [pg xii]fiction, and left nothing to those that followed, but transcriptions of the same events, and new combinations of the same images[6].” The great author from whom these reflections are quoted, had at one time actually “projected a work, to show how small a quantity of invention there is in the world, and that the same images and incidents, with little variation, have served all the authors who have ever written[7].” Had he prosecuted his intention, he would have found the notion he entertained fully confirmed by the history both of dramatic and romantic fiction; he would have perceived the incapacity of the most active and fertile imagination greatly to diversify the common characters and incidents of life, which, on a superficial view, one might suppose to be susceptible of infinite combinations; he would have found, that while Plautus and Terence servilely copied from the Greek dramatists, even Ariosto scarcely diverged in his comedies from the paths of Plautus.

* * * * * * *

But whatever may be the advantages or imperfections of a literary subject in its own nature, it is evident that it can never be treated with effect or utility, unless sufficient materials exist for compilation. Unfortunately, there was no historian of Roman literature among the Romans themselves. Many particulars, however, with regard to it, as also judgments on productions which are now lost, may be collected from the writings of Cicero; and many curious remarks, as well as amusing anecdotes, may be gathered from the works of the latter Classics; as Pliny’s Natural History, the Institutes of Quintilian, the Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, and the Saturnalia of Macrobius.

Among modern authors who have written on the subject of Roman literature, the first place is unquestionably due to Tiraboschi, who, though a cold and uninteresting critic, is distinguished by soundness of judgment and labour of research. The first and second volumes of his great work, Della Letteratura Italiana, are occupied with the subject of Roman literature; and though not executed with the same ability as the portion of his literary history relating to modern Italy, they may safely be relied on for correctness of facts and references.

The recent French work of Schoell, entitled, Histoire Abregée de la Litterature Romaine, is extremely succinct and unsatisfactory on the early periods of Roman literature. Though consisting of four volumes, the author, at the middle of the first volume of the book, has advanced as far as Virgil. It is more complete in the succeeding periods, and, like his Histoire de la Litterature Grecque, is rather a history of the decline, than of the progress and perfection of literature.

A number of German works, (chiefly, however, bibliographical,) have lately appeared on the subject of Roman literature. I regret, that from possessing but a recent and limited acquaintance with the language, I have not been able to draw so extensively as might have been wished from these sources of information.

* * * * * * *

The composition of the present volumes was not suggested by any of the works which I have mentioned on the subject of Roman literature; but by the perusal of an elegant, though somewhat superficial production, on “The Civil and Constitutional History of Rome, from its Foundation to the Age of [pg xiv]Augustus[8].” It occurred to me that a History of Roman Literature, during the same period, might prove not uninteresting. There are three great ages in the literary history of Rome—that which precedes the æra of Augustus—the epoch which is stamped with the name of that emperor—and the interval which commenced immediately after his death, and may be considered as extending to the destruction of Rome. Of these periods, the first and second run into each other with respect to dates, but the difference in their spirit and taste may be easily distinguished. Although Cicero died during the triumvirate of Octavius, his genius breathes only the spirit of the Republic; and though Virgil and Horace were born during the subsistence of the commonwealth, their writings bear the character of monarchical influence.

The ensuing volumes include only the first of these successive periods. Whether I shall hereafter proceed to investigate the history of the others, will depend on the reception which the present effort may obtain, and on other circumstances which I am equally unable to anticipate.

* * * * * * *

Meanwhile, I have made considerable alterations, and, I trust, improvements, in the present edition. These, however, are so much interwoven with the body of the work, that they cannot be specified—except some additional Translations from [pg xv]the Fragments of the older Latin poets—a Dissertation on the Tachygraphy, or short-hand writing of the Romans, introduced at the commencement of the Appendix—and a Critical Account of Cicero’s Dialogue De Republica, which, though discovered, had not issued from the press when the former edition was published.

HISTORY

OF

ROMAN LITERATURE, &c.

“Parva quoque, ut ferme principia omnia, et ea ipsa peregrina res fuit.”
Livy, lib. vii. c. 2.

[pg 19]

HISTORY

OF

ROMAN LITERATURE, &c.

In tracing the Literary History of a people, it is important not only to ascertain whence their first rudiments of knowledge were derived, but even to fix the origin of those tribes, whose cultivation, being superior to their own, acted as an incentive to literary exertion. The privilege, however, assumed by national vanity, miscendi humana divinis, has enveloped the antiquities of almost every country in darkness and mystery: But there is no race whose early history is involved in greater obscurity and contradiction than the first inhabitants of those Italian states, which finally formed component parts of the Roman republic. The origin of the five Saturnian, and twelve Etruscan cities, is lost in the mist of ages; and we may as well hope to obtain credible information concerning the monuments of Egypt or India, as to investigate their inscrutable antiquities. At the period when light is first thrown, by authentic documents, on the condition of Italy, we find it occupied by various tribes, which had reached different degrees of civilization, which spoke different dialects, and disputed with each other the property of the lands whence they drew their subsistence. All before that time is founded on poetical embellishment, the speculations of theorists, or national vanity arrogating to itself a Trojan, a Grecian, or even a divine original.

The happy situation of Italy, imbosomed in a sea, which washed not only the coast of all the south of Europe, but likewise the shores of Africa and Asia, afforded facilities for [pg 20]communication and commerce with almost every part of the ancient world. It is probable, that a country gifted like this peninsula, with a fertile soil, incomparable climate, and unusual charms of scenery, attracted the attention of its neighbours, and sometimes allured them from less favoured settlements. “Il semble,” says a recent French writer, “que les Dieux aient lancé l’Italie au milieu du vaste océan comme un Phare immense qui appelle les navigateurs des pays les plus eloignés”[9]. The customs, and even names, which were prevalent in Egypt, Phœnicia, and Greece, were thus introduced into Italy, and formed materials from which the framers of systems have constructed theories concerning its first colonization by the Egyptians, the Pelasgi, or whatever nation they chose. There is scarcely, however, an ancient history or document entitled to credit, and recording the arrival of a colony in Italy, which does not also mention that the new-comers found prior tribes, with whom they waged war, or intermixed.

The ample lakes and lofty mountains, by which Italy is intersected, naturally divided its inhabitants into separate and independent nations. Of these by far the most celebrated were the Etruscans. The origin of this remarkable people, called Tyrrhenians by the Greeks, and Thusci, or Etrusci, by the Latins, has been a subject of endless controversy among antiquarians; and, indeed, had perplexed the ancients no less than it has puzzled the moderns. Herodotus, the earliest authentic historian whose works are now extant, represents them as a colony of Lydians, who were themselves a tribe of the vagrant Pelasgi. In the reign of Atys, son of Menes, the Lydian nation being driven to extremity by famine, the king divided it into two portions, one of which was destined to remain in Asia, and the other to emigrate under the conduct of his son Tyrrhenus. The inhabitants who composed the latter division leaving their country, repaired to Smyrna, where they built vessels, and removed in search of new abodes. After touching on various shores, they penetrated into the heart of Italy, and at length settled in Umbria. There they constructed dwellings, and called themselves Tyrrhenians, from the name of their leader[10]. Some of the circumstances which Herodotus relates as having occurred previous to the emigration of the Lydian colony appear fabulous, as the invention of games, in order to appease the sensation of hunger, and the fasting every alternate day for a space of eighteen years; and it would, perhaps, be too much to assert, that before the Lydians, no other tribe had ever set foot in Umbria or [pg 21]Etruria. But the account of the departure of the colony is itself plausible, and its truth appears to be corroborated, if not confirmed, by certain resemblances in the language, religion, and pastimes of the Lydians, and of the ancient Etruscans[11]. The manners, too, and customs of the Lydians, did not differ essentially from those of the Greeks; and the princes of Lydia, like the sovereigns of Persia, being accustomed to employ Phœnician or Egyptian sailors, the colony of Lydians, which settled in Italy, might thus contain a mixture of such people, and present those appearances which have led some antiquarians to consider the Etruscans as Phœnicians or Egyptians, while others have regarded them as Greeks. The writers of antiquity, though varying in particulars, have followed, in general, the tradition delivered by Herodotus concerning the descent of the Etruscans. Cicero, Strabo[12], Velleius Paterculus[13], Seneca, Pliny, Plutarch[14], and Servius, all affirm that they came from Lydia; and to these may be added Catullus, who calls the lake Benacus Lydiæ lacus undæ, obviously because he considered the ancient Etruscans, within whose extended territory it lay, as of Lydian origin. It is evident, too, that the Etruscans themselves believed that they had sprung from the Lydians, and that they inculcated this belief on others. Tacitus informs us, that, in the reign of Tiberius, a contest concerning their respective antiquity arose among eleven cities of Asia, which were heard by their deputies in presence of the Emperor. The Sardians rested their claims on an alleged affinity to the Etruscans, and, in support of their pretensions, produced an ancient decree, in which that people declared themselves descended from the followers of Tyrrhenus, who had left their native country of Lydia, and founded new settlements in Italy[15].

Hellanicus of Lesbos, a Greek historian, nearly contemporary with Herodotus, and quoted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, asserted that the Etruscans were a tribe of Pelasgi, not from Lydia, but from Greece, who being driven out of their country by the Hellenes, sailed to the mouth of the Po, and leaving their ships in that river, built the inland town of Cortona, whence advancing, they peopled the whole territory afterwards called Tyrrhenia[16].

Dionysius of Halicarnassus holds the account of those authors, who maintain that the Etruscans were descended from the Lydians, to be utterly fabulous, principally on the ground [pg 22]that Xantus, the chief historian of Lydia, says nothing of any colony having emigrated thence to Italy; and he is of opinion, that those also are mistaken, who, like Hellanicus of Lesbos, believed the Etruscans and Pelasgi to be the same people. He conceives them to have been Aborigines, or natives of the country, as they radically agreed with no other nation, either in their language or manner of life. He admits, however, that a tribe of Pelasgi passed from Thessaly to the mouth of the Po many ages previous to the Trojan war, and directing their course to the south, occupied a considerable portion of the heart of Italy. Soon after their arrival, they assisted the aboriginal Etruscans in their wars with the Siculi, whom they forced to seek refuge in Sicily, the seat of the ancient Sicani. Subsequent to this alliance, they were again dispersed in consequence of disease and famine; but a few still remained behind, and being incorporated with the original inhabitants, bestowed on them whatever in language or customs appeared to be common to the Etruscans, with other nations of Pelasgic descent[17].

Several eminent writers among the moderns have partly coincided with Dionysius. Dempster seems to think that there was an indigenous population in Etruria, but that it was increased both by the Lydian emigration and by colonies of Pelasgi from Greece[18]. Bochart is nearly of the same opinion; only he farther admits of a direct intercourse between the Etruscans and Phœnicians, whence the former may have received many Oriental fables and customs. He denies, however, that there was any resemblance in the languages of these two people; and the Etruscan arts he believes to have been chiefly derived from Greece[19]. The opinion of Bochart on these latter points is so much the more entitled to weight, as his prepossessions would have led him to maintain an opposite system could it have been plausibly supported. Gibbon also declares in favour of Dionysius; and, as to the relation of Herodotus, he says, “L’opinion d’Herodote, qui les fait venir de la Lydie, ne peut convenir qu’aux poetes”[20]. Several recent Italian writers likewise have maintained, that, previous to the arrival of any Lydian or Pelasgic colony, there existed what they term an indigenous population, by which they do not merely signify a population whose origin cannot [pg 23]be traced, since they hint pretty broadly, that Etruria had its Adam and Eve as much as Eden[21].

Gorius derives every thing Etruscan from Egypt or Phœnicia. These countries he considers as the original seats of the Pelasgi, who, being driven out of them, settled in Achaia, Thrace, Arcadia, and Lydia, and from these regions gradually, and at different times, passed into Italy[22].

A similar system has been adopted by Lord Monboddo.—From a resemblance in their letters and language to those of the Greeks, he believes the Etruscans to have been a very ancient colony of the roaming Pelasgi who left Arcadia in quest of new settlements. These Pelasgi, however, he maintains, were not themselves indigenous in Arcadia, as they issued originally from Egypt, where there was a district and a city of the name of Arcadia[23].

Mazzochi follows the oriental theory, but does not venture to determine from what eastern region the Etruscans emigrated. He merely affirms, that they spread from the east, under which term he includes regions very remote from each other—Assyria, Armenia, Canaan, and Egypt[24]. He also thinks that they came directly from the east, without having previously passed through Lydia or Arcadia: For, if they had, the monuments of these latter countries would exhibit (which they do not) still stronger remains of oriental antiquity than those of the Etruscans. This descent Mazzochi attempts to confirm by the most fanciful derivations of words and proper names of the Etruscan nation from the eastern languages, especially from the Hebrew and Syriac. Thus one of the most extensive plains in Italy, and the spot where, in all probability, the oriental colony first landed, is near the æstuary of the Po. This plain they naturally called Paddan, one of the names of the level Mesopotamia, and the appellation of the district soon came to be transferred to the river Padus or Po, by which it was bounded. It occurred to the author, however, that the Eridanus was the more ancient name of the Po; but this only furnishes him with a new argument. Eraz, it seems, signifies in Hebrew, a cedar, or any sort of resinous tree, and the orientals, finding a number of trees of this nature on the banks of the Po, and Z being a convertible letter with D, they could [pg 24]not fail to call the river, near which they grew in such abundance, the Eridanus[25].

Bonarota has deduced the origin of the Etruscans from Egypt—a theory which has chiefly been grounded on the resemblance of the remains of their arts with the monuments of the ancient Egyptians[26].

Maffei brings them directly from Canaan, and supposes them to have been the race expelled from that region by the Moabites, or children of Lot. The river Arnon, (whence Arno,) flowed not far from that part of Canaan, where Lot and Abram first sojourned; one of its districts was called Etroth, (whence Etruria); and on the banks of the Arnon stood the city Ar, a syllable which is a frequent compound in Etruscan appellatives. The Etruscans erected their places of worship on hills or high places—they formed corporeal images of their divine beings like the idolatrous race from whom they sprung—but above all, their divinations and profession of augury, identified them with those original inhabitants of Canaan, of whom it is said, “that they hearkened unto observers of times and unto diviners”[27].

By far the most voluminous, but at the same time one of the most fanciful writers concerning the Etruscans, is Guarnacci, who maintains, that they came directly from the east, and were stragglers who had been dispersed by Noah’s flood, or, at the very latest, by the confusion at Babel. The Umbri and Aborigines, according to him, were the same people, under a different denomination, as the Etruscans: They gradually spread themselves over all Italy, and some tribes of them, called, from their wandering habits, Pelasgi, at length emigrated to Greece and Lydia; so that, whatever similarity has been traced in the language, religion, manners, or arts, of the Greeks and Etruscans, is the consequence of the Etruscan colonization of Greece, and not, as is generally supposed, of Italy having been peopled by Pelasgic colonies from Arcadia or Peloponnesus[28].

In general, the oriental system has been maintained in opposition to all other theories, chiefly on the ground that the Etruscans, like many eastern nations, wrote from right to left, and that, like the Hebrews, they often marked down only [pg 25]the consonants, leaving the reader to supply the auxiliary vowels.

The oriental theory, in all its modifications, has been strenuously opposed by a number of learned Italian, French, and German antiquaries, who have contended for the northern and Celtic origin of the Etruscans, and have ridiculed the opinions of their predecessors as if they themselves were about to promulgate a more rational system. Bardetti, while he admits a colonization of Italy from foreign quarters, prior even to the Trojan war, maintains, that it was inhabited by a primitive population long before the landing of the Lydians or Pelasgi: That previous to the arrival of the latter tribe at the mouth of the Po, which happened 300 years before the siege of Troy, there had been no navigation to Italy from Egypt, or any other country: That, therefore, this primitive population must have come by land, and could have been no other than bands of Celts who were the immediate posterity of Japheth, and who, having originally settled in Gaul, descended to Italy from the Alps by Rhetium, Tirol, and Trent. Their first seats were the regions along the banks of the Po; the earliest tribes of their population were called Ligurians and Umbrians, and from them sprung the Etrurians, and all the other ancient nations of Italy[29].

A system nearly similar has been followed by Pelloutier[30], Freret[31], and Funccius[32], and has been adopted, with some modifications, by Adelung, and also by Heyne[33], who, however, admits that other tribes besides the Gallic race, may have contributed to the population of Etruria[34].

This theory, whether deducing the Etruscans from the Celts of Gaul or from the Teutonic tribes of Germany, is too often supported by remote and fanciful etymologies; and, so far as depends on authority, it chiefly rests on an ambiguous passage of the ancient historian Boccus, (quoted by Solinus,) where it is said, Gallorum veterum propaginem Umbros esse, and taken in connection with this, the assertion of Pliny, Umbrorum gens antiquissima Italiæ existimatur[35].

[pg 26]

ETRURIA.

The most learned and correct writer on the subject of the Etruscans is Lanzi. In his elaborate work[36], (in which he has followed out and improved on a system first started by Ulivieri,) he does not pretend to investigate the origin of this celebrated race, though he seems to think that they were Lydians, augmented from time to time by tribes of the Pelasgi. But he has tried to prove that whatever may have been their descent, the religion, learning, language, and arts of the Etruscans must be referred to a Greek origin, and he refutes Gori and Caylus, who, deceived by a few imperfect analogies, ascribed them to the Egyptians. The period of Etruscan perfection in the arts, and formation of those vases and urns which we still admire, was posterior, he maintains, to the subjugation of Etruria by the Romans, and at a time when an intercourse with Greece had rendered the Etruscans familiar with models of Grecian perfection. As to the language, he does not indeed deny that all languages came originally from the east, and that many Greek words sprung from Hebrew roots; but there are in the Etruscan tongue, he asserts, such clear traces of Hellenism, particularly in the names of gods and heroes, that it is impossible to ascribe its origin to any other source. In particular, he attempts to show from the inscriptions on the Eugubian tables, that the Etruscan language was the Æolic Greek, since it has neither the monosyllables characteristic of northern tongues, nor the affixes and suffixes peculiar to oriental dialects[37].

From whatever nation originally sprung, the Etruscans at an early period attained an enviable height of prosperity and power. Etruria Proper, or the most ancient Etruria, reached from the Arno to the Tiber, being nearly bounded all along by these rivers, from their sources to their junction with the Tyrrhenian sea. Soon, however, the Etruscans passed those narrow limits;—to the north, they spread their conquests over the Ligurians, who inhabited the region beyond the Arno, and to this territory the conquerors gave the name of New Etruria. To the south, they crossed the Tiber, made allies or tributaries of the Latins, and introduced among them many of their usages and rites. Having thus opened a way through Latium, they drove the Osci from the fertile plains of Cam[pg 27]pania, and founded the city of Capua, about fifty years before the building of Rome. Colonies, too, were sent out by them to spots beyond their immediate sway, till at length the Italian name was nearly sunk in that of the Etruscans. Their minds, however, were not wholly bent on conquest and political aggrandizement; their attention was also directed to useful institutions, and to the cultivation of the fine arts. The twelve confederated cities of Etruria were embellished with numberless monuments of architecture; wholesome laws were enacted, commerce was extended along all the shores of the Mediterranean: and, in short, by their means the general progress of civilization in Italy was prodigiously accelerated. The glory and prosperity of the Etruscans were at their height before Rome yet possessed a name. But their government, like that of all other republics, contained the seeds of decay. Each state had the choice of remaining as a commonwealth, or electing a king; but the Kings, or Lucumons, as they were usually called, were only the priests and presidents of the different cities of the confederation. There was no monarch of the whole realm; and it is the series of these Lucumons that has swelled the confused list of kings presented by Etruscan antiquaries. Each state had also the privilege of separately declaring war or concluding peace; and each appears, on all occasions, to have been more anxious for its own safety, than for the general interests of the union. Hence, rivalships and dissensions prevailed in the general assemblies of the twelve states. A confederate government, thus united by a link of political connection, almost as feeble as the Amphictyonic council of Greece, afforded no such compact resistance as could oppose an adequate barrier to the unica vis of the intrepid enemies with whom the Etruscans had now to contend. At sea they were assailed by the Syracusans and Carthaginians; the Umbrians retook several of their ancient possessions; they were forced to yield the plains which lie between the Alps and Apennines to the valour of the Gauls; and the Samnites expelled them from the yet more desirable and delicious regions of Campania.

While the Etruscans were thus again confined almost within the territory which still bears their name, and extends from the Tiber northward to the Apennines, a yet more formidable foe than any they had hitherto encountered appeared on the political theatre of Italy. It was Latium, which had the singular fortune to see one of its towns rise to the supreme dominion of Italy, and finally of the world. This city, which Dionysius of Halicarnassus represents as a respectable colony, fitted out from Alba under the escort of Romulus, and thence [pg 28]supplied with money, provisions, and arms; but which was more probably composed of outlaws from the Equi, Marsi, Volsci, and other Latian tribes, had gradually acquired strength, while the power of the Etruscans had decayed. Enervated by opulence and luxury[38], they were led to despise the rough unpolished manners of the Romans; but during centuries of almost incessant warfare, they were daily taught to dread their military skill and prowess. The fall of Veii was a tremendous warning, and they now sought to preserve their independence rather by stratagem than force of arms. At length, in an evil hour, they availed themselves of the difficulties of their enemy; and, while the rival republic was pressed on the south by the Samnites, they leagued with those northern hordes which descended from the Alps to the anticipated conquest of Rome. Before they had fully united with the Gauls, the Consul Dolabella annihilated, near the Lake Vadimona, the military population of Etruria, and the feeble remains of the nation received the imperious conditions of peace, dictated by the victors, which left them nothing but the shadow of a great name,—the glory of attending the Roman march to the conquest of the world, and the vestiges of arts destined to attract the curiosity and research of the latest posterity.

The vicinity of the Etruscans to Rome, from which their territories were separated only by the Tiber,—the alliance of their leader, Cœlius, with Romulus, and the habitation assigned them on the Cœlian Mount,—the accession to the Roman sovereignty of the elder Tarquin, who was descended from a Greek family which had fixed its residence in Etruria,—the settlement of a number of Etruscan prisoners, four years after the expulsion of the kings, in a street called the Vicus Tuscus, in the very heart of the city;—and, finally, the intercourse produced by the long period of warfare and political intrigue which subsisted between the rising republic and their more polished neighbours before they were incorporated into one state, would be sufficient to account for the Roman reception of the customs and superstitions of Etruria, as also for the interchange of literary materials. It does not seem that the hostility of rival nations prevents the reciprocal adoption of manners and literature. The romantic gallantry and learning of the Arabs in the south of Spain soon passed the limits of their splendid empire; and long before the conquest of Wales the Cambrian fables and traditions concerning Arthur and his host of heroes were domesticated in the court [pg 29]of England. Accordingly, we find that the Romans were indebted to the Etruscans for the form of the robes which invested their magistrates, the pomp that attended their triumphs, and even the music that animated their legions. The purple vest, the sceptre surmounted by an eagle, the curule chair, the fasces and lictors, were the ensigns and accompaniments of supreme authority among the Etruscans; while the triumphs and ovations, the combats of gladiators and Circensian games, were common to them and the Romans.

The simple and rustic divinities of Etruria and Latium were likewise the objects of Roman idolatry, long before the introduction of that more imposing and elegant mythology which had been embellished by the conceptions of Homer and the hand of Phidias. Saturn, the reformer of civil life, though afterwards confounded with the Kronos of the Greeks, was not of Greek origin. Janus, the Deorum Deus of the Salian verses, to whom the Romans offered their first sacrifices, and addressed their first prayers, and whom system-framers have identified with Noah[39], the Indian Ganesa[40], the Egyptian Oannes[41], and the Ion of the Scandinavians[42], or have represented as a symbolic type of all things in nature, was truly an Italian God:—

“Nam tibi par nullum Græcia numen habet[43].”

Faunus and Picus, Bona Dea and Marica, were Etruscan or Latian divinities of the Saturnian family. Italy was also filled with many local deities, in consequence of those wonderful natural phænomena which it so abundantly exhibited, and which its early inhabitants ascribed to invisible powers. A sulphuric lake was the residence of the Nymph Albunea, and the medicinal founts of Abano were the acknowledged abodes of a beneficent genius.—“Nullus lucus sine fonte, nullus fons non sacer, propter attributos illis deos, qui fontibus præesse dicuntur[44].” All nature was thus linked by a continued chain of consecrated existence, from the God of Thunder to the simple Faun. The Vacunia and Feronia of the Sabines were naturalized by Numa, and the Vejove of Etruria presided in Rome at the general council of the twelve greater gods, long before a knowledge of the Grecian Mars or Jupiter. In all their mythology we may remark the grave and austere charac[pg 30]ter of the ancient Italians[45]. Their deities resembled not the obscene and vicious gods of Greece. They presided over agriculture, the rights of property, conjugal fidelity, truth and justice; and in like manner in early Rome,

“Cana Fides et Vesta; Remo cum fratre Quirinus

Jura dabant.” ——

Dionysius of Halicarnassus particularly points out the difference between the religion of the Greeks and the Romans. The latter, he informs us, “did not admit into their creed those impious stories told by the Greeks of the castration of their gods, or of destroying their own children, of their wars, wounds, bonds, and slavery, and such like things as are not only altogether unworthy of the divine nature, but disgrace even the human. They had no wailing and lamentations for the sufferings of their gods, nor like the Greeks, any Bacchic orgies, or vigils of men and women together in the temples. And if at any time they admitted such foreign pollutions, as they did with regard to the rites of Cybele and the Idæan goddess, the ceremonies were performed under the grave inspection of Roman magistrates; nor even now does any Roman disguise himself to act the mummeries performed by the priests of Cybele[46]”. Dionysius, who refers every thing to Greece, thinks that the early Roman was just the Greek religion purified by Romulus, to whom, in fact, his country was more indebted than to Numa for its sacred institutions. In reality, however, this superior purity of rites and worship was not occasioned by any such lustration of the Greek fables, but from their being founded on Italian, and not on Grecian superstitions.

But although the Etruscan mythology may have been more pure, and its rites more useful, than those of Greece, its fables were not so ingenious and alluring. Ora, the goddess of health and youth, was less elegant than Hebe; and even the genius of Virgil, who has chosen the Italian Myths for the machinery of the Æneid, could hardly bestow grace or dignity on the prodigy of the swarm of bees that hung in clusters from the Laurentian Laurel—on the story of the robber Cacus vomiting flames, the ships metamorphosed into nymphs, the sow which farrowed thirty white pigs, and thereby announced that the town of Alba would be built in thirty years, the puerile [pg 31]fiction of the infancy of Camilla, or the hideous harpy which hovered round the head of Turnus, and portended his death. Accordingly, when the Romans were allured by the arts of Greece, the rude and simple traditions of Italian mythology yielded to the enticing and voluptuous fictions of a more polished people[47]. The tolerant spirit of Polytheism did not restrict the number of gods, and the ministers of superstition seemed always ready to reconcile the most discordant systems. Hence the poet interwove the national traditions with the Greek fables, and concentrated in one the attributes of different divinities. Thus, the Greek Kronos was identified with Saturn; the rustic deities, Sylvanus and Faunus, peculiar to Latium, being confounded with Pan, the Satyrs, and Silenus, were associated with the train of Bacchus; Portumnus was converted into Palemon—a deity whom the Greeks had received from Phœnicia; Bona Dea was transformed to Hecate, and Libitina to Proserpine; and the Camesnæ, or Camenæ, of the family of Janus, who prophesied in Saturnian verse on the summit of Mount Janiculum, were metamorphosed into Muses[48]. Hercules, Jupiter, and Venus, gods of power and pleasure, occupied, with their splendid temples, the place of the peaceful and pastoral deities of Numa. Still, however, the national religion was in some measure retained, and Apollo and Bacchus, in particular, continued to be decorated with the characteristic emblems of Etruria.

The Etruscans do not seem to have believed, like the Greeks, that they were possessed of those interpretations of passing events or revelations of futurity which were obtained by immediate inspiration, whether delivered from the hill of Dodona, or the Delphian shrine. Their divination was supposed to be the result of experience and observation; and though not destitute of divine direction or concurrence, depended chiefly on human contrivance. Among them peculiar families, like the tribe of Levi, the Peruvian Incas, and the descendants of Thor and Odin, were depositaries of the secrets and ceremonies of religion. Their prognostics were taken from the flight of birds[49], the entrails of animals, and observations on thunder. [pg 32]In the early ages of Rome, a band of Patrician youths was sent to Etruria, to be initiated in the mysteries of its religious rites[50]. The constant practice of consulting the gods on all enterprizes, public or private,—the belief, that prodigies manifested the will of heaven, and that the deities could be appeased, and their vengeance averted by expiations or sacrifices, were common to the Tuscan and Roman creeds. In short, the fervent spirit of Etrurian superstition passed undiminished to the Romans, who owed to its influence much of their valour, temperance, and patriotism. To this, Cicero in a great degree ascribes their political supremacy. The Romans, says he, were not superior in numbers to the Spaniards, in strength or courage to the Gauls, in address to the Carthaginians, in tactics to the Macedonians; but we surpass all nations in that prime wisdom by which we have learned that all things are governed and directed by the immortal gods.

To the same singular people from whom they derived their customs and superstitions, the Romans were much indebted for their majestic language. As their writers in a great measure owe their immortality to the lofty tones and commanding accents of the Latin tongue, it would be improper entirely to neglect its origin in entering on the literary history of Rome.

The supporters of the various systems with regard to the first peopling of Etruria, of course discover the elements of the Etruscan language in that of the different nations by whom they believe it to have been colonized. Lord Monboddo, for example, deduces both the Latin and Etruscan from the old Pelasgic; which language, he asserts, was first brought into Italy by a colony of Arcadians, seventeen generations before the Trojan war. He considers the Latin as the most ancient dialect of the Greek; and he remarks, that as it came off from the original stock earlier than the Doric, or Æolic, or any other Greek dialect now known, it has more of the roughness of the primitive Hebrew, from which he believes the Pelasgic to be derived[51]. Lanzi also thinks that both the Latin and Etruscan flowed from the Greek, and that the resemblance between the Etruscan and Latin was not occasioned by the derivation of the latter from the former, but was the necessary consequence of both having sprung from a common source.

It certainly is not easy to discover the primary elements of the Latin or any other language; but its immediate origin [pg 33]may easily be traced. The inscriptions on the most ancient monuments which have been discovered, from the Alps to Calabria, shew that, from the time of the Etruscan supremacy, there was an universal language in Italy, varied, indeed, by dialects, but announcing a common origin in the inflections of words and the forms of characters. The language of the Etruscans had been so widely spread by their conquests, that it might almost be regarded as the general tongue of Italy, and the Latian, Oscan, and Sabine idioms, were in a great measure the same with the Etruscan. From these the early Latin language was chiefly formed; and what little Greek existed in its original composition came through these languages from the Pelasgic colonies, which in the remotest periods had intermixed with the Etruscans, and with the inhabitants of ancient Latium. “It is a great mistake,” says Horne Tooke, “into which the Latin etymologists have fallen, to suppose that all the Latin must be found in the Greek, for the fact is otherwise. The bulk and foundation of the Latin language is Greek; but great part of the Latin is the language of our northern ancestors grafted on the Greek; and to our northern languages the etymologist must go for that part of the Latin which the Greek will not furnish[52].” This author is correct, in affirming that all the Latin cannot be found in the Greek; but he is far in error if he mean to maintain that any part of the Latin came directly from the language of the Celts, or that their uncouth jargon was grafted on the Greek. The northern tongues, however, whether Celtic or Sclavonic, may have contributed to form those dialects of Italy which composed the original elements of the imperial language, and were exhibited in great variety of combinations for five centuries with little admixture of the Greek. The eminent grammarian is still farther mistaken in declaring that the foundation of the Latin language is Greek. That much of the Augustan Latin is derived from the Greek, is true. Gataker, who strenuously contends for the Greek origin of the whole Latin language, has, as a specimen, attempted to shew, that every word in the first five lines of Virgil’s Eclogues is drawn from the Greek[53]; and though part of his etymologies are fanciful, [pg 34]yet in a very considerable portion of them he has been completely successful. But the case is totally different with the ancient remnants of the Latin language previous to the capture of Tarentum. In the song of the Fratres Arvales, the oldest specimen of the language extant, there seem to be only two words which have any analogy to the Greek—sal from ἅλς and sta from ἱστημι. That there was little Greek incorporated with the Latin during the first ages of the Republic, is evident from the circumstance, that the Latin inscriptions of a former period were unintelligible to the historian Polybius, and the most learned Romans of his age. Now, as he himself was a Greek, and as the most learned Romans, by his time, had become good Greek scholars, any Grecisms in the ancient inscriptions would have been perfectly intelligible. It is evident, therefore, that the difficulty arose from the words of the old Italian dialects occurring instead of the new Greek terms, suddenly introduced after the capture of Tarentum, and to which the Romans having by that time become habituated, could not understand the language of a preceding generation. Besides, when Rome was originally filled with Latian bands—when the Etruscans and Oscans were immediately beyond the walls of Rome,—when, as early as the time of Romulus, the Sabines were admitted within them,—when all the women then in Rome were Sabines, (from which it may be presumed that much of the conversation was carried on in the Sabine dialect,) and, above all, when the Romans, for many centuries, had little intercourse with any other people than the Italian nations, it is not to be supposed that they would borrow their colloquial language from the Celts, on the other side of the Alps, or the Greeks, from whom they were separated by the Adriatic Gulf, and who, as yet, had established only remote, insignificant, and scattered colonies, in Italy. Varro, too, has shewn the affinity between the Sabine and the Latin languages[54]. That the Oscan resembled the old Latin, is proved from its being constantly employed in the most popular dramatic representations at Rome, and from the circumstance that almost every word of its few relics which remain, is the root of some equivalent Latin term. Thus Akeru produced acerra—Anter, inter—Phaisnam, fanum—Tesaur, Thesaurus—Famel, famulus—Multa, mulcta—Solum, (totus,) solus—Facul, Facultas—Cael, cœlum—Embratur, imperator.[55] The copious admixture of Greek only took place [pg 35]after the taking of Tarentum, when the poets of Magna Græcia settled at Rome, and were imitated by native writers,

“—— Cum lingua Catonis et Enni

Sermonem patrium ditaverit, et nova rerum

Nomina protulerit.”

So far, then, from the Latin language being composed of Celtic grafted on the Greek, it appears to me to have been formed from the Greek, grafted on those various dialects of the Etruscan tongue, which prevailed in Italy at the period of the building of Rome.

It would have been singular, when the Romans derived so much from their Etruscan neighbours, if they had not also acquired a portion of those arts which were the chief boast of Etruria. Among the Etruscans, the arts certainly had not the imposing character they assumed in Egypt, or the elegance they exhibited in Greece[56]; but in their vases, tombs, and altars, which have recently been brought to light, we possess abundant proofs of their taste and ingenuity. In these—domestic occupations, marriages, spectacles, masquerades, contests in the Circus, equestrian exercises, the chase, triumphs, mysteries, funeral rites, Lares, Lamiæ, Lemures, and deities of every description,—in short, all ancient Etruria passes in review before the eye, which, in many instances, must admire the boldness of the attitudes, the elegance of the draperies, and justness of the proportions. The art of modelling, or sculpture, appears to have been that in which the Etruscans chiefly excelled. The statues of the first kings erected at Rome, in the reign of the elder Tarquin, were of their workmanship, as well as that of Horatius Cocles, and the equestrian statue of Clelia. The Jupiter of the Capitol was also Tuscan; and the four-wheeled chariot placed in his temple, received its last polish from Etruscan hands, under the first Roman consuls.

In the course of the 5th century of Rome, not fewer than 2000 Etruscan statues, which were probably little figures in bronze, were carried to that city from Volsinium, (now Bolsena,) which the Romans were accused of having besieged, in order to plunder it of these treasures. Architecture was unknown in Rome until the Tarquins came from Etruria: hence the works of the kings, some of which still remain, were [pg 36]built in the Etruscan style, with large and regular, but uncemented blocks[57]. The most ancient and stupendous architectural monuments of Rome, were executed by Etruscan artists. Theirs were the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, the Circus, and Cloaca Maxima, which showed such a wonderful anticipation of the future magnitude of Rome[58], and which Livy pronounces equal to anything which had been produced by modern magnificence. Painting, too, was introduced at Rome from the Etruscans, about the middle of the fifth century, by one of the Fabian family, who had long resided in Etruria, and who himself painted in fresco, after his return, the interior of the Temple of Salus, and transmitted the sirname of Pictor to his descendants.

The excellence to which the Etruscans had attained in sculpture and architecture, forms a presumption of their proficiency in those sciences which are essential to eminence in the arts. As not a vestige of their writings remains, it is impossible to judge of the merits of their literary compositions. I suspect, however, that, like the ancient Egyptians, they had made much less progress in literature than in arts or science. What books they had, were extant, and well known, at Rome; yet Cicero and other Latin writers, who have the Greek authors perpetually in their mouths, scarcely ever allude to any works of the Etruscans, except treatises on augury or divination; and the only titles of the books, recorded by Roman writers, are the Libri Fatales, Libri Haruspicinæ, Sacra Acherontia, Fulgurales et Rituales Libri. It is said, indeed, that the Etruscans cultivated a certain species of poetry, sung or declaimed during the pomp of sacrifices, or celebration of marriages[59]. Such verses were first employed in Fescennia, a city of Etruria, whence the ancient nuptial hymns of the Romans were called Fescennine. It is evident, however, that these Etruscan songs, or hymns, were of the very rudest description, and probably never were reduced into writing. They were a kind of impromptus, composed of scurrilous jests, originally recited by the Italian peasants at those feasts of Ceres, which celebrated the conclusion of their harvests; and they resembled the verses described in the well-known lines of Horace—

“Agricolæ prisci, fortes, parvoque beati,

Condita post frumenta, levantes tempore festo

Corpus, et ipsum animum spe finis dura ferentem,

Cum sociis operum pueris, et conjuge fidâ,

Tellurem porco, Sylvanum lacte piabant,

Floribus et vino Genium, memorem brevis ævi;

Fescennina per hunc inventa licentia morem

Versibus alternis opprobria rustica fudit[60].”

It appears, also, that some of the ancient rustic oracles and prophecies of the Etruscans, were delivered in a rugged sort of verse called Saturnian—a measure which was adopted from them by the earliest Latin poets—

“Scripsere alii rem

Versibus quos olim Fauni vatesque canebant[61].”

Censorinus informs us, on the authority of Varro, that this ancient people was not without its chroniclers and historians—In Tuscis Historiis quæ octavo eorum sæculo scripta sunt[62]. But this eighth century of the Etruscans, according to the chronology followed by Lanzi, would be as late as the sixth century of Rome[63]; and, besides, it is evident from the context of Censorinus, that these pretended histories were, in fact, mere registers of the foundations of cities, and the births and deaths of individuals. Varro also mentions Etruscan tragedies composed by Volumnius[64]. No date to his productions, however, is specified, and Lanzi is of opinion, that he did not write in Etruria till after the dramatic art had made considerable progress at Rome; and it certainly may at least be doubted, if, previous to that period, the Etruscan stage had ever reached higher than extemporary recitations, or pantomimic entertainments of music and dancing.

But whatever the literature of the Etruscans may have been, it certainly had no influence on the progress of learning among the Romans. Neither the intercourse of the two nations, nor the capture of Veii, though followed by the final subjugation of the Etruscans, was attended with any literary improvement on the part of their unpolished neighbours. In fact, few nations have been more completely illiterate than the Romans were, during five centuries, from the commencement of their history; and of all the nations which have figured in the annals of mankind, none certainly attained the same height of power and grandeur, and civil wisdom, with equal ignorance of literature or the fine arts. For the pretended acquaintance of the elder Brutus with the Pythagorean [pg 38]philosophy, it would be difficult, I suspect, to find any better authority than the romance of Clelia; and the learned academy, which some writers[65] have found in Numa’s College of Pontiffs, must be classed, I fear, with Vockerodt’s literary societies, which existed before the flood[66].

It is not difficult to account for this ignorance of the Romans during the first ages of their history. Rome was not, as has been asserted by Dionysius, a regular colony sent out from a well-regulated state, but was formed from a mixture of all kinds of people unacquainted with social life. It consisted of Romulus’ own troop, and a confluence of banditti inured to lawless acts, and subsisting by rapine, who were called from their fastnesses by the proclamation of a bold, cunning, and hardy adventurer[67]. This desperate band would not be much softened or humanized by their union with the tribe of Sabines, who, in the time of Romulus, became incorporated with the state, if we may judge of Sabine civilization from the story of Tarpeia. Numa did much for the domestic melioration of his people: He subdivided them into classes, impressed their minds with reverence for religion, and encouraged agriculture; but there was no germ of literature which he could foster. For more than three centuries after his death, the persevering hostilities of neighbouring states, and the furious irruptions of the Gauls, scarcely allowed a moment of repose or tranquillity. The safety of Rome depended on its military preparations, and every citizen necessarily became a soldier. Learning and arts may flourish amid the wars and commotions of a mighty empire, because every individual is not essentially or actively involved in the struggle; but in a petty state, surrounded by foes, all are in some shape or other personally engaged in the conflict, and the result, perhaps, is viewed with intenser interest. The enemies of Rome were repeatedly at her gates, and once within her walls; and while the city thus resounded with martial alarms, literary leisure could neither be enjoyed nor accounted among the ingredients—

“Vitam quæ faciunt beatiorem.”

The exercise of arms, which commenced in order to preserve the new-founded city from destruction, was continued for the sake of conquest and dominion; so that the whole [pg 39]pride of the Romans was still placed in valour and military success. At the first formation of their theatre, they were propitiated by the address, Belli duellatores optimi[68]. Whatever time could be snatched from warlike occupations, was devoted to agriculture. Each individual had two acres allotted to him, which he was obliged to till for the maintenance of his family. While thus labouring for subsistence, he had little leisure to cultivate literature or the arts, and could find no inclination for such pursuits. Indeed, he was not allowed the choice of his occupations. The law of Romulus which consigned as ignominious all sedentary employments to foreigners or slaves, leaving only in choice to citizens and freemen the arts of agriculture and arms, long continued in undiminished respect and observance. Romulus, says Dionysius, ordered the same persons to exercise the employments both of husbandmen and soldiers. He taught them the duty of soldiers in time of war, and accustomed them in time of peace to cultivate the land[69].

During this period the Romans had nothing which can properly be termed, or which would now be considered as poetry—the shape in which literature usually first expands amongst a rude people. The verses which have come down to us under the character of Sibylline oracles, are not genuine. There probably at one time existed a few rude lines uttered by pretended prophetesses, and which were doubtless a political instrument, usefully employed in a state subject to popular commotions. The book delivered to Tarquin, and which was supposed to contain those ancient oracles, perished amid the conflagration in the Capitol, during the civil wars of Marius and Sylla. Even those collected in Greece, and the municipal states of Italy, in order to supply their place, and which were deposited in the temple of Apollo, on Mount Palatine, were burned by Stilicho in the reign of the Emperor Honorius. There is still extant, however, the hymn sung by the Fratres Arvales, a college of priests instituted by Romulus, for the purpose of walking in procession through the fields in the commencement of spring, and imploring from the gods a blessing on agriculture. Of a similar description were the rude Saturnian verses prescribed by Numa, and which were chaunted by the Salian priests, who carried through the streets those sacred shields, so long accounted the Palladium of Rome.

About the end of the fourth century from the building of the city, when it was for the first time afflicted with a plague, the Senate having exhausted without effect their own super[pg 40]stitious ceremonies, and run over the whole round of supplications, decreed that histrions or players should be summoned from Etruria, in order to appease the wrath of the gods by scenic representations. These chiefly exhibited rude dances and gesticulations, performed to the sound of the flute[70]. There was no dialogue or song, but the pantomime did not consist merely of unmeaning gestures: It had a certain scope, and represented a connected plot or story[71]; but what kind of action or story was represented, is utterly unknown. This whimsical sort of expiation seems to have attracted the fancy of the Roman youths, who imitated the Etruscan actors; but they improved on the entertainment, by rallying each other in extemporary and jocular lines. The Fescennine verses, originally employed in Etruria at the harvest-homes of the peasants, were about the same period applied by the Romans to marriage ceremonies and public diversions.

There were also songs of triumph in a rude measure, which were sung by the soldiers at the ovations of their leaders. As early as the time of Romulus, when that chief returned triumphant to Rome after his victory over the Ceninenses and Antemnates, his soldiers followed him in military array, singing hymns in honour of their gods, and extemporary verses in praise of their commander[72]. Of this description, too, were the Pæans, with which the victorious troops accompanied the chariot of Cincinnatus, after he subdued the Equi[73], and with which they celebrated a spirited enterprize of Cossus, a tribune of the soldiers[74]. Sometimes these laudatory songs were seasoned with coarse jokes and camp jests, like those introduced at the triumph of C. Claudius, and of M. Livius[75].

The triumphal hymns were not altogether confined to the ceremony performed on the streets of Rome. Cicero informs us, on the authority of Cato’s Origines, that at feasts and entertainments, it was usual for the guests to celebrate the praises of their native heroes to the sound of the flute[76]. Valerius Maximus says, that the verses were sung by the older guests, in order to excite the youth to emulation[77]; and Varro, [pg 41]that they were chaunted by ingenuous youths[78]. The difference, however, between the two authors, is easily reconciled. The former speaks of the original composition of these ballads[79], while Varro, though the passage is imperfect, seems to refer to a later period, when they were brought out anew for the entertainment of the guests. Valerius talks of them as poems or ballads of considerable extent. It was many generations, however, before the age of Cato, that this practice existed; and by the time of Cicero, these national and heroic productions, if they ever had been reduced to writing, were no longer extant[80]. This is all that can be collected concerning these legends, from the ancient Roman writers, who had evidently very imperfect notions and information on the subject. Niebuhr, however, and M. Schlegel, seem as well acquainted with their contents as we are with Chevy Chase, and talk as if these precious relics were lying on their shelves, or as if they had been personally present at the festivals where they were recited. They expressed, it seems, feelings purely patriotic—they contained no inconsiderable admixture of the marvellous—but even the propensity for what was incredible was exclusively national in its character—and the Roman fablers indulged themselves in the creation of no wonders, which did not redound in some measure to the honour of their ancestors. They were founded on the oldest traditions concerning the kings and heroes of the infant city, and the establishment of the republican form of government. “The fabulous birth of Romulus,” says Schlegel, “the rape of the Sabine women, the most poetical combat of the Horatii and Curiatii, the pride of Tarquin, the misfortunes and death of Lucretia, and the establishment of liberty by the elder Brutus—the wonderful war with Porsenna, and steadfastness of Scævola, the banishment of Coriolanus, the war which he kindled against his country, the subsequent struggle of his feelings, and the final triumph of his patriotism at the all-powerful intercession of his mother;—these and the like circumstances, if they be examined from the proper point of view, cannot fail to be considered as relics and fragments of the ancient heroic traditions and heroic poems of the Romans[81].” Niebuhr, not contented with insulated ballads, has [pg 42]imagined the existence of a grand and complete Epopee, commencing with the accession of Tarquinius Priscus, and ending with the battle of Regillus[82]. This is a great deal more information than Cicero or Varro could have afforded us on the subject.

However numerous or extensive these ballads may have been, they soon sunk into oblivion; and in consequence of the overpowering influence of Greek authors and manners, they never formed the groundwork of a polished system of national poetry. The manifold witcheries of the Odyssey, and the harmony of the noble Hexameter, made so entire a conquest of the fancy and ears of the Romans, as to leave no room for an imitation, or even an affectionate preservation, of the ancient poems of their country, and led them, as we shall soon see, exclusively to adopt in their stead, the thoughts, the recollections, and the poetry of the Greeks. Cicero, in his Tusculan Disputations, mentions a poem by Appius Claudius Cæcus, who flourished in the fifth century of Rome[83]; but he does not say what was the nature or subject of this production, except that it was Pythagorean; and this is the solitary authentic notice transmitted to us of the existence of any thing which can be supposed to have been a regular or continued poem, during the first five centuries that elapsed from the building of the city.

Since, then, we can discover, during this period, nothing but those feeble dawings of dramatic, satiric, and heroic poetry, which never brightened to a perfect day, the only history of Roman literature which can be given during the long interval, consists in the progress and improvement of the Latin language. In the course of these five centuries, it was extremely variable, from two causes.—1st, Although their policy in this respect afterwards changed, one of the great principles of aggrandizement among the Romans in their early ages, was incorporating aliens, and admitting them to the rights of citizens. Hence, there was a constant influx to Rome of stranger tribes; and the dissonance within its walls was probably greater than had yet been any where heard since the memorable confusion at Babel.—2d, The Latin was merely a spoken language, or at least had not received stability by literary composition—writing at that time being confined, (in consequence of the want of materials for it,) to treaties, or short columnar inscriptions. So remarkable was the fluctuation produced by these causes, even during a very short period, that Polybius, speaking of a treaty concluded [pg 43]between the Carthaginians and Romans in the 245th Year of the City, during the Consulship of Publius Valerius and Marcus Horatius, declares, that the language used in it was so different from the Latin spoken in his time, that the most learned Romans could not explain its text[84].

Of this changeable tongue, the earliest specimen extant, and which is supposed to be as ancient as the time of Romulus, is the hymn chaunted by the Fratres Arvales, the college of priests above-mentioned, who were called Fratres, from the first members of the institution being the sons of Acca Laurentia, the nurse of Romulus. This song was inscribed, during the time of the Emperor Heliogabalus[85], on a stone, which was discovered on opening the foundations of the Sacristy at St Peter’s, in the year 1778. It is in the following words:—

“Enos Lases juvate,

Neve luerve Marmar sinis incurrer in pleoris.

Satur fufere Mars: limen sali sta berber:

Semones alternei advocapit cunctos.

Enos Marmor juvate,

Triumpe! triumpe!”

These words have been thus interpreted by Herman: “Nos Lares juvate, neve luem Mamuri sinis incurrere in plures. Satur fueris Mars: limen (i. e. postremum) sali sta vervex: Semones alterni jam duo capit cunctos. Nos Mamuri juvato—Triumphe! Triumphe”[86]! There are just sixteen letters used in the above inscription; and it appears from it, that at this early period the letter s was frequently used instead of r—that the final e was struck out, or rather, had not yet been added—the rich diphthong ei was employed instead of i, and the simple letter p, in words where f or ph came afterwards to be substituted.

Of the Carmen Saliare, sung by the Salian priests, appointed under Numa, for the protection of the Ancilia, or Sacred [pg 44]Shields, there remain only a few words, which have been cited by Varro, who remarks in them, what has already been noticed with regard to the Hymn of the Fratres Arvales, that the letter s often occurs in words where his contemporaries placed r—as Melios, for melior—Plusima, for plurima—Asena, for arena—Janitos, for janitor[87]. The Carmen Saliare, however, can scarcely be taken as a fair specimen of the state of the Roman language at the time it was composed. Among the nations adjacent to Rome, there were Salian priests, who had their hymns and solemn forms of invocation[88], which are said to have been, in part at least, adopted by Numa[89]. So that his Carmen Saliare probably approaches nearer to the Tuscan and Oscan dialects, than the Latin language did, even at that early period of the monarchy.

The fragments of a few laws, attributed to Numa, have been preserved by ancient jurisconsults and grammarians, and restored by Festus, with much pains, to their proper orthography, which had not been sufficiently attended to by those who first cited passages from this Regiam Majestatem of the Romans. One of these laws, as restored by him, is in the following terms:—“Sei cuips hemonem lobsum dolo sciens mortei duit pariceidad estod. sei im imprudens se dolo malod occisit pro capited oceisei et nateis eiius endo concioned arietem subicitod,” which law may be thus interpreted: “Si quis hominem liberum dolo sciens morti dederit parricida esto: Si cum imprudens, sine dolo malo, occiderit, pro capite occisi et natis ejus in concionem arietem subjicito.” A law, ascribed to Servius Tullius, has been thus given by Festus:—“Sei parentem puer verberit ast oloe plorasit, puer diveis parentum sacer esto—sei nurus sacra diveis parentum esto,”—which means, “Si parentem puer verberet, at ille ploraverit, puer divis parentum sacer esto; si nurus, sacra divis parentum esto”[90].

From the date of these Leges Regiæ, no specimen of the Latin language is now extant, till we come down to the Twelve Tables, enacted in the commencement of the fourth century of Rome. These celebrated institutions have descended to us in mutilated fragments, and their orthography has probably been in some respects modernised: yet they bear stronger marks of antiquity than the above-recited law of Servius Tullius, or even than those of Numa. The Latin writers themselves by whom they are quoted did not very well understand them, owing to the change which had taken place [pg 45]in the language. Accordingly, Cicero, and the early grammarians who cite them, have attempted rather to give the meaning than the precise words of the Decemvirs. Terrasson has endeavoured to bring them back to the old Oscan language, in which he supposes them to have been originally written; but his emendations are in a great measure conjectural, and his attempt is one of more promise than fulfilment. On the whole, they have been so much corrupted by modernising them, and by subsequent attempts to restore them to the ancient readings, that they cannot be implicitly relied on as specimens of the Roman language during the period in which they were promulgated. The laws themselves are very concise, and free from that tautology, which seems the characteristic of the enactments of nations farther advanced in refinement. The first law is, “S’ in jus vocat queat,” which is extremely elliptical in its expression, and means, “Si quis aliquem in jus vocet, vocatus eat.” In some respects the language of the Leges Regiæ, and twelve tables, possesses a richness of sound, which we do not find in more modern Latin, particularly in the use of the diphthong ai for æ, as vitai for vitæ, and of the diphthong ei for i, as sei for si. Horace might perhaps be well entitled to ridicule the person,

“Sic fautor veterum, ut tabulas peccare vetantes,

Quæ bisquinque viri sanxerunt, fœdera regum

Vel Gabiis, vel cum rigidis æquata Sabinis,

Pontificum libros, annosa volumina vatum,

Dictitet Albano Musas in monte loquutas:”

Yet he would have done well to have considered, if, amid the manifold improvements of the Augustan poets, they had judged right in rejecting those rich and sonorous diphthongs of the tabulæ peccare vetantes, which still sound with such strength and majesty in the lines of Lucretius.

There is scarcely a vestige of the Latin language remaining during the two centuries which succeeded the enactment of the twelve tables. At the end of that long period, and during the first Punic war, a celebrated inscription, which is still extant, recorded the naval victory obtained by the Consul Duillius, in 492, over the Carthaginians. The column on which it was engraved, and which became so famous by the title of the Columna Rostrata, was, as Livy[91] informs us, struck down by lightning during the interval between the second and third Punic wars. It remained buried among the ruins of Rome, till, at length, in 1565, its base, which contained the [pg 46]inscription, was dug up in the vicinity of the Capitol. So much, however, was it defaced, that many of the letters were illegible. These have been restored in the following manner by the conjectures of the learned:

“C. D[92]. exemet leciones maximosque magistratus novem castreis exfociunt. Macellam pucnandod cepet enque eodem macistratu rem navebos marid consol primos ceset clasesque navales primos ornavit cumque eis navebos claseis pœnicas omnes sumas copias Cartaciniensis præesente dictatored olorum in altod marid pucnandod vicit trigintaque naveis cepet cum socieis septem triremosque naveis XX captum numei DCC. captom æs navaled prædad poplom[93].”

In modern Latin the above inscription would run thus.—“Caius Duillius exemit: legiones, maximusque magistratus novem castris effugiunt. Macellam pugnando cepit; inque eodem magistratu, rem navibus mari Consul primus gessit, classesque navales primus ornavit; cumque iis navibus classes Punicas omnes summas copias Carthaginienses, præsente dictatore illorum, in alto mari pugnando vicit: Trigintaque naves cepit cum sociis septem, triremosque naves decem. Captum nummi, captum æs navali præda, populo donavit.”

There are also extant two inscriptions, which were engraved on the tombstones of Lucius Scipio Barbatus and his son Lucius Scipio, of which the former was somewhat prior, and the latter a year subsequent to the date of the Duillian inscription. The epitaph on Barbatus was discovered in 1780, in the vault of the Scipian family, between the Via Appia and Via Latina. Mr Hobhouse informs us that it is inscribed on a handsome but plain sarcophagus, and he adds, “that the eloquent simple inscription becomes the virtues and fellow-countrymen of the deceased, and instructs us more than a chapter of Livy in the style and language of the Republican Romans”[94]:—

“Cornelius Lucius Scipio Barbatus Gnaivod patre prognatus fortis vir sapiensque quoius forma virtutei parisuma fuit. Consol Censor Aidilis quei fuit apud vos Taurasia Cisauna Samnio cepit subicit omne Loucana opsidesque abdoucit.”

The above may be converted into modern Latin, as follows:

“C. L. Scipio Barbatus, Cneio patre prognatus, fortis vir sapiensque, cujus forma virtuti par fuit. Consul, Censor, [pg 47]Ædilis qui fuit apud vos, Taurasiam, Cisaunam, Samnio cepit; subjecit omnem Lucaniam obsidesque abducit.” The other Scipian epitaph had been discovered long before the above, on a slab which was found lying near the Porta Capena, having been detached from the family vault. Though a good many years later as to the date of its composition, the epitaph on the son bears marks of higher antiquity than that on the father:—

“Honc oino ploirume consentiunt duonoro optumo fuise viro Lucium Scipione. Filios Barbati Consol Censor Ædilis hec fuit. Hec cepit Corsica Aleriaque urbe: dedit tempestatibus aide mereto;” which means, “Hunc unum plurimi consentiunt Romæ bonorum optimum fuisse virum Lucium Scipionem. Filius Barbati, Consul, Censor, Ædilis his fuit. Hic cepit Corsicam Aleriamque urbem: dedit tempestatibus ædem merito”.

The celebrated Eugubian tables were so called from having been found at Eugubium (Gubbio) a city in ancient Umbria, near the foot of the Apennines, where they were dug up in 1444. When first discovered, they were believed to be in the Egyptian language; but it was afterwards observed that five of the seven tables were in the Etruscan character and language, or rather in the Umbrian dialect of that tongue, and the other two in Roman letters, though in a rustic jargon, between Latin and Etruscan, with such mixture of each, as might be expected from an increased intercourse of the nations, and the subjugation of the one by the other.[95] The two tables in the Latin character were written towards the close of the sixth century of Rome, and those in the Etruscan letters a short while previous. So little, however, was the Etruscan language fixed or understood, even in the middle of last century, when the Etruscan rage was at its height in Italy, that Bonarota believed that those tables contained treaties of the ancient Italian nations—Gori, an Oscan poem, and Maffei, legal enactments, till Passerius at length discovered that they consisted solely of ordinances for the performance of sacred rites and religious ceremonies.[96]

On comparing the fragments of the Leges Regiæ with the Duillian and Scipian inscriptions, it does not appear that the Roman language, however greatly it may have varied, had either improved or approached much nearer to modern Latin in the fifth century than in the time of the kings. Short and mutilated as these laws and inscriptions are, they still enable us to draw many important conclusions with regard to the general state of the language during the existence of the monarchy, and the first ages of the republic. It has already been mentioned that the diphthong ai was employed where ae came to be afterwards substituted, as aide for æde; ei instead of i, as castreis for castris; and oi in place of œ, as coilum for cœlum. The vowel e is often introduced instead of o, as hemo for homo, while, on the other hand, o is sometimes used instead of e, as vostrum for vestrum; and Scipio Africanus is said to have been the first who always wrote the e in such words[97]. U is frequently changed into o, as honc for hunc, sometimes into ou, as abdoucit for abducit, and sometimes to oi, as oino for uno. On the whole, it appears that the vowels were in a great measure used indiscriminately, and often, especially in inscriptions, they were altogether omitted, as bne for bene, though sometimes, again, an e final was added, as face for fac, dice for dic. As to the consonants,—b at the beginning of a word was du, as duonorum for bonorum, and it was p at the middle or end, as opsides for obsides. The letter g certainly does not appear in those earliest specimens of the Latin language—the hymn of the Fratres Arvales, and Leges Regiæ, where c is used in its place. Plutarch says, that this letter was utterly unknown at Rome during the space of five centuries, and was first introduced by the grammarian Spurius Carvillius in the year 540[98]. It occurs, however, in the epitaph of Scipio Barbatus, which was written at least half a century before that date; and, what is remarkable, it is there placed in a word where c was previously and subsequently employed, Gnaivo being written for Cnæo. The Letter r was not, as has been asserted, unknown to the ancient Romans, but it was chiefly used in the beginning and end of words—s being employed instead of it in the middle, as lases for lares. Frequently the letters m and s were omitted at the end of words, especially, for the sake of euphony, when the following word began with a consonant—thus we have [pg 49]Aleria cepit, for Aleriam cepit. The ancient Romans were equally careful to avoid a hiatus of vowels, and hence they wrote sin in place of si in. Double consonants were never seen till the time of Ennius[99]; and we accordingly find in the old inscriptions sumas for summas: er was added to the infinitive passive, as darier for dari, and d was subjoined to words ending with a vowel, as in altod, marid, pucnandod. It likewise appears that the Romans were for a long period unacquainted with the use of aspirates, and were destitute of the phi and chi sounds of the Greek alphabet. Hence they wrote triumpe for triumphe, and pulcer for pulcher[100]. We also meet with a good many words, particularly substantives, which afterwards became altogether obsolete, and some are applied in a sense different from that in which they were subsequently used. Finally, a difference in the conjugation of the same verb, and a want of inflection in nouns, particularly proper names of countries or cities, where the nominative frequently occurs instead of the accusative, show the unsettled state of the language at that early period[101].

It is unnecessary to prosecute farther the history of Roman inscriptions, since, immediately after the erection of the Duillian column in 494, Latin became a written literary language; and although the diphthongs ai and ei were retained for more than a century longer, most of the other archaisms were totally rejected, and the language was so enriched by a more copious admixture of the Greek, that, while always inferior to that tongue, in ease, precision, perspicuity, and copiousness, it came at length to rival it in dignity of enunciation, and in that lofty accent which harmonized so well with the elevated character of the people by whom it was uttered.

This sudden improvement in language, as well as the equally sudden revolution in taste and literature by which it was accompanied, must be entirely and exclusively attributed to the conquest of Magna Græcia, and the intercourse opened to the Romans with the Greek colonies of Sicily. Their minds were, no doubt, in some measure prepared, during the five centuries which had followed the foundation of the city, for receiving the seeds of learning. The very existence of social life for so long a period must have in some degree reclaimed them from their native barbarism. Freed from hourly alarms excited by the attacks of foes whose territories [pg 50]reached almost to the gates of the city, it was now possible for them to enjoy those pleasures which can only be relished in tranquillity; but their genius, I believe, would have remained unproductive and cold for half a millennium longer, had it not been kindled by contact with a more polished and animated nation, whose compositions could not be read without enthusiasm, or imitated without advantage.

However uncertain may be the story concerning the arrival of Œnotrus in the south of Italy, the passage of the Pelasgi from Epirus to the Po, seventeen generations before the Trojan war, or the settlement of the Arcadian Evander in Latium, there can be no doubt, that, about the commencement of the Roman æra, the dissensions of the reigning families of Greece, the commotions which pervaded its realms, the suggestions of oracles, the uncertain tenure of landed property, the restless spirit of adventure, and seasons of famine, all co-operated in producing an emigration of numerous tribes, chiefly Dorians and Achæans of Peloponnesus, who founded colonies on the coasts of Asia, the Ægean islands, and Italy. In this latter country, (which seems in all ages to have been the resort and refuse of a redundant or unfortunate population,) the Greek strangers first settled in a southern district, then known by the ancient name of Iapygia, and since denominated Calabria. Serenity of climate, joined to the vigour of laws, simplicity of manners, and the energy peculiar to every rising community, soon procured these colonies an enviable increase of prosperity and power. They gradually drove the native inhabitants to the interior of the country, and formed a political state, which assumed the magnificent name of Magna Græcia—an appellation which was by degrees applied to the whole coast which bounds the bay of Tarentum. On that shore, about half a century after the foundation of Rome, arose the flourishing and philosophic town of Crotona, and the voluptuous city of Sybaris. These were the consolidated possessions of the Grecian colonies; but they had also scattered seats all along the western coast of the territory which now forms the kingdom of Naples.

As in most other states, corruption of manners was the consequence of prosperity and the cause of decay. Towards the close of the third century of Rome, Pythagoras had in some measure succeeded in reforming the morals of Crotona, while the rival state of Sybaris, like the Moorish Grenada, hastened to destruction, amid carousals and civil dissensions; and though once capable, as is said, (but probably with some exaggeration,) of bringing three hundred thousand soldiers [pg 51]into the field[102], it sunk, after a short struggle, under the power of Crotona. The other independent states were successively agitated by the violence of popular revolution, and crushed by the severity of despotism. As in the mother country, they had constant dissensions among themselves. This rivalship induced them to call in the assistance of the Sicilians—a measure which prepared the way for their subjection to the vigorous but detestable sway of the elder Dionysius, and of Agathocles. Tarentum, founded about the same time with Sybaris and Crotona, was the most powerful city of the Grecian colonies toward the conclusion of their political existence, and the last formidable rival to the Romans in Italy. Like the neighbouring states, it was chiefly ruined by the succour of foreign allies. Unsuccessfully defended by Alexander Molossus, oppressed by the Syracusan tyrants, and despoiled by Cleomenes of Sparta, neither the genius of Pyrrhus, nor the power of Carthage, could preserve it from the necessity of final submission to the Romans.

In all their varieties of fortune, the Grecian colonies had maintained the manners and institutions of the mother country, which no people ever entirely relinquish with the soil they have left. A close political connection also subsisted between them; and, about the year 300 of Rome, the Athenians sent to the assistance of Sybaris a powerful expedition, which, on the decay of that city, founded the town of Thurium in the immediate vicinity. This constant intercourse cherished and preserved the literary spirit of the colonies of Magna Græcia. Herodotus, the father of history, and Lysias, whose orations are the purest models of the simple Attic eloquence, were, in early youth, among the original founders of the colony of Thurium[103], and the latter held a share in its government till an advanced period of life. The Eleatic school of philosophy was founded in Magna Græcia; and the impulse which the wisdom of Pythagoras had given to the mind, promoted also the studies of literature. Plato visited Tarentum during the consulship of Lucius Camillus and Appius Claudius[104], which was in the 406th year of Rome, and Zeuxis was invited from Greece to paint at Crotona the magnificent temple of Juno, which had been erected in that city[105]. [pg 52]History and poetry were cultivated with a success which did not dishonour the Grecian name. Lycus of Rhegium was the civil, and Glaucus of the same city was the literary historian of Magna Græcia. Orpheus of Crotona was the author of a poem on the expedition of the Argonauts, attributed to an elder Orpheus. The lyric productions of Ibicus of Rhegium rivalled those of Anacreon and Alcæus. Two hundred and fifty-five comedies, written by Alexis of Thurium, the titles of which have been collected by Meursius, and a few fragments of them by Stephens, are said to have been composed in the happiest vein of the middle comedy of the Greeks, which possessed much of the comic force of Aristophanes and Cratinus, without their malignity. In his Meropis and Ancylio, this dramatist is supposed to have carped at Plato; and his comedy founded on the life of Pythagoras, was probably in a similar vein of satire. Stephano, the son of Alexis, and who, according to Suidas, was the uncle of Menander, became chiefly celebrated for his tragedies; but his comedies were also distinguished by happy pictures of life, and uncommon harmony of versification.

War, which had so long retarded the progress of literature at Rome, at length became the cause of its culture. The Romans were now involved in a contest with the civilized colonies of Magna Græcia. Accordingly, when they garrisoned Thurium, in order to defend it against the Samnites, and when in 482 they obtained complete possession of Magna Græcia, by the capture of Tarentum, which presented the last resistance to their arms, they could not fail to catch a portion of Grecian taste and spirit, or at least to admire the beautiful creations of Grecian fancy. Many of the conquerors remained in Magna Græcia, while, on the other hand, all the inhabitants of its cities, who were most distinguished for literary attainments, fixed their residence at Rome.

The first Carthaginian war, which broke out in 489, so far from retarding the literary influence of these strangers, accelerated the steps of improvement. Unlike the former contests of the Romans, which were either with neighbouring states, or with barbarous nations who came to attack them in their own territories, it was not attended with that immediate danger which is utterly inconsistent with literary leisure. In its prosecution, too, the Romans for the first time carried their arms beyond Italy. Literature, indeed, was not one of those novelties in which the western part of Africa was fruitful, but, with the exception of Greece itself, there was no country where it flourished more luxuriantly than in Sicily; and that island, as is well known, was the principal scene of the first great strug[pg 53]gle between Rome and Carthage. None of the Grecian colonies shone with such splendour as Syracuse, a city founded by the Dorians of Corinth, in the 19th year of Rome. This capital had attained the summit both of political and literary renown long before the first Carthaginian war. Æschylus passed the concluding years of his life in Sicily, and wrote, it is said, his tragedy of The Persians, to gratify the curiosity of Hiero I. King of Syracuse, who was desirous to see a representation of the celebrated war which the Greeks had waged against Xerxes. Epicharmus, retained in the same elegant court, was the first who rejected, on the stage, the ancient mummeries of the satires, and composed dramas on that regular elaborate plan, which was reckoned worthy of imitation by Plautus—

“Dicitur ————————————

Plautus ad exemplar Siculi properare Epicharmi[106].”

Dionysius, the tyrant, was also a patron of learning, and was himself a competitor in the fields of literature. Philistus, the historian, was the friend of the elder, and Plato of the younger Dionysius. Aristippus and Æschines passed some time in the court of these tyrants. Theocritus, and other poets of the Alexandrian constellation, resided in Sicily before they partook in Egypt of the splendid patronage of the Ptolemies. The Syracusans, who put to death so many of their Athenian prisoners in cold blood, and with frightful tortures, spared those of them who could recite the verses of Euripides. Scenic representations were peculiarly popular in Sicily: Its towns were crowded with theatres, and its dramatists were loaded with honours. The theatrical exhibitions which the Roman invaders of Sicily must have witnessed, and the respect there paid to distinguished poets, would naturally awaken literary emulation. During a contest of nearly twenty-four years between Rome and Carthage, Hiero II., King of Syracuse, was the zealous and strenuous ally of the Romans. At the conclusion of peace between these rival nations, in the year 512, part of Sicily was ceded to the Romans, and the intercourse which consequently arose with the inhabitants of this newly-acquired territory, laid the foundation of those studies, which were afterwards brought to perfection by the progress of time, and by direct communication with Greece itself[107].

Accordingly, it is in the end of the fifth, and beginning of the sixth century, from the building of Rome, that we find among its inhabitants the earliest vestiges of literature. Poetry, as with most other nations, was the first of the liberal arts which was cultivated among the Romans; and dramatic poetry, founded on the school of Greece, appears to have been that which was earliest preferred. We have seen, indeed, that previous to this period, and in the year 392, when the city was afflicted with a plague, the Senate decreed that players should be summoned from Etruria to appease the wrath of the gods by scenic representations, and that the Roman youth imitated these expiatory performances, by rallying each other in extemporary verses. This by some has been considered as a dawning of the drama, since the characters probably bore a resemblance to the Arlequin and Scaramouch of the Italian farces. But

LIVIUS ANDRONICUS,

A native of Magna Græcia, was the first who attempted to establish at Rome a regular theatre, or to connect a dramatic fable, free from the mummeries, the ballet, and the melodrama of the ancient satires[108]. Tiraboschi asserts, that when his country was finally subdued by the Romans, in 482, Livius was made captive and brought to Rome[109]. It is generally believed that he there became the slave, and afterwards the freedman of Livius Salinator, from whom he derived one of his names: these facts, however, do not seem to rest on any authority more ancient than the Eusebian Chronicle[110]. The precise period of his death is uncertain; but in Cicero’s Dialogue De Senectute, Cato is introduced saying, that he had seen old Livius while he was himself a youth[111]. Now Cato was born in 519, and since the period of youth among the Romans was considered as commencing at fifteen, it may be presumed that the existence of Livius was at least protracted till the year 534 of the city. It has been frequently said, that he lived till the year 546[112], because Livy[113] mentions that a hymn composed by this ancient poet was publicly sung in that [pg 55]year, to avert the disasters threatened by an alarming prodigy; but the historian does not declare that it was written for the occasion, or even recently before.

The earliest play of Livius was represented in 513 or 514, about a year after the termination of the first Punic war. Osannus, a modern German author, has written a learned and chronological dissertation on the question, in which of these years the first Roman play was performed[114]; but it is extremely difficult for us to come to any satisfactory conclusion on a subject which, even in the time of Cicero, was one of doubt and controversy[115]. Like Thespis, and other dramatists in the commencement of the theatrical art, Livius was an actor, and for a considerable time the sole performer in his own pieces. Afterwards, however, his voice failing, in consequence of the audience insisting on a repetition of favourite passages, he introduced a boy who relieved him, by declaiming in concert with the flute, while he himself executed the corresponding gesticulations in the monologues, and in the parts where high exertion was required, employing his own voice only in the conversational and less elevated scenes[116]. It was observed that his action grew more lively and animated, because he exerted his whole strength in gesticulating, while another had the care and trouble of pronouncing. “Hence,” continues Livy, “the practice arose of reciting those passages which required much modulation of the voice, to the gesture and action of the comedian. Thenceforth the custom so far prevailed, that the comedians never pronounced anything except the verses of the dialogues[117]:” And this system, which one should think must have completely destroyed the theatric illusion, continued, under certain modifications, to subsist on the Roman stage during the most refined periods of taste and literature.

The popularity of Livius increasing from these performances, as well as from a propitiatory hymn he had composed, and which had been followed by great public success, a building was assigned to him on the Aventine hill. This edifice was partly converted into a theatre, and was also in[pg 56]habited by a troop of players, for whom Livius wrote his pieces, and frequently acted along with them[118].

It has been disputed whether the first drama represented by Livius Andronicus at Rome was a tragedy or comedy[119]. However this may be, it appears from the names which have been preserved of his plays, that he wrote both tragedies and comedies. These titles, which have been collected by Fabricius and other writers, are, Achilles, Adonis, Ægisthus, Ajax, Andromeda, Antiopa, Centauri, Equus Trojanus, Helena, Hermione, Ino, Lydius, Protesilaodamia, Serenus, Tereus, Teucer, Virgo[120]. Such names also evince that most of his dramas were translated or imitated from the works of his countrymen of Magna Græcia, or from the great tragedians of Greece. Thus, Æschylus wrote a tragedy on the subject of Ægisthus: There is still an Ajax of Sophocles extant, and he is known to have written an Andromeda: Stobæus mentions the Antiopa of Euripides: Four Greek dramatists, Sophocles, Euripides, Anaxandrides, and Philæterus, composed tragedies on the subject of Tereus; and Epicharmus, as well as others, chose for their comedies the story of the Syrens.

Little, however, except the titles, remains to us, from the dramas of Livius. The longest passage we possess in connection, extends only to four lines. It forms part of a hymn to Diana, recited by the chorus, in the tragedy of Ino, and contains an animated exhortation to a person about to proceed to the chase:—

“Et jam purpureo suras include cothurno,

Baltheus et revocet volucres in pectore sinus;

Pressaque jam gravida crepitent tibi terga pharetra:

Dirige odorisequos ad cæca cubilia canes[121].”

This passage testifies the vast improvement effected by Livius on the Latin Tongue; and indeed the polish of the language and metrical correctness of these hexameter lines, have of late led to a suspicion that they are not the production of a period so ancient as the age of Livius[122], or at least that they [pg 57]have been modernised by some later hand. With this earliest offspring of the Latin muse, it may be curious to compare a production from her last age of decrepitude. Nemesianus, in his Cynegeticon, has closely imitated this passage while exhorting Diana to prepare for the chase:

“Sume habitus, arcumque manu; pictamque pharetram

Suspende ex humeris; sint aurea tela, sagittæ;

Candida puniceis aptentur crura cothurnis:

Sit chlamys aurato multum subtemine lusa,

Corrugesque sinus gemmatis baltheus artet

Nexibus ——”

As the above-quoted verses in the chorus of the Ino are the only passage among the fragments of Livius, from which a connected meaning can be elicited, we must take our opinion of his poetical merits from those who judged of them while his writings were yet wholly extant. Cicero has pronounced an unfavourable decision, declaring that they scarcely deserved a second perusal[123]. They long, however, continued popular in Rome, and were read by the youths in schools even during the Augustan age of poetry. It is evident, indeed, that during that golden period of Roman literature, there prevailed a taste corresponding to our black-letter rage, which led to an inordinate admiration of the works of Livius, and to the bitter complaints of Horace, that they should be extolled as perfect, or held up by old pedants to the imitation of youth in an age when so much better models existed:

“Non equidem insector, delendaque carmina Livi

Esse reor, memini quæ plagosum mihi parvo

Orbilium dictare; sed emendata videri,

Pulchraque, et exactis minimum distantia, miror:

Inter quæ verbum emicuit si forte decorum, et

Si versus paulo concinnior unus et alter;

Injuste totum ducit venditque poema[124].”

But although Livius may have been too much read in the schools, and too much admired in an age, which could boast of models so greatly superior to his writings, he is at least entitled to praise, as the inventor among the Romans of a species of poetry which was afterwards carried by them to much higher perfection. By translating the Odyssey, too, into Latin verse, he adopted the means which, of all others, was most likely to foster and improve the infant literature of his country—as he thus presented it with an image of the most [pg 58]pure and perfect taste, and at the same time with those wild and romantic adventures, which are best suited to attract the sympathy and interest of a half-civilized nation. This happy influence could not be prevented even by the use of the rugged Saturnian verse, which led Cicero to compare the translation of Livius to the ancient statues, which might be attributed to Dædalus[125].

The Latin Odyssey commenced—

“Virum mihi, Camena, insece versutum.”

There have also been three lines preserved by Festus, which are translated from the 8th Book, expressing the effects produced on the mind by a sea-storm—

—— “Namque nilum pejus

Macerat hemonem quamde mare sævom: vires quoi

Sunt magnæ, topper confringent importunæ undæ[126].”

From the æra in which the dramatic productions of Livius appeared, theatrical representations formed the object of a peculiar art. The more regular drama, founded on that of Magna Græcia, or Sicily, being divided into tragedy and comedy, became, in a great measure, the province of professional players or authors, while the Roman youths of distinction continued to amuse themselves with the Fabulæ Atellanæ, and Exodia, a species of satirical medley, derived from the ancient Etruscans, or from the Osci, the nature and progress of which I shall hereafter have occasion more particularly to examine.

CNEIUS NÆVIUS,

A native of Campania, was the first imitator of the regular dramatic works which had been produced by Livius Andronicus. He served in the first Punic war, and his earliest plays were represented at Rome in the year 519[127]. The names of his tragedies, from which as few fragments remain as from those of Livius, are still preserved:—Alcestis, (from which there is yet extant a description of old age in rugged and barbarous verse)—Danae, Dulorestes, Hesiona, Hector, Iphigenia, Lycurgus, Phœnissæ, Protesilaus, and Telephus. All [pg 59]these were translated, or closely imitated from the works of Euripides, Anaxandrides, and other Greek dramatists. Cicero commends a passage in the Hector, one of the above-mentioned tragedies[128], where the hero of the piece, delighted with the praises which he had received from his father Priam, exclaims—

“—— Lætus sum

Laudari me abs te, pater, laudato viro[129].”

Nævius, however, was accounted a better comic than tragic poet. Cicero has given us some specimens of his jests, with which that celebrated wit and orator appears to have been greatly amused; but they consist rather in unexpected turns of expression, or a play of words, than in genuine humour. One of these, recorded in the second Book De Oratore, has found its way into our jest-books; and though one of the best in Cicero, it is one of the worst of Joe Miller. It is the saying of a knavish servant, “that nothing was shut up from him in his master’s house”.—“Solum esse, cui domi nihil sit nec obsignatum, nec occlusum: Quod idem,” adds Cicero, “in bono servo dici solet, sed hoc iisdem etiam verbis.”

Unfortunately for Nævius, he did not always confine himself in his comedies to such inoffensive jests. The dramas of Magna Græcia and Sicily, especially those of Epicharmus, were the prototypes of the older Greek comedy; and accordingly the most ancient Latin plays, particularly those of Nævius, which were formed on the same school, though there be no evidence that they ridiculed political events, partook of the personal satire and invective which pervaded the productions of Aristophanes. If, as is related, the comedies of Nævius were directed against the vices and corporal defects of the Consuls and Senators of Rome, he must have been the most original of the Latin comic poets, and infinitely more so than Plautus or Terence; since although he may have parodied or copied the dramatic fables of the ancient Greek or Sicilian comedies, the spirit and colouring of the particular scenes must have been his own. The elder Scipio was one of the chief objects of his satiric representations, and the poetic severity with which Aristophanes persecuted Socrates or Euripides, was hardly more indecent and misdirected than the sarcasms of Nævius against the greatest captain, the most accomplished scholar, and the most virtuous citizen of his age. [pg 60]Some lines are still extant, in which he lampooned Scipio on account of a youthful amour, in which he had been detected by his father—

“Etiam qui res magnas manu sæpe gessit gloriose,

Cujus facta viva nunc vigent, qui apud gentes solus

Præstat, eum suus pater, cum pallio uno, ab amicâ abduxit.”

The conqueror of Hannibal treated these libels with the same indifference with which Cæsar afterwards regarded the lines of Catullus. Nævius, however, did not long escape with impunity. Rome was a very different sort of republic from Athens: It was rather an aristocracy than a democracy, and its patricians were not always disposed to tolerate the taunts and insults which the chiefs of the Greek democracy were obliged to endure. Nævius had said in one of his verses, that the patrician family of the Metelli had frequently obtained the Consulship before the age permitted by law, and he insinuated that they had been promoted to this dignity, not in consequence of their virtues, but the cruelty of the Roman fate:

“Fato Metelli Romæ fiunt Consules.”

With the assistance of the other patricians, the Metelli retorted his sarcasms in a Saturnian stanza, not unlike the measure of some of our old ballads, in which they threatened to play the devil with their witty persecutor—

“Et Nævio Poetæ,

Cum sæpe læderentur,

Dabunt malum Metelli,

Dabunt malum Metelli,

Dabunt malum Metelli.”

The Metelli, however, did not confine their vengeance to this ingenious and spirited satire, in the composition of which, it may be presumed that the whole Roman Senate was engaged. On account of the unceasing abuse and reproaches which he had uttered against them, and other chief men of the city, he was thrown into prison, where he wrote his comedies, the Hariolus and Leontes. These plays being in some measure intended as a recantation of his former invectives, he was liberated by the tribunes of the people.[130] He soon, however, relapsed into his former courses, and continued to persecute the nobility in his dramas and satires with such implacable dislike, that he was at length driven from Rome by their in[pg 61]fluence, and having retired to Utica[131], he died there, in the year 550, according to Cicero[132]; but Varro fixes his death somewhat later. Before leaving Rome, he had composed the following epitaph on himself, which Gellius remarks is full of Campanian arrogance; though the import of it, he adds, might be allowed to be true, had it been written by another[133];

“Mortales immortales flere si foret fas,

Flerent divæ Camœnæ Nævium poetam;

Itaque postquam est Orcino traditus thesauro,

Oblitei sunt Romæ loquier Latina lingua[134].”

Besides his comedies and the above epitaph, Nævius was also author of the Cyprian Iliad, a translation from a Greek poem, called the Cyprian Epic. Aristotle, in the 23d chapter of his Poetics, mentions the original work, (τα κυπρια,) which, he says, had furnished many subjects for the drama. Some writers, particularly Pindar, have attributed this Greek poem to Homer; and there was long an idle story current, that he had given it as a portion to his daughter Arsephone. Herodotus, in his second Book, concludes, after some critical discussion, that it was not written by Homer, but that it was doubtless the work of a contemporary poet, or one who lived shortly after him. Heyne thinks it most probable, that it was by a poet called Stasinus, a native of the island of Cyprus, and that it received its name from the country of its author[135]. Whoever may have written this Cyprian Epic, it contained twelve books, and was probably a work of amorous and romantic fiction. It commenced with the nuptials of Thetis and Peleus—it related the contention of the three goddesses on Mount Ida—the fables concerning Palamedes—the story of the daughters of Anius—and the love adventures of the Phrygian fair during the early period of the siege of Troy—and it terminated with the council of the gods, at which it was resolved that Achilles should be withdrawn from the war, by sowing dissension between him and Atrides[136].

A metrical chronicle, which chiefly related the events of the first Punic war, was another, and probably the last work of Nævius, since Cicero says, that in writing it he filled up the leisure of his latter days with wonderful complacency and satisfaction[137]. It was originally undivided; but, after his death, was separated into seven books[138].—Although the first Punic war was the principal subject, as appears from its announcement,

“Qui terräi Latiäi hemones tuserunt

Vires fraudesque Poinicas fabor;”

yet it also afforded a rapid sketch of the preceding incidents of Roman history. It commenced with the flight of Æneas from Carthage, in a ship built by Mercury[139]; and the early wars of the Romans were detailed in the first and second books. To judge by the fragments which remain, the whole work appears to have been full of mythological machinery. Macrobius informs us, that some lines of this production described the Romans tost by a tempest, and represented Venus complaining of the hardships which they suffered to Jupiter, who consoles her by a prospect of their future glory—a passage which probably suggested those verses in the first book of the Æneid, where Venus, in like manner, complains to Jupiter of the danger experienced by her son in a storm, and the god consoles her by assurances of his ultimate prosperity[140]. Cicero mentions, that Ennius, too, though he classes Nævius among the fauns and rustic bards, had borrowed, or, if he refused to acknowledge his obligations, had pilfered, many ornaments from his predecessor[141]. In the same passage, Cicero, while he admits that Ennius was the more elegant and correct writer, bears testimony to the merit of the older bard, and declares, that the Punic war of this antiquated poet afforded him a pleasure as exquisite as the finest statue that was ever formed by Myron. To judge, however, from the lines which remain, though in general too much broken to enable us even to divine their meaning, the style of Nævius in this [pg 63]work was more rugged and remote from modern Latin than that of his own plays and satires, or the dramas of Livius Andronicus.

The whole, too, is written in the rough, unmodulated, Saturnian verse—a sort of irregular iambics, said to have been originally employed by Faunus and the prophets, who delivered their oracles in this measure. To such rude and unpolished verses Ennius alludes in a fragment of his Annals, while explaining his reasons for not treating of the first Punic war—

—— “Scripsere alii rem

Versibus, quos olim Fauni, vatesque canebant;

Cum neque Musarum scopulos quisquam superarat,

Nec dicti studiosus erat.”

As this was the most ancient species of measure employed in Roman poetry, as it was universally used before the melody of Greek verse was poured on the Roman ear, and as, from ancient practice, the same strain continued to be repeated till the age of Ennius, by whom the heroic measure was introduced, it would not be suitable to omit some notice of its origin and structure in an account of Roman literature and poetry.

Several writers have supposed that the Saturnian measure was borrowed by the Romans from the Greeks[142], having been used by Euripides, and particularly by Archilochus; but others have believed that it was an invention of the ancient Italians[143]. It was first employed in the Carmen Saliare, songs of triumph, supplications to the gods, or monumental inscriptions, and was afterwards, as we have seen, adopted in the works of Livius Andronicus and Nævius. In consequence of the fragments which remain of the Saturnian verses being so short and corrupted, it is extremely difficult to fix their regular measure, or reduce them to one standard of versification. Herman seems to consider a Saturnian line as having regularly consisted of two iambuses, an amphibrachys, and three trochaës—

˘ _ | ˘ _ | ˘ _ ˘ | _ ˘ | _ ˘ | _ ˘

A dactyl, however, was occasionally admitted into the place of the first or second trochaë, and a spondee was not unfrequently introduced indiscriminately. It also appears that a [pg 64]Saturnian line was sometimes divided into two—the first line consisting of the two iambuses and amphibrachys, and the second of the trochaës, whence the Saturnian verse has been sometimes called iambic, and at others trochaic.

The Hexameter verse, which had been invented by the Greeks, was first introduced into Latium, or at least, was first employed in a work of any extent, by

ENNIUS,

—— “Qui primus amœno

Detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam,

Per gentes Italas hominum quæ clara clueret.”

This poet, who has generally received the glorious appellation of the Father of Roman Song, was a native of Rudiæ, a town in Calabria, and lived from the year of Rome 515 to 585[144]. In his early youth he went to Sardinia; and, if Silius Italicus may be believed, he served in the Calabrian levies, which, in the year 538, followed Titus Manlius to the war which he waged in that island against the favourers of the Carthaginian cause[145]. After the termination of the campaign, he continued to live for twelve years in Sardinia[146]. He was at length brought to Rome by Cato, the Censor, who, in 550, visited Sardinia, on returning as quæstor from Africa[147]. At Rome he fixed his residence on the Aventine hill, where he lived in a very frugal manner, having only a single servant maid as an attendant[148]. He instructed, however, the Patrician youth in Greek, and acquired the friendship of many of the most illustrious men in the state. Being distinguished (like Æschylus, the great father of Grecian tragedy) in arms as well as letters, he followed M. Fulvius Nobilior during his expedition to Ætolia in 564[149]; and in 569 he obtained the freedom of the city, through the favour of Quintus Fulvius Nobilior, the son of his former patron, Marcus[150]. He was also protected by the elder Scipio Africanus, whom he is said to have accompanied in all his campaigns:

“Hærebat doctus lateri, castrisque solebat

Omnibus in medias Ennius ire tubas[151].”

It is difficult, however, to see in what expeditions he could have attended this renowned general. His Spanish and African wars were concluded before Ennius was brought from Sardinia to Rome; and the campaign against Antiochus was commenced and terminated while he was serving under Fulvius Nobilior in Ætolia[152]. In his old age he obtained the friendship of Scipio Nasica; and the degree of intimacy subsisting between them has been characterised by the well-known anecdote of their successively feigning to be from home[153]. He is said to have been intemperate in drinking[154], which brought on the disease called Morbus Articularis, a disorder resembling the gout, of which he died at the age of seventy, just after he had exhibited his tragedy of Thyestes:

“Ennius ipse pater dum pocula siccat iniqua,

Hoc vitio tales fertur meruisse dolores[155].”

The evils, however, of old age and indigence were supported by him, as we learn from Cicero, with such patience, and even cheerfulness, that one would almost have imagined he derived satisfaction from circumstances which are usually regarded, as being, of all others, the most dispiriting and oppressive[156]. The honours due to his character and talents were, as is frequently the case, reserved till after his death, when a bust of him was placed in the family tomb of the Scipios[157], who, till the time of Sylla, continued the practice of burying, instead of burning, their dead. In the days of Livy, the bust still remained near that sepulchre, beyond the Porta Capena, along with the statues of Africanus and Scipio Asiaticus.[158] The tomb was discovered in 1780, on a farm situated between the Via Appia and Via Latina. The slabs, which have been since removed to the Vatican, bear several inscriptions, commemorating different persons of the Scipian family. Neither statues, nor any other memorial, then existed of Africanus [pg 66]himself, or of Asiaticus[159]; but a laurelled bust of Pepperino stone, which was found in this tomb, and which now stands on the Sarcophagus of Scipio Barbatus in the Vatican, is supposed to be that of Ennius[160]. There is also still extant an epitaph on this poet, reported to have been written by himself[161], strongly characteristic of that overweening conceit and that high estimation of his own talents, which are said to have formed the chief blemish of his character:—

“Aspicite, O cives, senis Ennî imaginis formam;

Hic vestrum panxit maxuma facta patrum.

Nemo me lacrumis decoret, nec funera fletu

Faxit—cur? volito vivus per ora virûm[162].”

The lines formerly quoted[163], which were written by Nævius for his tomb-stone, express as high a sense of his own poetical merits as the above verses; but there is in them something plaintive and melancholy, quite different from the triumphant exultation in the epitaph of Ennius.

To judge by the fragments of his works which remain, Ennius greatly surpassed his predecessors, not only in poetical genius, but in the art of versification. By his time, indeed, the best models of Greek composition had begun to be studied at Rome. Ennius particularly professed to have imitated Homer, and tried to persuade his countrymen that the soul and genius of that great poet had revived in him, through the medium of a peacock, according to the process of Pythagorean transmigration. It is to this fantastic genealogy that Persius has alluded in his 6th satire:—

“Cor jubet hoc Enni, postquam destertuit esse

Mæonides Quintus, pavone ex Pythagoreo.”

From the following lines of Lucretius it would appear, that Ennius somewhere in his works had feigned that the shade of Homer appeared to him, and explained to him the nature and laws of the universe:—

“Etsi præterea tamen esse Acherusia Templa

Ennius æternis exponit versibus edens;

Quo neque permanent animæ, neque corpora nostra,

Sed quædam simulacra modis pallentia miris:

Unde, sibi exortam, semper florentis Homeri

Commemorat speciem, lacrumas effundere salsas

Cœpisse, et rerum naturam expandere dictis.”

Accordingly, we find in the fragments of Ennius many imitations of the Iliad and Odyssey. It is, however, the Greek tragic writers whom Ennius has chiefly imitated; and indeed it appears from the fragments which remain, that all his plays were rather translations from the dramas of Sophocles and Euripides, on the same subjects which he has chosen, than original tragedies. They are founded on the old topics of Priam and Paris, Hector and Hecuba; and truly Ennius, as well as most other Latin tragedians, seems to have anticipated Horace’s maxim—

“Rectus Iliacum carmen deducis in actus,

Quamsi proferres ignota indictaque primus.”

But although it be quite clear that all the plays of Ennius were translated, or closely imitated, from the Greek, there is occasionally some difficulty in fixing on the drama which was followed, and also in ascertaining whether there be any original passage whatever in the Latin imitation. This difficulty arises from the practice adopted by the Greek dramatists, of new modelling their tragedies. Euripides, in particular, sometimes altered his plays after their first representation, in order to accommodate them to the circumstances of the times, and to obviate the sarcastic criticisms of Aristophanes, who had frequently exposed whole scenes to ridicule. With such views, considerable changes were made on Iphigenia in Aulis, the Hippolytus, and Medea. Euripides is the author from whom Ennius has chiefly borrowed the fables of his tragedies; and when Sophocles and Euripides have treated the same subject, the latter poet has been uniformly preferred. Not one of the dramas of Ennius has been imitated from Æschylus. The reason of this is sufficiently obvious: The plays of Æschylus have little involution of plot, and are rather what we should now term dramatic sketches, than tragedies. The plots of Sophocles are more complex than those of Æschylus; but the tragedies of Euripides are the most involved of all. Now, it may be presumed, that a tragedy crowded with action, and filled with the bustle of a complicated fable, was best adapted to the taste of the Romans, because we know that this was their taste in comedy. Plautus combined two Greek comedies to form one Latin; and the representation of the Hecyra of Terence, the only Latin play formed on the [pg 68]simple Greek model, was repeatedly abandoned by the people before it was concluded, for the sake of amusements of more tumult and excitement.

Of Achilles, which, in alphabetical order, is the first of the plays of Ennius, there are just extant seven lines, which have been preserved by Nonius and Festus; and from such remains it is impossible to know what part of the life or actions of the Grecian hero Ennius had selected as the subject of his plot. There were many Greek tragedies on the story of Achilles, of which, one by Aristarchus of Tegea, was the most celebrated, and is supposed to have been that from which Ennius copied.

Ajax. Sophocles was author of two tragedies founded on the events of the life of Ajax;—Ajax Flagellifer, and Ajax Locrensis. The first turns on the phrensy with which the Grecian hero was seized, on being refused the arms of Achilles, and it may be conjectured, from a single fragment, apparently at the very close of the tragedy by Ennius, and which describes the attendants raising the body of Ajax, streaming with blood, that this was the piece translated by the Roman poet.

Alcmæon. This play, of which the fable closely resembles the story of Orestes, has by some been attributed to the Latin poet Quintus Catulus. The transports of Alcmæon had been frequently exhibited on the Greek stage[164]. The drama of Ennius was taken from a tragedy of Euripides, which is now lost, but its subject is well known from the Thebaid of Statius. The soothsayer Amphiaraus, foreseeing that he would perish at the siege of Thebes, concealed himself from the crimps of those days; but his wife, Eryphile, who alone knew the place of his retreat, being bribed by the gift of a mantle and necklace, revealed the secret to one of the “Seven before Thebes,” who compelled him to share in the expedition. Before death, the prophet enjoined his son, Alcmæon, to avenge him on his faithless wife. The youth, in compliance with this pious command, slew his mother, and was afterwards tormented by the Furies, who would only be appeased by a gift of the whole paraphernalia of Eryphile, which were accordingly hung up in their temple. As soon as their persecution ceased, he married the fair Calirrhoe, daughter of Achelous, and precipitately judging that the consecrated necklace would be better bestowed on his beautiful bride than on the beldame by whom he had so long been haunted, he contrived, on false pretences, to purloin it from the place where it was deposited; but the [pg 69]Furies were not to be so choused out of their perquisites, and in consequence of his rash preference, Alcmæon was compelled to suffer a renewed phrensy, and to undergo a fresh course of expiatory ceremonies[165].

Alexander (Paris). The plot of this play hinges on the destruction of Troy. The passages which remain are a heavenly admonition to Priam on the crimes of his son, a lamentation for the death of Hector, and a prediction of Cassandra concerning the wooden horse. Planck, in his recent edition of the Medea of Ennius, while he does not deny that our poet may have written a tragedy with the title of Alexander, is of opinion that the fragments quoted as from this play in the editions of Ennius belong properly to his Alexandra (Cassandra), to which subject they are perfectly applicable. This German critic has also collected a good many fragments belonging to the Cassandra, which had been omitted in Columna and Merula’s editions of Ennius. The longest of these passages, delivered by Cassandra in the style of a prophecy, seems to refer to events previous to the Trojan war—the judgment of Paris, and arrival of Helen from Sparta.

Andromache. It is uncertain from what Greek writer this tragedy has been translated. It seems to be founded on the lamentable story of Andromache, who fell, with other Trojan captives, to the share of Neoptolemus, and saw her only son, Astyanax, torn from her embraces, to be precipitated from the summit of a tower, in compliance with the injunctions of an oracle. Among the fragments of this play, we possess one of the longest passages extant of the works of Ennius, containing a pathetic lamentation of Andromache for the fall and conflagration of Troy, with a comparison between its smoking ruins and former splendour. This passage Cicero styles, “Præclarum Carmen!”—“Est enim,” he adds, “et rebus, et verbis, et modis lugubre[166].”

—— “Quid petam

Præsidi aut exsequar? quo nunc aut exilio aut fuga freta sim?

Arce et urbe orba sum; quo accidam? quo applicem?

Cui nec aræ patriæ domi stant; fractæ et disjectæ jacent,

Fana flamma deflagrata; tosti alti stant parietes.

O Pater, O Patria, O Priami domus;

Septum altisono cardine templum:

Vidi ego te, adstante ope barbarica,

Tectis cælatis, laqueatis,

Auro, ebore instructum regifice.

Hæc omnia vidi inflammari,

Priamo vi vitam evitari,

Jovis aram sanguine turpari[167].”

Andromache Molottus is translated from the Andromache of Euripides, and is so called from Molottus, the son of Neoptolemus and Andromache.

Andromeda. Livius Andronicus had formerly written a Latin play on the well-known story of Perseus and Andromeda, which was translated from Sophocles. The play of Ennius, however, on the same subject, was a version of a tragedy of Euripides, now chiefly known from the ridicule cast on it in the fifth act of Aristophanes’ Feasts of Ceres. That Ennius’ drama was translated from Euripides, is sufficiently manifest, from a comparison of its fragments with the passages of the Greek Andromeda, preserved by Stobæus.

Athamas. There is only one short fragment of this play now extant.

Cresphontes. Merope, believing that her son Cresphontes had been slain by a person who was brought before her, discovers, when about to avenge on him the death of her child, that she whom she had mistaken for the murderer is Cresphontes himself.

Dulorestes. Of this play there is only one line remaining, and of course it is almost impossible to ascertain from what Greek original it was borrowed. Even this single verse has by several critics been supposed to be falsely attributed to Ennius, and to belong, in fact, to the Dulorestes of Pacuvius[168].

Erectheus. There is just enough of this play extant to have satisfied Columna, one of the editors of Ennius, that it was taken from a tragedy of the same name by Euripides. As told by Hyginus, the fable concerning Erectheus, King of Attica, was, that he had four daughters, who all pledged themselves not to survive the death of any one of their number. Eumolpus, son of Neptune, being slain at the siege of Athens, his father required that one of the daughters of Erectheus should be sacrificed to him in compensation. This having [pg 71]been accomplished, her sisters slew themselves as a matter of course, and Erectheus was soon afterwards struck by Jupiter with thunder, at the solicitation of Neptune. The longest passage preserved from this tragedy is the speech of Colophonia, when about to be sacrificed to Neptune by her father.

Eumenides. This play, translated from Æschylus, exhibited the phrensy of Orestes, and his final absolution from the vengeance of the Furies.

Hectoris Lytris vel Lustra, so called from λυω, solvo, turned on the redemption from Achilles by Priam, of the body of Hector. It appears, however, from the fragments, that the combat of Hector, and the brutal treatment of his corpse by Achilles, had been represented or related in the early scenes of the piece.

Hecuba. This is a free translation from the Greek Hecuba, perhaps the most tragic of all the dramas of Euripides. From the work of Ennius, there is still extant a speech by the shade of Polydorus, announcing in great form his arrival from Acheron. This soliloquy, which is a good deal expanded from the original Greek, always produced a great sensation in the Roman theatre, and is styled by Cicero, Grande Carmen[169].—

“Adsum, atque advenio Acherunte, vix via alta, atque ardua,

Per speluncas saxeis structas aspereis pendentibus

Maxumeis; ubi rigida constat et crassa caligo inferûm;

Unde animæ excitantur obscura umbra, aperto ostio

Alti Acheruntis, falso sanguine imagines mortuorum[170].”

A speech of Hecuba, on seeing the dead body of Polydorus, and in which she reproaches the Greeks as having no punishment for the murder of a parent or a guest, seems to have been added by Ennius himself, at least it is not in the Greek original of Euripides. On the whole, indeed, the Hecuba of Ennius appears, so far as we can judge from the fragments, to be the least servile of his imitations. In Columna’s edition of Ennius, an opportunity is afforded by corresponding quotations from the Greek Hecuba, of comparing the manner in which the Latin poet has varied, amplified, or compressed the thoughts of his original. In Euripides, Hecuba, while persuading Ulysses to intercede for Polixena, says—

“Τὸ δ’ αξίωμα, καν κακως λέγῃς, τὸ σόν

Πείσει. Λόγος γαρ ἔκ τ’ αδοξούντων ἰων,

Και ’κ των δοκούντων αὐτὸς, οὐ ταυτὸν σθένει.”

Ennius imitates this as follows:

“Hæc tu, etsi perverse dices, facile Achivos flexeris;

Namque opulenti cum loquuntur pariter atque ignobiles,

Eadem dicta, eademque oratio æqua non æque valent.”

This has been copied by Plautus, and from him by Moliere in his Amphitrion—

“Tous les discours sont des sottises

Partant d’un homme sans eclat;

Ce seroient paroles exquisses,

Si c’etoit un grand qui parlàt.”

The last link in this chain of imitation, is Pope’s well-known lines—

“What woful stuff this madrigal would be,

In some starved hackney sonnetteer or me!

But let a lord once own the happy lines,

How the wit brightens, how the style refines!”

Iliona sive Polydorus.—Priam, during the siege of Troy, had entrusted his son Polydorus to the care of Polymnestor, King of Thrace, who was married to Iliona, daughter of Priam, and slew his guest, in order to possess himself of the treasure which had been sent along with him. The only passage of the play which remains, is one in which the shade of Polydorus calls on Hecuba to arise and bury her murdered son.

Iphigenia.—Ennius, as already mentioned, appears invariably to have translated from Euripides, in preference to Sophocles, when the same subject had been treated by both these poets. Sophocles had written a tragedy on the topic of the well-known Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides; but it is the latter piece which has been adopted by the Roman poet.

Boeckius has shown, in a learned dissertation, that Euripides wrote two Iphigenias in Aulis[171]. From the first, which has perished, Aristophanes parodied the verses introduced in his Frogs; and it was on this work that Ennius formed his Latin Iphigenia. The Iphigenia now extant, and published in the editions of Euripides, is a recension of the original drama, which was undertaken on account of the ridicule thrown on it by Aristophanes, and was not acted till after the death of [pg 73]its author. Boeckius, indeed, thinks, that it was written by the younger Euripides, the nephew of the more celebrated dramatist; hence some of the lines of Ennius, which, on comparison with the Iphigenia now extant, appear to us original, were probably translated from the first written Iphigenia. Such, perhaps, are the jingling verses concerning the disadvantages of idleness, which are supposed, not very naturally, to be sung while weather-bound in Aulis, by the Greek soldiers, who form the chorus of this tragedy instead of the women of Chalcis in the play of Euripides:—

“Otio qui nescit uti, plus negoti habet,

Quam quum est negotium in negotio;

Nam cui quod agat institutum est, in illo negotio

Id agit; studet ibi, mentem atque animum delectat suum.

Otioso in otio animus nescit quid sibi velit.

Hoc idem est; neque domi nunc nos, nec militiæ sumus:

Imus huc, hinc illuc; quum illuc ventum est, ire illinc lubet.

Incerte errat animus—[172].”

Medea.—This play is imitated from the Medea of Euripides. Since the time of Paulus Manutius[173], an idea has prevailed that Ennius was the author of two plays on the subject of Medea—one entitled Medea, and the other Medea Exsul, both imitated from Greek originals of Euripides. This opinion was formed in consequence of there being several passages of the Medea of Ennius, to which corresponding passages cannot be found in the Medea of Euripides, now extant; and it was confirmed by the grammarians sometimes quoting the play by the title Medea, and at others by that of Medea Exsul. Planck, however, in his recent edition of the fragments of the Latin tragedy, conjectures that there was only one play, and that this play was entitled by Ennius the Medea Exsul, which name was appropriate to the subject; but that when quoted by the critics and old grammarians, it was sometimes cited, as was natural, by its full title, at others simply Medea. The lines in the Latin play, to which parallel passages cannot be found in Euripides, he believes to be of Ennius’ own invention. Osannus thinks, that neither the opinion of Manutius, [pg 74]nor of Planck, is quite accurate. He believes that Euripides wrote a Medea, which he afterwards revised and altered, in order to obviate the satiric criticisms of Aristophanes. The Greek Medea, which we now have, he supposes to be compounded of the original copy and the recension,—the ancient grammarians having interpolated the manuscripts. Ennius, he maintains, employed the original tragedy; and hence in the Latin play, we now find translations of lines which were omitted both in the recension and in the compound tragedy, which is at present extant[174].

The Medea of Ennius was a popular drama at Rome, and was considered one of the best productions of its author. Cicero asks, if there be any one such a foe to the Roman name, as to reject or despise the Medea of Ennius. From the romantic interest of the subject, Medea was the heroine of not less than four epic poems; and no fable, of Greek antiquity, was more frequently dramatized by the Latin poets. Attius, Varro, Ovid, and Seneca, successively imitated the tragedy of Ennius, and improved on their model.

Phœnix.—There were two persons of this name in mythological story. One the son of Agenor, and brother of Cadmus, who gave name to Phœnicia; the other the preceptor of Achilles, who accompanied that hero to the Trojan war. The only reason for supposing that the tragedy of Ennius related to this latter person is, that a play founded on some part of his life was written by Euripides, from whom the Roman poet has borrowed so much.

Telamon.—This play, of which no Greek original is known, seems to have been devoted to a representation of the misfortunes of Telamon, particularly the concluding period of his life, in which he heard of the death of his eldest son Ajax, and the exile of his second son Teucer. To judge from the fragments which remain, it must have been by far the finest drama of Ennius. He thus happily versifies the celebrated sentiment of Anaxagoras, and puts it into the mouth of Telamon, when he hears of the death of his son—

“Ego quom genui, tum moriturum scivi, et ei rei sustuli;

Præterea ad Trojam quom misi ad defendendam Græciam,

Scibam me in mortiferum bellum, non in epulas mittere[175].”

Ennius being an inhabitant of Magna Græcia, probably held the Tuscan soothsayers and diviners in great contempt. [pg 75]There is a long passage cited by the grammarians as from this tragedy, (but which, I think, must rather have belonged to his satires,) directed against that learned body, and calculated to give them considerable offence—

“Non habeo denique nauci Marsum augurem,

Non vicanos haruspices, non de circo astrologos,

Non Isiacos conjectores, non interpretes somniûm:

Non enim sunt ii, aut scientiâ, aut arte divinei;

Sed superstitiosi vates, impudentesque hariolei,

Aut inertes, aut insanei, aut quibus egestas imperat:

Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam;

Quibus divitias pollicentur ab iis drachmam ipsei petunt:

De his divitiis sibi deducant drachmam; reddant cætera[176].”

There is a good deal of wit and archness in the two concluding lines, and the whole breathes a spirit of free-thinking, such as one might expect from the translator of Euhemerus. In another passage, indeed, but which, I presume, was attributed to an impious character, or one writhing under the stroke of recent calamity, it is roundly declared that the gods take no concern in human affairs, for if they did, the good would prosper, and the wicked suffer, whereas it is quite the contrary:

“Ego Deûm genus esse semper dixi, et dicam cœlitum;

Sed eos non curare opinor, quid agat humanum genus;

Nam si curent, bene bonis sit, male malis; quod nunc abest[177].”

Telephus is probably taken from a lost play of Euripides, ridiculed by Aristophanes in his Acharnenses, from a scene of which it would seem that Telephus had appeared on the stage in tattered garments. The passages of the Latin play which remain, exhibit Telephus as an exile from his kingdom, wandering about in ragged habiliments. The lines of Horace, in his Art of Poetry, (a work which is devoted to the subject of the Roman drama,) are probably in allusion to this tragedy:

“Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exsul, uterque

Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba.”

Thyestes.—The loose and familiar numbers in which the tragedy of Telephus was written, were by no means suitable to the atrocious subject of the Supper of Thyestes. Ennius accordingly has been censured by Cicero, in a passage of his Orator, for employing them in this drama.—“Similia sunt quædam apud nostros; velut illa in Thyeste,

‘Quemnam te esse dicam! qui tarda in senectute,’

Et quæ sequuntur: quæ, nisi cum tibicen accesserit, orationi sunt solutæ simillima.” There can therefore be little doubt that the passage in Horace’s Art of Poetry, in which a tragedy on the subject of Thyestes is blamed as flat and prosaic, and hardly rising above the level of ordinary conversation in comedy, alluded to the work of Ennius—

“Indignatur item privatis, ac prope socco

Dignis carminibus, narrari cœna Thyestæ.”

Yet this spiritless tragedy, was very popular in Rome, and continued to be frequently represented, till Varius treated the same subject in a manner, as we are informed by Quintilian, equal to the Greeks[178].

It thus appears that Ennius has little claim to originality or invention as a tragic author. Perhaps it may seem remarkable, that a poet of his powerful genius did not rather write new plays, than copy servilely from the Greeks. But nothing is ever invented where borrowing will as well serve the purpose. Rome had few artists, in consequence of the facility with which the finest specimens of the arts were procured by plundering the towns of Sicily and Greece. Now, at the period in which Ennius flourished, the productions of Grecian literature were almost as new to the Romans as the most perfectly original compositions. Thus, the dramatic works of Ennius were possessed of equal novelty for his audience as if wholly his own; while a great deal of trouble was saved to himself. The example, however, was unfortunate, as it communicated to Roman literature a character of servility, and of imitation, or rather of translation, from the Greek, which so completely pervaded it, that succeeding poets were most faultless when they copied most closely, and at length, when they abandoned the guides whom they had so long followed, they fell into declamation and bombast. Probably, had the compositions of [pg 77]Ennius been original, they would have been less perfect, than by being thus imitated, or nearly translated, from the masterpieces of Greece. But the literature of his country might ultimately have attained a higher eminence. The imitative productions of Ennius may be likened to those trees which are transplanted when far advanced in growth. Much at first appears to have been gained; but it is certain, that he who sets the seedling is more useful than the transplanter, and that, while the trees removed from their native soil lose their original beauty and luxuriance without increase in magnitude, the seedling swells in its parent earth to immensity of size—fresh, blooming, and verdant in youth, vigorous in maturity, and venerable in old age.

Nor, although Ennius was the first writer who introduced satiric composition into Rome, are his pretensions, in this respect, to originality, very distinguished. He adapted the ancient satires of the Tuscan and Oscan stage to the closet, by refining their grossness, softening their asperity, and introducing railleries borrowed from the Greek poets, with whom he was familiar. His satires thus appear to have been a species of centos made up from passages of various poems, which, by slight alterations, were humorously or satirically applied, and chiefly to the delineation of character: “Carmen,” says Diomedes the grammarian, “quod ex variis poematibus constabat satira vocabatur, quale scripserunt Pacuvius et Ennius.” The fragments which remain of these satires are too short and broken to allow us even to divine their subject. That entitled Asotus vel Sotadicus, is the representation of a luxurious, dissolute man, and was so termed from Sotades, a voluptuous Cretan poet. Quintilian also mentions, that one of his satires contained a Dialogue between Life and Death, contending with each other, a mode of composition suggested perhaps by the celebrated allegory of Prodicus. We are farther informed by Aulus Gellius, that he introduced into another satire, with great skill and beauty, Æsop’s fable of the Larks[179], now well known through the imitation of Fontaine[180]. The lark having built her nest among some early corn, feared that it might be reaped before her young ones were fit to take wing. She therefore desired them to report to her whatever conversation they might hear in the fields during her absence. They first informed her, that the husbandman had come to the spot, and desired his son to summon their neighbours and friends to assist in cutting the crop the next morning. The lark, on [pg 78]hearing this, declares, that there is no occasion to be in any haste in removing. On the following day, it is again reported, that the husbandman had desired that his relations should be requested to assist him; and the lark is still of opinion that there is no necessity to hurry away. At length, however, the young larks relate, that the husbandman had announced that he would execute the work himself. On hearing this, the old lark said it was now time to be gone. She accordingly removed her younglings, and the corn was immediately cut down by the master. From this tale Ennius deduces as the moral,

“Hoc erit tibi argumentum semper in promptu situm;

Ne quid expectes amicos, quod tute agere possis.”

It is certainly much to be regretted that we possess so scanty fragments of these satires, which would have been curious as the first attempts at a species of composition which was carried to such perfection by succeeding Latin poets, and which has been regarded as almost peculiar to the Romans.

The great work, however, of Ennius, and of which we have still considerable remains, was his Annals, or metrical chronicles, devoted to the celebration of Roman exploits, from the earliest periods to the conclusion of the Istrian war. These Annals were written by our poet in his old age; at least, Aulus Gellius informs us, on the authority of Varro, that the twelfth book was finished by him in his sixty-seventh year[181].

It may perhaps appear strange, that, when the fabulous exploits, the superstitions, the characters and the manners, of the heroic ages, were so admirably adapted for poetical imagery, and had been so successfully employed in Greece, the chief work of the Father of Roman Song should have been a sort of versified newspaper, like the Henriade of Voltaire, or the Araucana of Alonco de Ercilla: For in other countries poetry has been earliest devoted to the decoration of those marvels in which the amantes mira Camœnæ chiefly rejoice. In most lands, however, the origin of poetry was coeval with the rise of the nation, and every thing seems wondrous to an ignorant and timid race. The Greeks, in their first poetical age, peopled every grove and lake with fauns and naiads, or personified the primeval powers of nature. They sung the fables concerning their gods, and the exploits of heroes, in [pg 79]those ancient verses which have been combined in the Theogony attributed to Hesiod, and those immortal rhapsodies which have formed the basis of the Homeric poems. The marvellous vision of Dante was the earliest effort of the Italian muse; and some of the first specimens of verse in France and England were wild adventures in love or arms, interspersed with stories of demons and enchanters. But in Rome, though the first effort of the language was in poetry, five hundred years had elapsed from the foundation of the city before this effort was made. At that period, the Romans were a rude but rational race. The locks of Curius were perhaps uncombed; but though the Republic had as yet produced no character of literary elegance, she had given birth to Cincinnatus, and Fabricius, and Camillus. Her citizens had neither been rendered timid nor indolent by their superstitions, but were actively employed in agriculture or in arms. They were a less contemplative and imaginative race than the Greeks. Their spirit was indeed sufficiently warlike; but that peculiar spirit of adventure, (which characterised the early ages of Greece, and the middle ages of modern Europe,) had, if it ever existed, long ago ceased in Rome. By this time, the Roman armies were too well disciplined, and the system of warfare too regular, to admit a description of the picturesque combats of the Greek and Trojan charioteers. Poetry was thus too late in its birth to take a natural flight. In such circumstances, the bard, however rich or lofty might be his conceptions, would not listen to his own taste or inspiration, but select the theme which was likely to prove most popular; and the Romans, being a national and ambitious people, would be more gratified by the jejune relation of their own exploits, than by the speciosa miracula of the most sublime or romantic invention.

The Annals of Ennius were partly founded on those ancient traditions and old heroic ballads, which Cicero, on the authority of Cato’s Origines, mentions as having been sung at feasts by the guests, many centuries before the age of Cato, in praise of the heroes of Rome[182]. Niebuhr has attempted to show, that all the memorable events of Roman history had been versified in ballads, or metrical chronicles, in the Saturnian measure, before the time of Ennius; who, according to him, merely expressed in the Greek hexameter, what his predecessors had delivered in a ruder strain, and then maliciously depreciated these ancient compositions, in order that he himself might be considered as the founder of Roman poetry[183]. [pg 80]The devotion of the Decii, and death of the Fabian family,—the stories of Scævola, Cocles, and Coriolanus,—Niebuhr believes to have been the subjects of romantic ballads. Even Fabius Pictor, according to this author, followed one of these old legends in his narrative concerning Mars and the Wolf, and his whole history of Romulus. Livy, too, in his account of the death of Lucretia, has actually transcribed from one of these productions; since what Sextus says, on entering the chamber of Lucretia, is nearly in the Saturnian measure:—

“Tace, Lucretia, inquit, Sextus Tarquinius sum,

Ferrum in manu est, moriere si emiseris vocem[184].”

But the chief work, according to Niebuhr, from which Ennius borrowed, was a romantic epopee, or chronicle, made up from these heroic ballads about the end of the fourth century of Rome, commencing with the accession of Tarquinius Priscus, and ending with the battle of Regillus. The arrival, says Niebuhr, of that monarch under the name of Lucumo—his exploits and victories—his death—then the history of Servius Tullius—the outrageous pride of Tullia—the murder of the lawful monarch—the fall of the last Tarquin, preceded by a supernatural warning—Lucretia—Brutus and the truly Homeric battle of Regillus—compose an epic, which, in poetical incident, and splendour of fancy, surpasses everything produced in the latter ages of Rome[185]. The battle of Regillus, in particular, as described by the annalists, bears evident marks of its poetical origin. It was not a battle between two hosts, but a struggle of heroes. As in the fights painted in the Iliad, the champions meet in single combat, and turn by individual exertions the tide of victory. The dictator Posthumius wounds King Tarquin, whom he had encountered at the first onset. The Roman knight Albutius engages with the Latin chief Mamilius, but is wounded by him, and forced to quit the field. Mamilius then nearly breaks the Roman line, but is slain by the Consul Herminius, which decides the fate of the day. After the battle of Regillus, all the events are not so completely poetical; but in the siege of Veii we have a representation of the ten years war of Troy. The secret introduction of the troops by Camillus into the middle of the city resembles the story of the wooden horse, and the Etruscan statue of Juno corresponds to the Trojan Palladium[186].

Any period of history may be thus exhibited in the form of an epic cycle; and, though there can be little doubt of the [pg 81]existence of ancient Saturnian ballads at Rome, I do not think that Niebuhr has adduced sufficient proof or authority for his magnificent epopee, commencing with the accession of Tarquin, and ending with the battle of Regillus. With regard to the accusation against Ennius, of depreciating the ancient materials which he had employed, it is founded on the contempt which he expresses for the verses of the Fauns and the Prophets. His obligations, if he owed any, he has certainly nowhere acknowledged, at least in the fragments which remain; and he rather betrays an anxiety, at the commencement of his poem, to carry away the attention of the reader from the Saturnian muses, and direct it to the Grecian poets,—to Pindus, and the nymphs of Helicon.

He begins his Annals with an invocation to the nine Muses, and the account of a vision in which Homer had appeared to him, and related the story of the metamorphosis already mentioned:—

“Visus Homerus adesse poeta:

Hei mihi qualis erat, quantum mutatus ab illo!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Septingenti sunt, paulo plus vel minus, anni

Quom memini fieri me pavom.”

Ennius afterwards invokes a great number of the Gods, and then proceeds to the history of the Alban kings. The dream of the Vestal Virgin Ilia, which announced her pregnancy by Mars, and the foundation of Rome, is related in verses of considerable beauty and smoothness, by Ilia to her sister Eurydice.—

“Talia commemorat lacrumans, exterrita somno;

‘Euridica prognata, pater quam noster amavit,

Vivens vita meum corpus nunc deserit omne.

Nam me visus homo polcer per amœna salicta

Et ripas raptare, locosque novos: ita sola

Post illa, germana soror, errare videbar;

Tardaque vestigare, et quærere, neque posse

Corde capessere: semita nulla pedem stabilibat.

Exin compellare pater me voce videtur

Heis verbis—O gnata, tibi sunt antegerendæ

Ærumnæ; post ex fluvio fortuna resistet.

Hæc pater ecfatus, germana, repente recessit;

Nec sese dedit in conspectum corde cupitus:

Quamquam multa manus ad cœli cærula Templa

Tendebam lacrumans, et blanda voce vocabam.

Vix ægro tum corde meo me somnus reliquit[187].’”

In these lines there is considerable elegance and pathos; and the contest which immediately succeeds between Romulus and Remus for the sovereignty of Rome, is as remarkable for dignity and animation:

“Curanteis magnâ cum curâ, concupienteis

Regnei, dant operam simul auspicio, augurioque:

Hinc Remus auspicio se devovet, atque secundam

Solus avem servat: at Romolus polcer in alto

Quærit Aventino, servans genus altivolantum.

Omnis cura vireis, uter esset Endoperator.

Exspectant, veluti consol, quom mittere signum

Volt, omneis avidei spectant ad carceris oras,

Qua mox emittat picteis ex faucibus currus.

Sic exspectabat populus, atque ore timebat

Rebus, utrei magnei victoria sit data regnei.

Interea Sol albus recessit in infera noctis:

Exin Candida se radiis dedit icta foras lux:

Et simol ex alto longe polcerrima præpes

Læva volavit avis: simol aureus exoritur sol.

Cedunt ter quatuor de cælo corpora sancta

Avium, præpetibus sese, polcreisque loceis dant.

Conspicit inde sibei data Romolus esse priora,

Auspicio regni stabilita scamna, solumque[188].”

The reigns of the kings, and the contests of the republic with the neighbouring states previous to the Punic war, occupy the metrical annals to the end of the sixth book[189], which concludes with the following noble answer of Pyrrhus to the Roman ambassadors, who came to ransom the prisoners taken from them by that prince in battle:—

“Nec mî aurum posco, nec mî pretium dederitis;

Nec cauponantes bellum, sed belligerantes;

Ferro, non auro, vitam cernamus utrique,

Vosne velit, an me regnare Hera; quidve ferat sors

Virtute experiamur; et hoc simol accipe dictum:

Quorum virtutei belli fortuna pepercit,

Horumdem me libertatei parcere certum est:

Dono ducite, doque volentibus cum magneis Dîs[190].”

Cicero, in his Brutus, says, that Ennius did not treat of the first Punic war, as Nævius had previously written on that subject[191]; to which prior work Ennius thus alludes:—

“Scripsere alii rem,

Versibus, quos olim Faunei, vatesque canebant.”

P. Merula, however, who edited the fragments of Ennius, is of opinion, that this passage of Cicero can only mean that he had not entered into much detail of its events, as he finds several lines in the seventh book, which, he thinks, evidently apply to the first Carthaginian war, particularly the description of naval preparations, and the building of the first fleet with which the Carthaginians were attacked by the Romans. In some of the editions of Ennius, the character of the friend and military adviser of Servilius, generally supposed to be intended as a portrait of the poet himself[192], is ranged under the seventh book:—

“Hocce locutus vocat, quicum bene sæpe libenter

Mensam, sermonesque suos, rerumque suarum

Comiter impertit; magna quum lapsa dies jam

Parte fuisset de parvis summisque gerendis,

Consilio, induforo lato, sanctoque senatu;

Cui res audacter magnas, parvasque, jocumque

Eloqueret, quæ tincta maleis, et quæ bona dictu

Evomeret, si quid vellet, tutoque locaret.

Quocum multa volup ac gaudia clamque palamque.

Ingenium cui nulla malum sententia suadet,

Ut faceret facinus; lenis tamen, haud malus; idem

Doctus, fidelis, suavis homo, facundus, suoque

Contentus, scitus, atque beatus, secunda loquens in

Tempore commodus, et verborum vir paucorum.

Multa tenens antiqua sepulta, et sæpe vetustas

Quæ facit, et mores veteresque novosque tenentem

Multorum veterum leges, divumque hominumque

Prudentem, qui multa loquive, tacereve possit.

Hunc inter pugnas compellat Servilius sic[193].”

The eighth and ninth books of these Annals, which are much mutilated, detailed the events of the second Carthaginian war in Italy and Africa. This was by much the most interesting part of the copious subject which Ennius had chosen, and a portion of it on which he would probably exert all the force of his genius, in order the more to honour his friend and patron Scipio Africanus. The same topic was selected by Silius Italicus, and by Petrarch for his Latin poem Africa, which obtained him a coronation in the Capitol. “Ennius,” says the illustrious Italian, “has sung fully of Scipio; but, in the opinion of Valerius Maximus, his style is harsh and vulgar, and there is yet no elegant poem which has for its subject the glorious exploits of the conqueror of Hannibal.” None of the poets who have chosen this topic, have done full justice to the most arduous struggle in which two powerful nations had ever engaged, and which presented the most splendid display of military genius on the one hand, and heroic virtue on the other, that had yet been exhibited to the world. Livy’s histo[pg 85]rical account of the second Punic war possesses more real poetry than any poem on the subject whatever.

The tenth, eleventh, and twelfth books of the Annals of Ennius, contained the war with Philip of Macedon. In the commencement of the thirteenth, Hannibal excites Antiochus to a war against the Romans. In the fourteenth book, the Consul Scipio, in the prosecution of this contest, arrives at Ilium, which he thus apostrophizes:

“O patria! O divûm domus Ilium, et incluta bello

Pergama!”

Several Latin writers extol the elegant lines of Ennius immediately following, in which the Roman soldiers, alluding to its magnificent revival in Rome, exclaim with enthusiasm, that Ilium could not be destroyed;

“Quai neque Dardaneeis campeis potuere perire,

Nec quom capta capei, nec quom combusta cremari[194];”

a passage which has been closely imitated in the seventh book of Virgil:

“Num Sigeis occumbere campis,

Num capti potuere capi: num incensa cremavit

Troja viros?”

The fifteenth book related the expedition of Fulvius Nobilior to Ætolia, which Ennius himself is said to have accompanied. In the two following books he prosecuted the Istrian war; which concludes with the following animated description of a single hero withstanding the attack of an armed host:—

“Undique conveniunt, velut imber, tela Tribuno.

Configunt parmam, tinnit hastilibus umbo,

Æratæ sonitant galeæ: sed nec pote quisquam

Undique nitendo corpus discerpere ferro.

Semper abundanteis hastas frangitque, quatitque;

Totum sudor habet corpus, moltumque laborat;

Nec respirandi fit copia præpete ferro.

Istrei tela manu jacientes sollicitabant.

Occumbunt moltei leto, ferroque lapique,

Aut intra moeros, aut extra præcipi casu[195].”

The concluding, or eighteenth, book seems to have been in a great measure personal to the poet himself. It explains his motive for writing:—

—— “Omnes mortales sese laudarier optant;” ——

and he seemingly compares himself to a Courser, who rests after his triumphs in the Olympic games:—

“Sic ut fortis Equus, spatio qui sæpe supremo

Vicit Olumpiaco, nunc senio confectus quiescit[196].”

Connected with his Annals, there was a poem of Ennius devoted to the celebration of the exploits of Scipio, in which occurs a much-admired description of the calm of Evening, where the flow of the versification is finely modulated to the still and solemn imagery:—

“Mundus cœli vastus constitit silentio,

Et Neptunus sævus undeis aspereis pausam dedit:

Sol equeis iter repressit unguleis volantibus,

Constitere amneis perenneis—arbores vento vacant[197].”

With this first attempt at descriptive poetry in the Latin language, it may be interesting to compare a passage produced in the extreme old age of Roman literature, which also paints, by nearly the same images, the profound repose of Nature:—

—— “Tacet omne pecus, volucresque feræque,

Et simulant fessos curvata cacumina somnos;

Nec trucibus fluviis idem sonus; occidit horror

Æquoris, et terris maria acclinata quiescunt.”

Horace, in one of his odes, strongly expresses the glory and honour which the Calabrian muse of Ennius had conferred on Scipio by this poem, devoted to his praise:

“Non incendia Carthaginis impiæ,

Ejus qui domita nomen ab Africa

Lucratus rediit, clarius indicant

Laudes quam Calabræ Pierides[198].”

The historical poems of Ennius appear to have been written without the introduction of much machinery or decorative fiction; and whether founded on ancient ballads, according to one opinion[199], or framed conformably to historical truth, according to another[200], they were obviously deficient in those embellishments of imagination which form the distinction between a poem and a metrical chronicle. In the subject which he had chosen, Ennius wanted the poetic advantages of distance in place or of time. It perhaps matters little whether the ground-work of a heroic poem be historical or entirely fictitious, if free scope be given for the excursions of fancy. But, in order that it may sport with advantage, the event must be remote in time or in place; and if this rule be observed, such subjects as those chosen by Camoens or Tasso admit of as much colouring and embellishment as the Faery Queen. It is in this that Lucan and Voltaire have erred; and neither the soaring genius of the one, nor brilliancy of the other, could raise their themes, splendid as they were, from the dust, or steep the mind in those reveries in which we indulge on subjects where there is no visible or known bound to credulity and imaginings. Still the Annals of Ennius, as a national work, were highly gratifying to a proud ambitious people, and, in consequence, continued long popular at Rome. They were highly relished in the age of Horace and Virgil; and, as far down as the time of Marcus Aurelius, they were recited in theatres and other public places for the amusement of the people[201]. The Romans, indeed, were so formed on his style, that Seneca called them populus Ennianus—an Ennian race,—and said, that both Cicero and Virgil were obliged, contrary to their own judgment, to employ antiquated terms, in compliance with the reigning prejudice[202]. From his example, too, added to the national character, the historical epic became in future times the great poetical resource of the Romans, who versified almost every important event in their history. Besides the Pharsalia of Lucan, and Punica of Silius Italicus, which still survive, there were many works of this description which are now lost. Varro Atacinus chose as his subject Cæsar’s war with the Sequani—Varius, the deeds of Augustus and Agrippa—Valgius Rufus, the battle of Actium—Albinovanus, the exploits of Germanicus—Cicero, those of Marius, and the events of his own consulship.

We have already seen Ennius’s imitation of the Greeks in his tragedies and satires; and even in the above-mentioned historical poems, though devoted to the celebration of Roman heroes and subjects exclusively national, he has borrowed copiously from the Greek poets, and has often made his Roman consuls fight over again the Homeric battles. Thus the description of the combat of Ajax, in the 16th Book of the Iliad, beginning Αιας δ’ ουκετ’ ἐμιμνε, has suggested a passage, above quoted, from the fragments of the Istrian war; and the picture of a steed breaking from his stall, and ranging the pastures, is imitated from a similar description, in the 6th Book of the Iliad—

“Et tunc sicut Equus, qui de præsepibus actus,

Vincla sua magneis animeis abrumpit, et inde

Fert sese campi per cœrula, lætaque prata;

Celso pectore, sæpe jubam quassat simul altam:

Spiritus ex animâ calidâ spumas agit albas[203].”

Homer’s lines are the following:—

“Ὡς δ’ ὁτε τις στατος ἱππος, ακοςησας επι φατνῃ

Δεσμον απορρηξας θειει πεδιοιο κροαινων,

Ἐιωθως λουεσθαι εὐρρειος ποταμοιο,

Κυδιοων· ὑψου δε καρη ἐχει, αμφι δε χαιται

Ὡμοις αισσονται. ὁ δ’ αγλαιηφι πεποιθως,

Ριμφα ἑ γουνα φερει μετα τ’ ἠθεα και νομον ιππων[204].”

In order to afford an opportunity of judging of Ennius’s talents for imitation, I have subjoined from the two poets, who carried that art to the greatest perfection, corresponding passages, which are both evidently founded on the same Greek original—

“Qualis, ubi abruptis fugit præsepia vinclis,

Tandem liber, Equus, campoque potitus aperto;

Aut ille in pastus armentaque tendit equarum,

Aut, assuetus aquæ perfundi flumine noto,

Emicat, arrectisque fremit cervicibus alte

Luxurians; luduntque jubæ per colla, per armos[205].”

The other parallel passage is in Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered—

“Come Destrier, che dalle reggie stalle,

Ove al uso dell’ arme si riserba,

Fugge, e libero alfin, per largo calle

Va tra gli armenti, o al fiume usato, o all’ erba;

Scherzan sul collo i crini, e sulle spalle:

Si scuote la cervice alta e superba:

Suonano i pie nel corso, e par ch’avvampi,

Di sonori nitriti empiendo i campi[206].”

To these parallel passages may be added a very similar, though perhaps not a borrowed description, from the earliest production of the most original of all poets, in which the horse of Adonis breaks loose during the dalliance of Venus with his master:—

“The strong-necked steed, being tied unto a tree,

Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.

Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,

And now his woven girts he breaks asunder,

The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds,

Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven’s thunder.

His ears up-prick’d, his braided hanging mane,

Upon his compass’d crest, now stands an end;

His nostrils drink the air, and forth again,

As from a furnace, vapours doth he send.

His eye which glisters scornfully, like fire,

Shows his hot courage and his high desire[207].”

The poem of Ennius, entitled Phagetica, is curious,—as one would hardly suppose, that in this early age, luxury had made such progress, that the culinary art should have been systematically or poetically treated. All that we know, however, of the manner in which it was prepared or served up, is from the Apologia of Apuleius. It was, which its name imports, a didactic poem on eatables, particularly fish, as Apuleius testifies.—“Q. Ennii edes phagetica, quæ versibus scripsit, innumerabilia piscium genera enumerat, quæ scilicet curiose cognorat.” It is well known, that previous to the time of Ennius, this subject had been discussed both in prose and verse by various Greek authors[208], and was particularly detailed in the poem of Archestratus the Epicurean—

“—— The bard

Who sang of poultry, venison, and lard,

Poet and cook ——”

It appears from the following passage of Apuleius, that the work of Ennius was a digest of all the previous books on this subject,—“Alios etiam multis versibus decoravit, et ubi gentium quisque eorum inveniatur, ostendit qualiter assus, aut jussulentus optime sapiat; nec tamen ab eruditis reprehendi[pg 90]tur.” The eleven lines which remain, and which have been preserved by Apuleius, mention the places where different sorts of fish are found in greatest perfection and abundance—

“Brundusii Sargus bonus est; hunc, magnus erit si,

Sume: Apriclum piscem scite, primum esse Tarenti;

Surrentei fac emas Glaucum,” &c.

Another poem of Ennius, entitled Epicharmus, was so called because it was translated from the Greek work of Epicharmus, the Pythagorean, on the Nature of Things, in the same manner as Plato gave the name of Timæus to the book which he translated from Timæus the Locrian. This was the same Epicharmus who invented Greek comedy, and resided in the court of Hiero of Syracuse. The fragments of this work of Ennius are so broken and corrupted, that it is impossible to follow the plan of his poem, or to discover the system of philosophy which it inculcated. It appears, however, to have contained many speculations concerning the elements of which the world was primarily composed, and which, according to him, were water, earth, air, and fire[209]; as also with regard to the preservative powers of nature. Jupiter seems merely to have been considered by him as the air, the clouds, and the storm:

“Isteic is est Jupiter, quem dico, Græci vocant

Aera; quique ventus est, et nubes, imber postea,

Atque ex imbre frigus; ventus post fit, aer denuo:

Istæc propter Jupiter sunt ista, quæ dico tibei,

Qui mortales urbeis, atque belluas omneis juvat[210].”

This system, which had been previously adopted by the Etruscans, and had been promulgated in some of the Orphic hymns, nearly corresponds with that announced by Cato, in Lucan’s Pharsalia—

“Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quocunque moveris;”

and is not far different from the Spinozism, in Pope’s Essay on Man—

“Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,

Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;

Lives through all life, extends through all extent,

Spreads undivided, operates unspent.”

Ennius, however, whose compositions thus appear to have been formed entirely on Greek originals, has not more availed himself of these writings than Virgil has profited by the works of Ennius. The prince of Latin Poets has often imitated long passages, and sometimes copied whole lines, from the Father of Roman Song. This has been shown, in a close comparison, by Macrobius, in his Saturnalia[211].

Ennius, Book 1.

“Qui cœlum versat stellis fulgentibus aptum.”

Virgil, Book 6.

“Axem humero torquet stellis ardentibus aptum.”

Ennius, 1.

“Est locus Hesperiam quam mortales perhibebant.”

Virgil, 1.

“Est locus Hesperiam Graii cognomine dicunt.”

Ennius, 12.

“Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem;

Non ponebat enim rumores ante salutem.

Ergo postque magisque viri nunc gloria claret[212].”

Virgil, 6.

“Unus qui nobis cunctando restituis rem.”

Ennius, 5.

“Quod per amœnam urbem leni fluit agmine flumen.”

Virgil, 2.

“Inter opima virum leni fluit agmine Tybris.”

Ennius, 1.

“Hei mihi qualis erat quantum mutatus ab illo.”

Virgil, 2.

“Hei mihi qualis erat! quantum mutatus ab illo.”

Ennius.

—— “Postquam discordia tetra

Belli ferratos postes portasque refregit[213].”

Virgil, 7.

“Impulit ipsa manu portas, et cardine verso

Belli ferratos rupit Saturnia postes.”

In the longer passages, Virgil has not merely selected the happiest thoughts and expressions of his predecessor, but in borrowing a great deal from Ennius, he has added much of his own. He has thrown on common images new lights of fancy; he has struck out the finest ideas from ordinary sentiments, and expunged all puerile conceits and absurdities.

Lucretius and Ovid have also frequently availed themselves of the works of Ennius. His description of felling the trees of a forest, in order to fit out a fleet against the Carthaginians, in the seventh book, has been imitated by Statius in the tenth book of the Thebaid. The passage in his sixth satire, in which he has painted the happy situation of a parasite, compared with that of the master of a feast, is copied in Terence’s Phormio[214]. The following beautiful lines have been imitated by innumerable poets, both ancient and modern:

“Jupiter hic risit, tempestatesque serenæ

Riserunt omnes risu Jovis omnipotentis[215].”

Near the commencement of his Annals, Ennius says,

“Audire est operæ pretium, procedere recte

Qui rem Romanam Latiumque augescere vultis;”

which solemn passage has been parodied by Horace, in the second satire of the first book:

“Audire est operæ pretium, procedere recte

Qui mœchis non vultis, ut omni parte laborent.”

Thus it appears that Ennius occasionally produced verses of considerable harmony and beauty, and that his conceptions were frequently expressed with energy and spirit. It must be recollected, however, that the lines imitated by Virgil, and the other passages which have been here extracted from the works of Ennius, are very favourable specimens of his taste and genius. Sometimes poems, which have themselves been lost, and of which only fragments are preserved, in the citations of contemporary or succeeding authors, are now believed to have been finer productions than they perhaps actually were. It is the best passages which are quoted, and imitated, and are thus upborne on the tide of ages, while the grosser parts have sunk and perished in the flood. We are in this manner led to form an undue estimate of the excellence of [pg 93]the whole, in the same manner as we doubtless conceive an exaggerated idea of the ancient magnificence of Persepolis or Palmyra, where, while the humble dwellings have mouldered into dust, the temples and pyramids remain, and all that meets the eye is towering and majestic. A few, however, even of the verses of Ennius which have been preserved, are very harsh, and defective in their mechanical construction; others are exceedingly prosaic, as,

“Egregie cordatus homo Catus Ælius Sextus;”

and not a few are deformed with the most absurd conceits, not so much in the idea, as in a jingle of words and extravagant alliteration. The ambiguity of the celebrated verse,

“Aio te Æacida Romanos vincere posse,”

may be excused as oracular, but what can be said for such lines as,

“Haud doctis dictis certantes sed maledictis.

O Tite tute Tate tibi tanta tyranne tulisti.

Stultus est qui cupida cupiens cupienter cupit.”

This species of conceit was rejected by the good taste of subsequent Latin poets, even in the most degraded periods of literature; and I know no parallel to it, except in some passages of Sidney’s Arcadia. Nothing can be a greater mistake, than to suppose that false taste and jingle are peculiar to the latter ages of poetry, and that the early bards of a country are free from concetti.

On the whole, the works of Ennius are rather pleasing and interesting, as the early blossoms of that poetry which afterwards opened to such perfection, than estimable from their own intrinsic beauty. To many critics the latter part of Ovid’s observation,

“Ennius ingenio maximus—arte rudis,”

has appeared better founded than the first. Scaliger, however, has termed him, “Poeta antiquus magnifico ingenio: Utinam hunc haberemus integrum, et amisissemus Lucanum, Statium, Silium Italicum, et tous ces garcons la[216].” Quintilian has happily enough compared the writings of Ennius to those sacred groves hallowed by their antiquity, and which we do not so much admire for their beauty, as revere with religious [pg 94]awe and dread[217]. Hence, if we cannot allow Ennius to be crowned with the poetical laurel, we may at least grant the privilege conceded to him by Propertius—

“Ennius hirsutâ cingat sua tempora quercu.”

Politian, in his Nutricia, has recapitulated the events of the life of Ennius, and has given perhaps the most faithful summary of his character, both as a man and a poet—

“Bella horrenda tonat Romanorumque triumphos,

Inque vicem nexos per carmina degerit annos:

Arte rudis, sed mente potens, parcissimus oris,

Pauper opum, fidens animi, morumque probatus,

Contentusque suo, nec bello ignarus et armis.”

But whatever may have been the merits of the works of Ennius, of which we are now but incompetent judges, they were at least sufficiently various. Epic, dramatic, satiric, and didactic poetry, were all successively attempted by him; and we also learn that he exercised himself in lighter sorts of verse, as the epigram and acrostic[218]. For this novelty and exuberance it is not difficult to account. The fountains of Greek literature, as yet untasted in Latium, were to him inexhaustible sources. He stood in very different circumstances from those Greek bards who had to rely solely on their own genius, or from his successors in Latin poetry, who wrote after the best productions of Greece had become familiar to the Romans. He was placed in a situation in which he could enjoy all the popularity and applause due to originality, without undergoing the labour of invention, and might rapidly run with success through every mode of the lyre, without possessing incredible diversity of genius.

The above criticisms apply to the poetical productions of Ennius; but the most curious point connected with his literary history is his prose translation of the celebrated work of Euhemerus, entitled, Ἱερα Αναγραφη. Euhemerus is generally supposed to have been an inhabitant of Messene, a city of Peloponnesus. Being sent, as he represented, on a voyage of discovery by Cassander, King of Macedon, he came to an island called Panchaia, in the capital of which, Panara, he found a temple of the Tryphilian Jupiter, where stood a column inscribed with a register of the births and deaths of many of the gods. Among these, he specified Uranus, his sons Pan and Saturn, and his daughters Rhea and Ceres; as also Jupiter, Juno, and Neptune, who were the offspring of Saturn. Ac[pg 95]cordingly, the design of Euhemerus was to show, by investigating their actions, and recording the places of their births and burials, that the mythological deities were mere mortal men, raised to the rank of gods on account of the benefits which they had conferred on mankind,—a system which, according to Meiners and Warburton, formed the grand secret revealed at the initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries[219]. The translation by Ennius, as well as the original work, is lost; but many particulars concerning Euhemerus, and the object of his history, are mentioned in a fragment of Diodorus Siculus, preserved by Eusebius. Some passages have also been saved by St. Augustine; and long quotations, have been made by Lactantius, in his treatise De Falsa Religione. These, so far as they extend, may be regarded as the truest and purest sources of mythological history, though not much followed in our modern Pantheons.

Plutarch, who was associated to the priesthood, and all who were interested in the support of the vulgar creed, maintained, that the whole work of Euhemerus, with his voyage to Panchaia, was an impudent fiction; and, in particular, it was urged, that no one except Euhemerus had ever seen or heard of the land of Panchaia[220]: that the Panchaia Tellus had indeed been described in a flowery and poetical style, both by Diodorus Siculus and Virgil—

“Totaque thuriferis Panchaia pinguis arenis[221].”

but not in such a manner as to determine its geographical position.

The truth, however, of the relation contained in the work of Euhemerus, has been vindicated by modern writers; who have attempted to prove that Panchaia was an island of the Red Sea, which Euhemerus had actually visited in the course of his voyage[222]. But whether Euhemerus merely recorded what he had seen, or whether the whole book was a device and contrivance of his own, it seems highly probable that the translation of Ennius gave rise to the belief of many Roman philosophers, who maintained, or insinuated, their conviction of the mortality of the gods, and whose writings have been so frequently appealed to by Farmer, in his able disquisition on the prevalence of the Worship of Human Spirits.

It is clear, that notwithstanding their observance of prodigies and religious ceremonies, there prevailed a considerable spirit of free-thinking among the Romans in the age of Ennius. [pg 96]This is apparent, not merely from his translation of Euhemerus, and definition of the nature of Jupiter, in his Epicharmus, but from various passages in dramas adapted for public representation, which deride the superstitions of augurs and soothsayers, as well as the false ideas entertained of the worshipped divinities. Polybius, too, who flourished shortly after Ennius, speaks of the fear of the gods, and the inventions of augury, merely as an excellent political engine, at the same time that he reprehends the rashness and absurdity of those who were endeavouring to extirpate such useful opinions[223].

The dramatic career which had been commenced by Livius Andronicus and Ennius, was most successfully prosecuted by

PLAUTUS,

who availed himself, still more even than his predecessors, of the works of the Greeks. The Old Greek comedy was excessively satirical, and sometimes obscene. Its subjects, as is well known, were not entirely fictitious, but in a great measure real; and neither the highest station, nor the brightest talents, were any security against the unrestrained invectives of the comic muse in her earliest sallies. Cratinus, Eupolis, and Aristophanes, were permitted to introduce on the stage the philosophers, generals, and magistrates of the state with their true countenances, and as it were in propria persona; a license which seems, in some measure, to have been regarded as the badge of popular freedom. It is only from the plays of Aristophanes that we can judge of the spirit of the ancient comedy. Its genius was so wild and strange, that it scarcely admits of definition: and can hardly be otherwise described, than as containing a great deal of allegorical satire on the political measures and manners of the Athenians, and parodies on their tragic poets.

When in Athens the people began to lose their political influence, and when the management of their affairs was vested in fewer hands than formerly, the oligarchical government restrained this excessive license; but while the poets were prohibited from naming the individuals whose actions they exposed, still they represented real characters so justly, though under fictitious appellations, that there could be no mistake with regard to the persons intended. This species of drama, which comprehends some of the later pieces of Aristophanes,—for example, his Plutus,—and is named the Middle comedy, [pg 97]was soon discovered to be as offensive and dangerous as the old. The dramatists being thus at length forced to invent their subjects and characters, comedy became a general yet lively imitation of the common actions of life. All personal allusion was dropped, and the Chorus, which had been the great vehicle of censure and satire, was removed. The new comedy was thus so different in its features from the middle or the old, that Schlegel has been induced to think, that it was formed on the model of the latest tragedians, rather than on the ancient comedy[224]. In the productions of Agathon, and even in some dramas of Euripides, tragedy had descended from its primeval height, and represented the distresses of domestic life, though still the domestic life of kings and heroes. Though Euripides was justly styled by Aristotle the most tragic of all poets, his style possessed neither the energy and sublimity of Æschylus, nor the gravity and stateliness of Sophocles, and it was frequently not much elevated above the language of ordinary conversation. His plots, too, like the Rudens of Plautus, often hinge on the fear of women, lest they be torn from the shrines or altars to which they had fled for protection; and what may be regarded as a confirmation of this opinion is, that Euripides, who had been so severely satirized by Aristophanes, was extravagantly extolled by Philemon, in his own age the most popular writer of the new comedy.

While possessing, perhaps, both less art and fire than the old satirical drama, produced in times of greater public freedom, the new comedy is generally reputed to have been superior in delicacy, regularity, and decorum. But although it represented the characters and manners of real life, yet in these characters and manners—to judge at least from the fragments which remain, and from the Latin imitations—there does not appear to have been much variety. There is always an old father, a lover, and a courtezan; as if formed on each other, like the Platonic and licentious lover in the Spanish romances of chivalry. “Their plots,” says Dryden, “were commonly a little girl, stolen or wandering from her parents, brought back unknown to the city,—there got with child by some one, who, by the help of his servant, cheats his father,—and when her time comes to cry Juno Lucina, one or other sees a little box or cabinet which was carried away with her, and so discovers her to her friends;—if some god do not prevent it, by coming down in a machine, and taking the thanks of it to himself. By the plot you may guess much of the cha[pg 98]racters of the persons; an old father, who would willingly before he dies see his son well married; a debauched son, kind in his nature to his mistress, but miserably in want of money; and a servant, or slave, who has so much art as to strike in with him, and help to dupe his father; a braggadocio captain; a parasite; a lady of pleasure. As for the poor honest maid, on whom the story is built, and who ought to be one of the principal actors in the play, she is commonly mute in it. She has the breeding of the old Elizabeth way: which was, for maids to be seen and not to be heard.” Sometimes, however, her breeding appears in being heard and not seen; and Donatus remarks, that invocations of Juno behind the scenes were the only way in which the severity of the Comœdia palliata allowed young gentlewomen to be introduced. Were we to characterize the ancient drama by appellations of modern invention, it might be said, that the ancient comedy was what we call a comedy of character, and the modern a comedy of intrigue.

Nævius, while inventing plots of his own, had tried to introduce on the Roman stage the style of the old Greek comedy; but his dramas did not succeed, and the fate of their author deterred others from following his dangerous career. The government of Athens, which occupies a chief part in the old comedy, was the most popular of all administrations; and hence not only oratory but comedy claimed the right of ridiculing and exposing it. The first state in Greece became the subject of merriment. In one play, the whole body of the people was represented under the allegorical personage of an old doting driveller; and the pleasantry was not only tolerated but enjoyed by the members of the state itself. Cleon and Lamachus could not have repressed the satire of Aristophanes, as the Metelli checked the invectives of Nævius. Under pretence of patriotic zeal, the Greek comic writers spared no part of the public conduct,—councils, revenues, popular assemblies, judicial proceedings, or warlike enterprizes. Such exposure was a restraint on the ambition of individuals,—a matter of importance to a people jealous of its liberties. All this, however, was quite foreign to the more serious taste, and more aristocratic government, of the Romans, to their estimation of heroes and statesmen, to their respect for their legitimate chiefs, and for the dignity even of a Roman citizen. The profound reverence and proud affection which they entertained for all that exalted the honour of their country, and their extreme sensibility to its slightest disgrace, must have interdicted any exhibition, in which its glory was humbled, or its misfortunes held up to mockery. They would not have laughed so [pg 99]heartily at the disasters of a Carthaginian, as the Athenians did at those of a Peloponnesian or Sicilian war. The disposition which led them to return thanks to Varro, after the battle of Cannæ, that he had not despaired of the republic, was very different from the temper which excited such contumelious laughter at the promoters of the Spartan war, and the advisers of the fatal expedition to Syracuse[225]. When the Roman people were seriously offended, the Tarpeian rock, and not the stage, was the spot selected for their vengeance.

Accordingly, Plautus found it most prudent to imitate the style of the new comedy, which had been brought to perfection, about half a century before his birth, by Menander. All his comedies, however, are not strictly formed on this model, as a few partake of the nature of the middle comedy: not that, like Nævius, he satirized the senators or consuls; but I have little doubt that many of his dramatis personæ, such as the miser and braggart captain, were originally caricatures of citizens of Athens. In borrowing from the Greek, he did not, like modern writers of comedy who wish to conceal their plagiarisms, vary the names of his characters, the scene of action, and other external circumstances, while the substance of the drama remained the same; on the contrary, he preserved every circumstance which could tend to give his dramatic pieces a Greek air:—

“Atque hoc poetæ faciunt in comœdiis;

Omnes res gestas esse Athenis autumant,

Quo illud vobis Græcum videatur magis.”

Plautus was the son of a freedman, and was born at Sarsina, a town in Umbria, about the year 525. He was called Plautus from his splay feet, a defect common among the Umbrians. Having turned his attention to the stage, he soon realized a considerable fortune by the popularity of his dramas; but by risking it in trade, or spending it, according others, on the splendid dresses which he wore as an actor, and theatrical amusements being little resorted to, on account of the famine then prevailing at Rome, he was quickly reduced to such [pg 100]necessity as forced him to labour at a hand-mill for his daily support[226] an employment which at Rome, was the ordinary punishment of a worthless slave. Many of his plays were written in these unfavourable circumstances, and of course have not obtained all the perfection which might otherwise have resulted from his knowledge of life, and his long practice in the dramatic art.

Of the performances of Plautus, the first, in that alphabetical order in which, for want of a better, they are usually arranged, is,

Amphitryon.—Personal resemblances are a most fertile subject of comic incidents, and almost all nations have had their Amphitryon. The Athenians in particular gladly availed themselves of this subject, as it afforded an opportunity of throwing ridicule on the dull Bœotians. It is not certain, however, from what Greek author the play of Plautus was taken. Being announced as a tragi-comedy, some critics[227] have conjectured that it was most probably imitated from an Amphitryon mentioned by Athenæus,[228] which was the work of Rhinton, a poet of Tarentum, who wrote mock-tragedies and tragi-comedies styled Rhintonica or Hilarotragœdiæ. M. Schlegel, however, alleges that it was borrowed from a play of Epicharmus the Sicilian. The subjects indeed of the ancient Greek comedy, particularly in the hands of Epicharmus, its inventor, were frequently derived from mythology. Even in its maturity, these topics were not renounced, as appears from the titles of several lost pieces of Aristophanes and his contemporaries. Such fabulous traditions continued sometimes to occupy the scenes of the middle comedy, and it was not till the new was introduced that the sphere of the comic drama was confined to the representation of private and domestic life. Euripides also is said to have written a play entitled Alcmena, on the story of Amphitryon, but how far Plautus may have been indebted to him for his plot cannot be now ascertained. It is probable enough, however, that some of the serious parts may have been copied from the Alcmena of Euripides. The catastrophe of Plautus’s Amphitryon is brought about by a storm; and we learn from the Rudens, another play of Plautus, that a tempest was introduced by the Greek tragedian—

“Non ventus fuit, verum Alcmena Euripidis.”

The Latin play is introduced by a prologue which is spoken by the God Mercury, and was explanatory to the audience of the circumstances preceding the opening of the piece, and the situation of the principal characters. The term prologue has been very arbitrarily used. In one sense it merely signified the induction to the dramatic action, which informed the spectator of what was necessary to be known for duly understanding it. Aristotle calls that part of a tragedy the prologue, which precedes the first song of the chorus.[229] In the Greek tragedies, the prologue was often a long introductory and narrative monologue. Sophocles, however, so dialogued this part of the drama, that it has no appearance of a contrivance to instruct, but seems a natural conversation of the dramatis personæ. Euripides, on the other hand, fell more into the style of the formal narrative prologue, since, before entering on the action or dialogue, one of the persons destined to bear a part in the drama frequently explained to the audience, in a continued discourse, what things seemed essential for understanding the piece. Sometimes, however, in the Greek tragedies, the speaker of this species of prologue is not a person of the drama. In general, these artificial prologues of explanatory narration are addressed directly to the spectators, and hence approach nearly to the prologue, in our acceptation of the term. The poets of the ancient comedy, as we see from Aristophanes, usually adopted, like Sophocles, the mode of explaining preliminary circumstances in the course of the action, whence it has been considered that the old Greek comedies have no prologue; and they certainly have none in the strict modern sense, though the method of Euripides has been employed to a certain degree in the Wasps and Birds, in the former of which Xanthias, interrupting the dialogue with Sosias, turns abruptly to the spectators, and unfolds the argument of the fable. The poets of the middle and new comedy, while departing from Aristophanes in many things, followed him in the form of the prologue; and, as they improved in refinement, interwove still closer the requisite exposition of the fable with its action. The Romans thus found among the Greeks, prologues in a continued narrative, and prologues where the exposition was mixed with the action. From these models they formed a new species, peculiar to themselves, which is entirely separated from the action of the drama, and which generally contains an explanation of circumstances and characters, with such gentle recommendation of the piece as suited the purpose of the author. We shall [pg 102]find that the Latin prologues, dressed up in the form of narrative, sometimes preceded the dramatic induction of the action, and at other times, as in the Miles Gloriosus, followed it. The prologue of the Mostellaria is on the plan adopted by Aristophanes, and that of the Cistellaria is conformable to the practice of our own theatre. To other plays, such as the Epidicus and Bacchides, there were originally no prologues, but they were prefixed after the death of the author, in order to explain the reasons for bringing them forward anew. It thus appears that in his prologues Plautus approached nearer to Euripides than to those comic writers whom in his argument and all other respects he chiefly followed. The prologues of Terence, again, seldom announce the subject. In the manner of the Greeks, his induction is laid in the first scene of the play, and the prologues seem chiefly intended to acknowledge the Greek original of his drama, and to explain matters personal to himself. They rather resemble the choruses of Aristophanes, which in the Wasps and other plays directly address the audience in favour of the poet, and complain of the unjust reception which his dramas occasionally experienced.

In the prologue to the Amphitryon, Plautus calls his play a tragi-comedy[230]; probably not so much that there is any thing tragical in the subject, (although the character of Alcmena is a serious one,) as, because it is of that mixed kind in which the highest as well as lowest characters are introduced. The plot is chiefly founded on the well-known mythological incident of Jupiter assuming the figure of Amphitryon, general of the Thebans, during his absence with the army, and by that means imposing on his wife Alcmena. The play opens while Jupiter is supposed to be with the object of his passion. Sosia, the servant of Amphitryon, who had been sent on before by his master, from the port to announce his victory and approach, is introduced on the stage, proceeding towards the palace of Amphitryon. While expressing his astonishment at the length of the night, he is met, in front of his master’s house, by Mercury, who had assumed his form, and who, partly by blows and threats, and partly by leading him to doubt of his own identity, succeeds in driving him back. This gives Jupiter time to prosecute his amour, and he departs at dawn. The [pg 103]improbable story related by Sosia is not believed by his master, who himself now advances towards his house, from which Alcmena comes forth, lamenting the departure of her supposed husband; but seeing Amphitryon, she expresses her surprise at his speedy return. The jealousy of Amphitryon is thus excited, and he quits the stage, in order to bring evidence that he had never till that time quitted his army. Jupiter then returns, and Amphitryon is afterwards refused access to his own house by Mercury, who pretends that he does not know him. At length Jupiter and Amphitryon are confronted. They are successively questioned as to the events of the late war by the pilot of the ship in which Amphitryon had returned. As Jupiter also stands this test of identity, the real Amphitryon is wrought up to such a pitch of rage and despair, that he resolves to wreak vengeance on his whole family, and is provoked even to utter blasphemies, by setting the gods at defiance. He is supposed immediately after this to have been struck down by lightning, as, in the next scene, Bromia, the attendant of Alcmena, rushes out from the house, alarmed at the tempest, and finds Amphitryon lying prostrate on the earth. When he has recovered, she announces to him that during the storm Alcmena had given birth to twins:—

“Amph. Ain’ tu Geminos? Brom. Geminos. Amph. Dii me servent.”

Jupiter then, in propria persona, reveals the whole mystery, and Amphitryon appears to be much flattered by the honour which had been paid him.

In this play the jealousy and perplexity of Amphitryon are well portrayed, and the whole character of Alcmena is beautifully drawn. She is represented as an affectionate wife, full of innocence and simplicity, and her distress at the suspicions of the real Amphitryon is highly interesting. The English translator of Plautus has remarked the great similarity of manners between her and Desdemona, while placed in similar circumstances. Both express indignation at being suspected, but love for their husbands makes them easily reconciled. The reader, however, feels that Amphitryon and Alcmena remain in an awkward situation at the conclusion of the piece. It must also be confessed, that the Roman dramatist has assigned a strange part to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, at whose festivals this play is said to have been usually performed; but, as Voltaire has remarked, “Il n’y a que ceux qui ne savent point combien les hommes agissent peu consequemment, qui puissent etre surpris, qu’on se moqua publiquement au theatre des memes dieux qu’on adorait dans les temples.”

Mistakes are a most fruitful subject of comic incident, and never could there be such mistakes as those which arise from two persons being undistinguishable: but then, in order to give an appearance of verisimilitude on the stage, it was almost necessary that the play should be represented with masks, which could alone exhibit the perfect resemblance of the two Amphitryons and the two Sosias; and even with this advantage, such errors, in order to possess dramatic plausibility, must have been founded on some mythological tradition. The subject, therefore, is but an indifferent one for the modern stage. Accordingly, Ludovico Dolce, who first imitated this comedy in his play entitled Marito, has grossly erred in transporting the scene from Thebes to Padua, and assigning the parts of Jupiter and Amphitryon to Messer Muzio and Fabrizio, two Italian citizens, who were so similar in appearance, that the wife of one of them, though a sensible and virtuous woman, is deceived night and day, during her husband’s absence, by the resemblance, and the deception is aided by the still more marvellous likeness of their domestics. In place of Jupiter appearing in the clouds, and justifying Alcmena, the Italian has introduced a monk, called Fra Girolamo, who is bribed to persuade the foolish husband that a spirit (Folletto) had one night transported him to Padua, during sleep, which satisfactorily accounts to him for the situation in which he finds his wife on his return home.

These absurdities have been in a great measure avoided in the imitation by Rotrou, who may be regarded as the father of the French drama, having first exploded the bad taste which pervades the pieces of Hardy. His comedy entitled Les Deux Sosies, is completely framed on the Amphitryon of Plautus, only the prologue is spoken by the inveterate Juno, who declaims against her rivals, and enumerates the labours which she has in store for the son of Alcmena.

But by far the most celebrated imitation of Plautus is the Amphitrion of Moliere, who has managed with much delicacy a subject in itself not the most decorous. He has in general followed the steps of the Roman dramatist, but where he has departed from them, he has improved on the original. Instead of the dull and inconsistent prologue delivered by Mercury, which explains the subject of the piece, he has introduced a scene between Mercury and Night, (probably suggested by the Dialogues of Lucian between Mercury and the Sun on the same occasion,) in which Mercury announces the state of matters while requesting Night to prolong her stay on earth for the sake of Jupiter. At the commencement of the piece, Plautus has made Sosia repeat to himself a very minute, though picturesque [pg 105]account of the victory of the Thebans, as preparatory to a proper description of it to Alcmena. This Moliere has formed into a sort of dialogued soliloquy between Sosia and his Lantern, which rehearses the answers anticipated from Alcmena, till the discourse is at length interrupted by the arrival of Mercury, when the speaker has lost himself among the manœuvres of the troops. In the Latin Amphitryon, Mercury threatens Sosia, and he replies to his rodomontade by puns and quibbles, which have been omitted by the French poet, who makes the spectators laugh by the excessive and ridiculous terror of Sosia, and not by pleasantries inconsistent with his feelings and situation. Moliere has copied from Plautus the manner in which Sosia is gradually led to doubt of his own identity: his consequent confusion of ideas has been closely imitated, as also the ensuing scenes of the quarrel and reconciliation between Jupiter and Alcmena. He has added the part of Cleanthes, the wife of Sosia, suggested to him by a line put into the mouth of Sosia by Plautus—

“Quid me expectatum non rere amicæ meæ venturum.”

It was certainly ingenious to make the adventures of the slave a parody on those of his master, and this new character produces an agreeable scene between her and Mercury, who is little pleased with the caresses of this antiquated charmer. On the other hand, the French dramatist has omitted the examination of the double Amphitryons, and nearly introduces them in the presence of two Thebans: Amphitryon brings his friends to avenge him, by assaulting Jupiter, when that god appears in the clouds and announces the future birth of Hercules. Through the whole comedy, Moliere has given a different colour to the behaviour of Jupiter, from that thrown over it by Plautus. In the Latin play he assumes quite the character of the husband; but with Moliere he is more of a lover and gallant, and pays Alcmena so many amorous compliments, that she exclaims,

“Amphitrion, en verité,

Vous vous moquez de tenir ce langage!”

Moliere evidently felt that Alcmena and Amphitryon were placed in an awkward situation, in spite of the assurances of Jupiter—

“Alcmene est toute a toi, quelque soin qu’on employe;

Et ce doit a tes feux etre un objet bien doux,

De voir, que pour lui plaire, il n’est point d’autre voie,

Que de paraitre son epoux.

Sosie. Le seigneur Jupiter sait dorer sa pilule.”

In these, and several other lines, Moliere has availed himself of the old French play of Rotrou. The lively expression of Sosia,

“Le veritable Amphitryon est l’Amphitryon ou l’on dine,”

which has passed into a sort of proverb, has been suggested by a similar phrase of Rotrou’s Sosia—

“Point point d’Amphitryon ou l’on ne dine point;”

and the lines,

“J’etais venu, je vous jure,

Avant que je fusse arrivé,”

are nearly copied from Rotrou’s

“J’etais chez-nous avant mon arrivé;”

and Sosia’s boast, in the older French play,

“Il m’est conforme en tout—il est grand, il est fort,”

has probably suggested to Moliere the lines,

“Des pieds, jusqu’ a la tete il est comme moi fait,

Beau, l’air noble, bienpris, les manieres charmantes.”

The Amphitrion of Moliere was published in 1668, so that Dryden, in his imitation of Plautus’s Amphitryon, which first appeared in 1690, had an opportunity of also availing himself of the French piece. But, even with this assistance, he has done Plautus less justice than his predecessor. He has sometimes borrowed the scenes and incidents of Moliere; but has too frequently given us ribaldry in the low characters, and bombast in the higher, instead of the admirable grace and liveliness of the French dramatist. His comedy commences earlier than either the French or Latin play. Phœbus makes his appearance at the opening of the piece. The first arrival of Jupiter in the shape of Amphitryon is then represented, apparently in order to introduce Phædra, the attendant of Alcmena, exacting a promise from her mistress, before she knew, who had arrived, that they should that night be bed-fellows as usual since Amphitryon’s absence. To this Phædra, Dryden has assigned an amour with Mercury, to the great jealousy of Sosia’s wife, Bromia; and has mixed up the whole play with pastoral dialogues and rondeaus, to which, as he[pg 107] informs us in his dedication, “the numerous choir of fair ladies gave so just an applause.” The scenes of a higher description are those which have been best managed. The latest editor, indeed, of the works of Dryden, thinks that in these parts he has surpassed both the French and Roman dramatist. “The sensation to be expressed,” he remarks, “is not that of sentimental affection, which the good father of Olympus was not capable of feeling; but love of that grosser and subordinate kind, which prompted Jupiter in his intrigues, has been expressed by none of the ancient poets in more beautiful verse, than that in which Dryden has clothed it, in the scenes between Jupiter and Alcmena.” Milbourne, who afterwards so violently attacked the English poet, highly compliments him on the success of this effort of his dramatic muse—

“Not Phœbus could with gentler words pursue

His flying Daphne; not the morning dew

Falls softer, than the words of amorous Jove,

When melting, dying, for Alcmena’s love.”

The character, however, of Alcmena is, I think, less interesting in the English than in the Latin play. She is painted by Plautus as delighted with the glory of her husband. In the second scene of the second act, after a beautiful complaint on account of his absence, she consoles herself with the thoughts of his military renown, and concludes with an eulogy on valour, which would doubtless be highly popular in a Roman theatre during the early ages of the Republic—

—— “Virtus præmium est optimum,

Virtus omnibus rebus anteit profecto.

Libertas, salus, vita, res, parenteis,

Patria, et prognati tutantur, servantur:

Virtus omnia in se habet; omnia adsunt bona, quem pen’est virtus.”

Dryden’s Alcmena is represented as quite different in her sentiments: She exclaims, on parting with Jupiter,

“Curse on this honour, and this public fame!

Would you had less of both, and more of love!”

Lady M. W. Montague gives a curious account, in one of her letters, of a German play on the subject of Amphitryon, which she saw acted at Vienna.—“As that subject had been already handled by a Latin, French, and English poet, I was curious to see what an Austrian author could make of it. I understand enough of that language to comprehend the greatest part of it; and, besides, I took with me a lady that had the [pg 108]goodness to explain to me every word. I thought the house very low and dark; but the comedy admirably recompensed that defect. I never laughed so much in my life. It began with Jupiter falling in love out of a peep-hole in the clouds, and ended with the birth of Hercules. But what was most pleasant was, the use Jupiter made of his metamorphosis; for you no sooner saw him under the figure of Amphitryon, but, instead of flying to Alcmena with the raptures Dryden puts into his mouth, he sends for Amphitryon’s tailor, and cheats him of a laced coat, and his banker of a bag of money—a Jew of a diamond ring, and bespeaks a great supper in his name; and the greatest part of the comedy turns upon poor Amphitryon’s being tormented by these people for their debts. Mercury uses Sosia in the same manner; but I could not easily pardon the liberty the poet had taken of larding his play with not only indecent expressions, but such gross words as I do not think our mob would suffer from a mountebank.”

In nothing can the manners of different ages and countries be more distinctly traced, than in the way in which the same subject is treated on the stage. In Plautus, may be remarked the military enthusiasm and early rudeness of the Romans—in the Marito of L. Dolce, the intrigues of the Italians, and the constant interposition of priests and confessors in domestic affairs—in Dryden, the libertinism of the reign of Charles the Second—and in Moliere, the politeness and refinement of the court of Louis.

Asinaria, is translated from the Greek of Demophilus, a writer of the Middle comedy. The subject is the trick put on an ass-driver by two roguish slaves, in order to get hold of the money which he brought in payment of some asses he had purchased from their master, that they might employ it in supplying the extravagance of their master’s son. The old man, however, is not the dupe in this play: On the contrary, he is a confederate in the plot, which was chiefly devised against his wife, who, having brought her husband a great portion, imperiously governed his house and family. By this means the youth is restored to the possession of a mercenary mistress, from whom he had been excluded by a more wealthy rival. The father stipulates, as a reward for the part which he had acted in this stratagem, that he also should have a share in the favours of his son’s mistress; and the play concludes with this old wretch being detected by his wife, carousing at a nocturnal banquet, a wreath of flowers on his head, with his son and the courtezan. It would appear, from the concluding address to the spectators, that neither the moral sense of the author, nor of his audience, was very strong [pg 109]or correct, as the bystanders on the stage, so far from condemning these abandoned characters, declare that the most guilty of the three had done nothing new or surprising, or more than what was customary:

“Grex. Hic senex, si quid, clam uxorem, suo animo fecit volup,

Neque novum, neque mirum fecit, nec secus quam alii solent:

Nec quisqua’st tam in genio duro; nec tam firmo pectore,

Quin ubi quicquam occasionis sit, sibi faciat bene.”

Lucilius, while remarking in one of his fragments, that the Chremes of Terence had preserved a just medium in morals by his obliging demeanour towards his son, had ample grounds for observing, that the Demænetus of Plautus had run into an extreme—

“Chremes in medium, in summum ire Ademænetus[231].”

However exceptionable in point of morals, this play possesses much comic vivacity and interest of character. The courtezan and the slaves are sketched with spirit and freedom, and the rapacious disposition of the female dealer in slave-girls, is well developed.

It is curious that this immoral comedy should have been so frequently acted in the Italian convents. In particular, a translation in terza rima was represented in the monastery of St Stefano at Venice, in 1514[232]. It was not of a nature to be often imitated by modern writers, but Moliere, who has borrowed so many of the plots of other plays of Plautus, has extracted from this drama several situations and ideas. Cleæreta, in the third scene of the first Act of the Asinaria, gives, as her advice, to a gallant—

“Neque ille scit quid det, quid damni faciat: illi rei studet;

Vult placere sese amicæ, vult mihi, vult pedissequæ,

Vult famulis, vult etiam ancillis; et quoque catulo meo

Sublanditur novus amator.”

In like manner, in the Femmes Savantes, Henriette, while counselling Clitandre to be complaisant, says—

“Un amant fait sa cour ou s’attache son cœur,

Il veut de tout le monde y gagner la faveur;

Et pour n’avoir personne a sa flamme contraire,

Jusqu’au chien du logis il s’efforce de plaire.”

Aulularia.—It is not known from what Greek author this play has been taken; but there can be no doubt that it had [pg 110]its archetype in the Greek drama. The festivals of Ceres and Bacchus, which in their origin were innocent institutions, intended to celebrate the blessings of harvest and vintage, having degenerated by means of priestcraft, became schools of superstition and debauchery. From the adventures and intrigues which occurred at the celebration of religious mysteries, the comic poets of Greece frequently drew the incidents of their dramas[233], which often turned on damsels having been rendered, on such occasions, the mothers of children, without knowing who were the fathers. In like manner, the intrigue of the Aulularia has its commencement in the daughter of Euclio being violated during the celebration of the mysteries of Ceres, without being aware from whom she had received the injury. The Aulularia, however, is principally occupied with the display of the character of a Miser. No vice has been so often pelted with the good sentences of moralists, or so often ridiculed on the stage, as avarice; and of all the characters that have been there represented, that of the miser in the Aulularia of Plautus, is perhaps the most entertaining and best supported. Comic dramas have been divided into those of intrigue and character, and the Aulularia is chiefly of the latter description. It is so termed from Aula, or Olla, the diminutive of which is Aulula, signifying the little earthen pot that contained a treasure which had been concealed by his grandfather, but had been discovered by Euclio the miser, who is the principal character of the play. The prologue is spoken by the Lar Familiaris of the house; and as the play has its origin in the discovery of a treasure deposited under a hearth, the introduction of this imaginary Being, if we duly consider the superstitions of the Romans, was happy and appropriate. The account given by the Lar of the successive generations of misers, is also well imagined, as it convinces us that Euclio was a genuine miser, and of the true breed. The household god had disclosed the long-concealed treasure, as a reward for the piety of Euclio’s daughter, who presented him with offerings of frankincense and of wine, which, however, it is not very probable the miser’s daughter could have procured, especially before the discovery of the treasure. The story of the precious deposit, of which the spectators could not possibly have been informed without this supernatural interposition, being thus related, we are introduced at once to the knowledge of the principal character, who, having found the treasure, employs himself in guarding it, and lives in continual apprehension, lest it should be dis[pg 111]covered that he possesses it. Accordingly, he is brought on the stage driving off his servant, that she may not spy him while visiting this hoard, and afterwards giving directions of the strictest economy. He then leaves home on an errand very happily imagined—an attendance at a public distribution of money to the poor. Megadorus now proposes to marry his daughter, and Euclio comically enough supposes that he has discovered something concerning his newly acquired wealth; but on his offering to take her without a portion, he is tranquillized, and agrees to the match. Knowing the disposition of his intended father-in-law, Megadorus sends provisions to his house, and also cooks, to prepare a marriage-feast, but the miser turns them out, and keeps what they had brought. At length his alarm for discovery rises to such a height, that he hides his treasure in a grove, consecrated to Sylvanus, which lay beyond the walls of the city. While thus employed, he is observed by the slave of Lyconides, the young man who had violated the miser’s daughter. Euclio coming to recreate himself with the sight of his gold, finds that it is gone. Returning home in despair, he is met by Lyconides, who, hearing of the projected nuptials between his uncle and the miser’s daughter, now apologizes for his conduct; but the miser applies all that he says concerning his daughter to his lost treasure. This play is unfortunately mutilated, and ends with the slave of Lyconides confessing to his master that he has found the miser’s hoard, and offering to give it up as the price of his freedom. It may be presumed, however, that, in the original, Lyconides got possession of the treasure, and by its restoration to Euclio, so far conciliated his favour, that he obtained his daughter in marriage. This conclusion, accordingly, has been adopted by those who have attempted to finish the comedy in the spirit of the Latin dramatist. It is completed on this plan by Thornton, the English translator of Plautus, and by Antonius Codrus Urceus, a professor in the University of Bologna, who died in the year 1500. Urceus has also made the miser suddenly change his nature, and liberally present his new son-in-law with the restored treasure.

The restless inquietude of Euclio, in concealing his gold in many different places—his terror on seeing the preparations for the feast, lest the wine brought in was meant to intoxicate him, that he might be robbed with greater facility—his dilemma at being obliged to miss the distribution to the poor—are all admirable traits of extreme and habitual avarice. Even his recollection of the expense of a rope, when, in despair at the loss of his treasure, he resolves to hang himself, though a little [pg 112]overdone, is sufficiently characteristic. But while the part of a confirmed miser has been comically and strikingly represented in these touches, it is stretched in others beyond all bounds of probability. When Euclio entreats his female servant to spare the cobwebs—when it is said, that he complains of being pillaged if the smoke issue from his house—and that he preserves the parings of his nails—we feel this to be a species of hoarding which no miser could think of or enjoy[234].

One of the earliest imitations of the Aulularia was, La Sporta, a prose Italian comedy, printed at Florence in 1543, under the name of Giovam-Battista Gelli, but attributed by some to Machiavel. It is said, that the great Florentine historian left this piece, in an imperfect state, in the hands of his friend Bernardino di Giordano of Florence, in whose house his comedies were sometimes represented, whence it passed into the possession of Gelli, a writer of considerable humour, who prepared it for the press; and, according to a practice not unfrequent in Italy at different periods, published it as his own production[235]. The play is called Sporta, from the basket in which the treasure was contained. The plot and incidents in Plautus have been closely followed, in so far as was consistent with modern Italian manners; and where they varied, the circumstances, as well as names, have been adapted by the author to the customs and ideas of his country. Euclio is called Ghirorgoro, and Megadorus, Lapo; the former being set up as a satire on avarice, the latter as a pattern of proper economy.

The principal plot of The case is altered, a comedy attributed to Ben Jonson, has been taken, as shall be afterwards shown from the Captivi of Plautus; but the character of Jaques is [pg 113]more closely formed on that of Euclio, than any miser on the modern stage. Jaques having purloined the treasure of a French Lord Chamont, whose steward he had been, and having also stolen his infant daughter, fled with them to Italy. The girl, when she grew up, being very beautiful, had many suitors; whence her reputed father suspects it is discovered that he possesses hidden wealth, in the same manner as Euclio does in the scene with Megadorus. We have a representation of his excessive anxiety lest he lose this treasure—his concealment of it—and his examination of Juniper, the cobbler, whom he suspects to have stolen it; which corresponds to Euclio’s examination of Strobilus. Most other modern dramatists have made their miser in love; but in the breast of Jaques all passions are absorbed in avarice, which is exhibited to us not so much in ridiculous instances of minute domestic economy, as in absolute adoration of his gold:

“I’ll take no leave, sweet prince, great emperor!

But see thee every minute, king of kings!”

It is thus he feasts his senses with his treasure: and the very ground in which it is hidden is accounted hallowed:

“This is the palace, where the god of gold

Shines like the sun of sparkling majesty!”

But the most celebrated imitation of the Aulularia is Moliere’s Avare, one of the best and most wonderful imitations ever produced. Almost nothing is of the French dramatist’s own invention. Scenes have been selected by him from a number of different plays, in various languages, which have no relation to each other; but every thing is so well connected, that the whole appears to have been invented for this single comedy. Though chiefly indebted to Plautus, he has not so closely followed his original as in the Amphitryon. One difference, which materially affects the plots of the two plays and characters of the misers, is, that Euclio was poor till he unexpectedly found the treasure. He was not known to be rich, and lived in constant dread of his wealth being discovered. When any thing was said about riches, he applied it to himself; and when well received or caressed by any one, he supposed that he was ensnared. Harpagon, on the other hand, had amassed a fortune, and was generally known to possess it, which gives an additional zest to the humour, as we thus enter into the merriment of his family and neighbours; whereas the penury of Euclio could scarcely have appeared unreasonable to the bystanders, who were not in the secret of the acquired [pg 114]treasure. Moliere has also made his miser in love, or at least resolved to marry, and amuses us with his anxiety, in believing himself under the necessity of giving a feast to his intended bride; which is still better than Euclio’s consternation at the supper projected by his intended son-in-law. Euclio is constantly changing the place where he conceals his casket; Harpagon allows it to remain, but is chiefly occupied with its security. The idea, however, of so much incident turning on a casket, is not so happily imagined in the French as in the Latin comedy; since, in the latter, it was the whole treasure of which the miser was possessed, and there was at that time no mode of lending it out safely and to advantage. Harpagon gives a collation, but orders the fragments to be sent back to those who had provided it; Euclio retains the provisions, which had been procured at another’s expense. From the restraint imposed by modern manners, and the circumstance of Harpagon being known to be rich, Moliere has been forced to omit the amusing dilemmas in which Euclio is placed with regard to his attendance on the distributions to the poor. In recompense, he has wonderfully improved the scene about the dowry, as also that in which the miser applies what is said concerning his daughter to his lost treasure; and, on the whole, he has displayed the passion of avarice in more of the incidents and relations of domestic life than the Latin poet. Plautus had remained satisfied with exhibiting a miser, who deprived himself of all the comforts of life, to watch night and day over an unproductive treasure; but Moliere went deeper into the mind. He knew that avarice is accompanied with selfishness, and hardness of heart, and falsehood, and mistrust, and usury; and accordingly, all these vices and evil passions are amalgamated with the character of the French miser.

The Aulularia being a play of character, I have been led to compare the most celebrated imitations of it rather in the exhibition of the miserly character than in the incidents of the piece. Many of the latter which occur in the Avare, have not been borrowed from Plautus, yet are not of Moliere’s invention. Thus he has added from the Pedant Joué of Cyrano Bergerac that part of the plot which consists in the love of the miser and his son for the same woman, as also that which relates to Valere, a young gentleman in love with the miser’s daughter, who had got into his service in disguise, and who, when the miser lost his money, which his son’s servant had stolen, was accused by another servant of having purloined it. Moliere’s notion of the miser’s prodigal son borrowing money from a usurer, and the usurer afterwards proving to be his father, is from La Belle Plaideuse, a comedy of Bois-Robert. In an [pg 115]Italian piece, Le Case Svaligiate, prior to the time of Moliere, and in the harlequin taste, Scapin persuades Pantaloon that the young beauty with whom he is captivated returns his love, that she sets a particular value on old age, and dislikes youthful admirers, whence Pantaloon is induced to give his purse to the flatterer. Frosine attacks the vanity of Harpagon in the same manner, but he, though not unmoved by the flattery, retains his money. Moliere has availed himself of a number of other Italian dramas of the same description for scattered remarks and situations. The name of Harpagon has been suggested to him by the continuation of Codrus Urceus, where Strobilus says that the masters of the present day are so avaricious, that they may be called Harpies or Harpagons:

“Tenaces nimium dominos nostra ætas

Tulit, quos Harpagones vocare soleo.”

I do not know where Moliere received the hint of the denouement of his piece. The conclusion of the Aulularia, as already mentioned, is not extant, but it could not have been so improbable and inartificial as the discovery of Valere and Marianne for the children of Thomas D’Alburci, who, under the name of Anselme, had courted the miser’s daughter.

Shadwell, Fielding, and Goldoni, enjoyed the advantage of studying Moliere’s Harpagon for their delineations of Goldingham, Lovegold, and Ottavio. In the miser of Shadwell there is much indecency indeed of his own invention, and some disgusting representations of city vulgarity and vice; but still he is hardly entitled to the praise of so much originality as he claims in his impudent preface.—“The foundation of this play,” says he, “I took from one of Moliere’s, called L’Avare, but that having too few persons, and too little action for an English theatre, I added to both so much, that I may call more than half of this play my own; and I think I may say, without vanity, that Moliere’s part of it has not suffered in my hands. Nor did I ever know a French comedy made use of by the worst of our poets that was not bettered by them. It is not barrenness of art or invention makes us borrow from the French, but laziness; and this was the occasion of my making use of L’Avare.”

Fielding’s Miser, the only one of his comedies which does him credit, is a much more agreeable play than Shadwell’s. The earlier scenes are a close imitation of Moliere, but the concluding ones are somewhat different, and the denouement is perhaps improved. Mariana is in a great measure a new character, and those of the servants are rendered more prominent and important than in the French original.

The miser Ottavio, in Goldoni’s Vero Amico, is entirely copied from Plautus and Moliere. In the Italian play, however, the character is in a great measure episodical, and the principal plot, which gives its title to the piece, and corresponds with that of Diderot’s Fils Naturel, has been invented by the Italian dramatist.

On the whole, Moliere has succeeded best in rendering the passion of avarice hateful: Plautus and Goldoni have only made it ridiculous. The profound and poetical avarice of Jaques possesses something plaintive in its tone, which almost excites our sympathy, and never our laughter; he is represented as a worshipper of gold, somewhat as an old Persian might be of the sun, and he does not raise our contempt by the absurdities of domestic economy. But Harpagon is thoroughly detestable, and is in fact detested by his neighbours, domestics, and children. All these dramatists are accused of having exhibited rather an allegorical representation of avarice, than the living likeness of a human Being influenced by that odious propensity. “Plautus,” says Hurd, “and also Moliere, offended in this, that for the picture of the avaricious man they presented us with a fantastic unpleasing draught of the passion of avarice—I call it a fantastic draught, because it hath no archetype in nature, and it is farther an unpleasing one; from being the delineation of a simple passion, unmixed, it wants

‘The lights and shades, whose well accorded strife

Gives all the strength and colour of our life.’”

This may in general be true, as there are certainly few unmingled passions; but I suspect that avarice so completely engrosses the soul, that a simple and unmixed delineation of it is not remote from nature. “The Euclio of Plautus,” says King, in his Anecdotes, “the Avare of Moliere, and Miser of Shadwell, have been all exceeded by persons who have existed within my own knowledge[236].”

Bacchides:—is so called from two sisters of the name of Bacchis, who are the courtezans in this play. In a prologue, which is supposed to be spoken by Silenus, mounted on an ass, it is said to be taken from a Greek comedy by Philemon. This information, however, cannot be implicitly relied on, as the prologue was not written in the time of Plautus, and is [pg 117]evidently an addition of a comparatively recent date. Some indeed have supposed that it was prefixed by Petrarch; but at all events the following lines could not have been anterior to the conquest of Greece by the Romans:—

“Samos quæ terra sit, nota est omnibus:

Nam maria, terras, monteis, atque insulas

Vostræ legiones reddidere pervias.”

The leading incident in this play—a master’s folly and inadvertence counteracting the deep-laid scheme of a slave to forward his interest, has been employed by many modern dramatists for the groundwork of their plots; as we find from the Inavertito of Nicolo Barbieri, sirnamed Beltramo, the Amant Indiscret of Quinault, Moliere’s Etourdi, and Dryden’s Sir Martin Mar-all.

The third scene of the third act of this comedy, where the father of Pistoclerus speaks with so much indulgence of the follies of youth, has been imitated in Moliere’s Fourberies de Scapin, and the fifth scene of the fourth act has suggested one in Le Marriage Interrompu[237], by Cailhava. If it could be supposed that Dante had read Plautus, the commencement of Lydus’ soliloquy before the door of Bacchis, might be plausibly conjectured to have suggested that thrilling inscription over the gate of hell, in the third Canto of the Inferno—

“Pandite, atque aperite propere januam hanc Orci, obsecro!

Nam equidem haud aliter esse duco; quippe cui nemo advenit,

Nisi quem spes reliquere omnes ——

Per me si va nella città dolente:

Per me si va nell eterno dolore:

Per me si va tra la perduta gente.

* * * * * *

Lasciate ogni speranza, voi, che entrate.”

Captivi.—The subject and plot of the Captivi are of a different description from those of Plautus’ other comedies. No female characters are introduced; and, as it is said in the epilogue, or concluding address to the spectators,

—— “Ad pudicos mores facta hæc fabula est:

Neque in hâc subagitationes sunt, ullave amatio,

Nec pueri suppositio, nec argenti circumductio;

Neque ubi amans adolescens scortum liberet, clam suum patrem.”

Though no females are introduced in it, the Captivi is the most tender and amiable of Plautus’ plays, and may be regarded [pg 118]as of a higher description than his other comedies, since it hinges on paternal affection and the fidelity of friendship. Many of the situations are highly touching, and exhibit actions of generous magnanimity, free from any mixture of burlesque. It has indeed been considered by some critics as the origin of that class of dramas, which, under the title of Comedies Larmoyantes, was at one time so much admired and so fashionable in France[238], and in which wit and humour, the genuine offspring of Thalia, are superseded by domestic sentiment and pathos.

Hegio, an Ætolian gentleman, had two sons, one of whom, when only four years old, was carried off by a slave, and sold by him in Elis. A war having subsequently broken out between the Elians and Ætolians, Hegio’s other son was taken captive by the Elians. The father, with a view of afterwards ransoming his son, by an exchange, purchased an Elian prisoner, called Philocrates, along with his servant Tyndarus; and the play opens with the master, Philocrates, personating his slave, while the slave, Tyndarus, assumes the character of his master. By this means Tyndarus remains a prisoner under his master’s name, while Hegio is persuaded to send the true Philocrates, under the name of Tyndarus, to Elis, in order to effect the exchange of his son. The deception, however, is discovered by Hegio before the return of Philocrates; and the father, fearing that he had thus lost all hope of ransoming his child, condemns Tyndarus to labour in the mines. In these circumstances, Philocrates returns from Elis with Hegio’s son, and also brings along with him the fugitive slave, who had stolen his other son in infancy. It is then discovered that Tyndarus is this child, who, having been sold to the father of Philocrates, was appointed by him to wait on his son, and had been gradually admitted to his young master’s confidence and friendship.

There has been a great dispute among critics and commentators, whether the dramatic unities have been strictly observed in this comedy. M. De Coste, in the preface to his French translation of the Captivi, maintains, that the unities of place, and time, and action, have been closely attended to. Lessing, who translated the play into German, adopted the opinion of De Coste with regard to the observance of the unities, and he has farther pronounced it the most perfect comedy that, in his time, had yet been represented on the stage[239]. A German critic, whose letter addressed to Lessing is published in that [pg 119]author’s works[240], has keenly opposed these opinions, discussing at considerable length the question of the unities of action, time, and place, as also pointing out many supposed inconsistencies and improbabilities in the conduct of the drama. He objects, in point of verisimilitude, to the long and numerous aparts—the soliloquies of the parasite, which begin the first three acts,—the frequent mention of the market-places and streets of Rome, while the scene is laid in a town of Greece,—and the sudden as well as unaccountable appearance of Stalagmus, the fugitive slave, at the end of the drama. The most serious objection, however, is that which relates to the violation of the dramatic unity of time. The scene is laid in Calydon, the capital of Ætolia; and, at the end of the second act, Philocrates proceeds from that city to Elis, transacts there a variety of affairs, and returns before the play is concluded. Between these two places the distance is fifty miles; and in going from one to the other it was necessary to cross the bay of Corinth. It is therefore impossible (contends this critic,) that De Coste can be accurate in maintaining that the duration of the drama is only seven or eight hours. Allowing the poet, however, the greatest poetical license, and giving for his play the extended period of twenty-four hours, it is scarcely possible that the previous parts of the drama could have been gone through, and the long voyage accomplished, in this space of time. But it farther appears, that Plautus himself did not wish to claim this indulgence, and intended to crowd the journey and all the preceding dramatic incidents into twelve hours at most. He evidently means that the action should be understood as commencing with the morning: Hegio says, in the second scene of the first act,

“Ego ibo ad fratrem, ad alios captivos meos,

Visum ne nocte hâc quippiam turbaverint;”

and it is evident that the action terminates with the evening meal, the preparations for which conclude the fourth act. To all this Lessing replied, that there was no reason to suppose that the scene was laid in Calydon, or that the journey was made to the town of Elis, and that it might easily have been accomplished within the time prescribed by the dramatic rule of unities, if nearer points of the Ætolian and Elian territories be taken than their capitals.

Some of the characters in the Captivi are very beautifully drawn. Hegio is an excellent representation of a respectable [pg 120]rich old citizen: He is naturally a humane good-humoured man, but his disposition is warped by excess of paternal tenderness. There is not in any of the comedies of Plautus, a more agreeable and interesting character than Tyndarus: and no delineation can be more pleasing than that of his faithful attachment to Philocrates, by whom he was in return implicitly trusted, and considered rather in the light of a friend than a slave. In this play, as in most others of Plautus, the parasite is a character somewhat of an episodical description: He goes about prowling for a supper, and is associated to the main subject of the piece only by the delight which he feels at the prospect of a feast, to honour the return of Hegio’s son. The parasites of Plautus are almost as deserving a dissertation as Shakspeare’s clowns. Parasite, as is well known, was a name originally applied in Greece to persons devoted to the service of the gods, and who were appointed for the purpose of keeping the consecrated provisions of the temples. Diodorus of Sinope, as quoted by Athenæus[241], after speaking of the dignity of the sacred parasites of Hercules, (who was himself a noted gourmand,) mentions that the rich, in emulation of this demi-god, chose as followers persons called parasites, who were not selected for their virtues or talents, but were remarkable for extravagant flattery to their superiors, and insolence to those inferiors who approached the persons of their patrons. This was the character which came to be represented on the stage. We learn from Athenæus[242], that a parasite was introduced in one of his plays by Epicharmus, the founder of the Greek comedy. The parasite of this ancient dramatist lay at the feet of the rich, eat the offals from their tables, and drank the dregs of their cups. He speaks of himself as of a person ever ready to dine abroad when invited, and when any one is to be married, to go to his house without an invitation—to pay for his good cheer by exciting the merriment of the company, and to retire as soon as he had eat and drunk sufficiently, without caring whether or not he was lighted out by the slaves[243]. In the most ancient comedies, however, this character was not denominated parasite, and was first so called in the plays of Araros, the son of Aristophanes, and one of the earliest authors of the middle comedy. Antiphanes, a dramatist of the same class, has given a very full description of the vocation of a parasite. The part, however, did not become [pg 121]extremely common till the introduction of the new comedy, when Diphilus, whose works were frequently imitated on the Roman stage, particularly distinguished himself by his delineation of the parasitical character[244]. In the Greek theatre, the part was usually represented by young men, dressed in a black or brown garb, and wearing masks expressive of malignant gaiety. They carried a goblet suspended round their waists, probably lest the slaves of their patrons should fill to them in too small cups; and also a vial of oil to be used at the bath, which was a necessary preparation before sitting down to table, for which the parasite required to be always ready at a moment’s warning[245].

It was thus, too, that the character was represented on the Roman stage; and it would farther appear, that the parasites, in the days of Plautus, carried with them a sort of Joe Miller, as a manual of wit, with which they occasionally refreshed their vivacity. Thus the parasite, in the Stichus, says,

“Ibo intro ad libros, et discam de dictis melioribus;”

and again—

“Libros inspexi, tam confido, quam potest,

Me meum obtenturum ridiculis meis.”

The parasite naturally became a leading character of the Roman stage. In spite of the pride and boasted national independence of its citizens, the whole system of manners at Rome was parasitical. The connection between patron and client, which was originally the cordial intercourse of reciprocal services, soon became that of haughty superiority on the one side, and sordid adulation on the other. Every client was in fact the parasite of some patrician, whose litter he often followed like a slave, conforming to all his caprices, and submitting to all his insults, for the privilege of being placed at the lowest seat of the patron’s table, and there repaying this indelicate hospitality by the most servile flattery. On the stage, the principal use of the parasite was to bring out the other characters from the canvass. Without Gnatho, the Thraso of Terence would have possessed less confidence; and without his flatterer, Pyrgopolinices would never have recollected breaking an elephant’s thigh by a blow of his fist.

The parasite, in the Captivi, may be considered as a fair enough representative of his brethren in the other plays of [pg 122]Plautus. He submits patiently to all manner of ignominious treatment[246]—his spirits rise and sink according as his prospects of a feast become bright or clouded—he speaks a great deal in soliloquies, in which he talks much of the jests by which he attempted to recommend himself as a guest at the feasts of the Great, but we are not favoured with any of these jests. In such soliloquies, too, he rather expresses what would justly be thought of him by others, than what even a parasite was likely to say of himself.

The parasite is not a character which has been very frequently represented on the modern stage. It is not one into which an Italian audience, who are indifferent to good cheer, would heartily enter. Accordingly, the parasite is not a common character in the native drama of Italy, and is chiefly exhibited in the old comedies of Ariosto and Aretine, which are directly imitated from the plays of Plautus or Terence; but even in them this character does not precisely coincide with the older and more genuine school of parasites. Ligurio, who is called the parasite in the Mandragora of Machiavel, rather corresponds to the intriguing slave than to the parasite of the Roman drama; or at least he resembles the more modern parasites, who, like the Phormio of Terence, ingratiated themselves with their patrons by serviceable roguery, rather than by flattery. Ipocrito, who, in Aretine’s comedy of that name, is also styled the parasite, is a sort of Tartuffe, with charitable and religious maxims constantly in his mouth. He does not insinuate himself into the confidence of his patrons by a gaping admiration of their foolish sayings, but by extolling their virtues, and smoothing over their vices; and so far from being treated with any sort of contumely, he is held in high consideration, and interposes in all domestic arrangements.

It is still more difficult to find a true parasite on the English stage. Sir John Falstaff, though something of a parasite, is as original as he is inimitable. Lazarillo, the hungry courtier in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Woman Hater, and Justice Greedy, in Massinger’s New Way to Pay Old Debts, to whom Sir Giles Overreach gives the command of the kitchen, and absolute authority there, in respect of the entertainment, are rather epicures in constant quest of delicacies, than hungry parasites, who submit to any indignity for the sake of a meal. Lazarillo’s whole intrigue consists of schemes for being invited to dine where there was an umbrana’s head, and we are told that

—— “He hath a courtly kind of hunger,

And doth hunt more for novelty than plenty;”

and Justice Greedy’s delight is placed in rich canary, a larded pheasant, or a red deer baked in puff paste. Mosca, in Ben Jonson’s Volpone, who grasps at presents made to him by the legacy-hunters of his patron, and who at length attempts to defraud the patron himself, is a parasite of infinitely greater artifice and villainy than any of those in Plautus; and in the opinion of the late editor of Jonson, outweighs the aggregate merit of all Plautus’s parasites. Colax, who, in the Muses’ Looking-Glass of Randolph, chimes in with the sentiments of each character, approving, by an immense variety of subtle arguments, every extreme of vice and folly, appears to flatter all those allegorical representations of the passions exhibited in this drama, rather from courtesy than want. He tells us, indeed, that

“’Tis gold gives Flattery all her eloquence;”

but this part of his character is not brought prominently forward, nor is he represented as a glutton or epicure. Perhaps the character which comes nearest to the parasite of the Captivi is in a play not very generally known, the Canterbury Guests, by Ravenscroft.

But although it might be difficult to find a precise copy in modern times of the parasite of the Captivi, its principal plot has been repeatedly imitated, particularly in an old English drama, The Case is altered, supposed to have been written by Ben Jonson, and published in some editions of his works. Count Ferneze, a nobleman of Vicenza, and who corresponds to Hegio, lost a son called Camillo, when Vicenza was taken by the French. His other son, Paulo, is afterwards made prisoner by the same enemies. Chamont, the French general, and Camillo Ferneze, who, under the name of Gaspar, had entered into the French service, are taken prisoners by the Italians; and while in captivity they agree to change names, and apparent situations. Camillo, who passes for Chamont, is carefully retained in confinement at Vicenza, while that general is despatched by the Count Ferneze to procure the ransom of his son Paulo. The Count having subsequently detected the imposture, Camillo is put in fetters and ordered for execution. Chamont, however, returns with Paulo, whom he had now redeemed, and the Count afterwards discovers, by means of a tablet hanging round his neck, that the youth Camillo, whom he was treating with such severity, was the son whom he had lost during the sack of Vicenza.

The Captivi is also the foundation of Les Captifs, a comedy of Rotrou, where a father, afflicted by the captivity of a son, purchases all the slaves exposed to sale in Ætolia, in the hope of recovering his child. The interest and vivacity of the play, which is one of the best of its author, are supported by the pleasantries of a parasite, and a variety of ingenious incidents. Ginguené has mentioned, in the Histoire Litteraire d’Italie, that the Captivi must also have suggested the Suppositi, a comedy by the author of the Orlando Furioso. Ariosto, however, has made the incidents of the Captivi subservient to a love intrigue, and not to the deliverance of a prisoner. Whilst Erostrato, a young gentleman, acts the part of a domestic in the house of his mistress’s father, his servant, Dulippo, personates his master, and studies in his place at the university of Ferrara. At the conclusion of the piece, Dulippo is discovered to be the son of an old and rich doctor of laws, who was the rival in love of Erostrato. There is a parasite in this play as in the Captivi, but the character of the doctor is new, and the scenes chiefly consist of the schemes which are laid by the master and servant to disappoint his views as to the lady of whom Erostrato is enamoured.

Casina. This play is so called from the name of a female slave, on whom, though she does not once appear on the stage, the whole plot of the drama hinges. It is said in the prologue to have been translated from Diphilus, a Greek writer of the new comedy, by whom it was called Κληρουμενοι, the Lot Drawers. Diphilus was a contemporary of Menander; he was distinguished by his comic wit and humour and occasionally by the moral sententious character of his dramas, of which he is said to have written a hundred, and from which larger fragments have been preserved than from any Greek plays belonging to the new comedy. Notwithstanding what is said in the Delphine Plautus, it is evident from its terms, that the prologue could not have been prefixed by the dramatist himself, but must have been written a good many years after his death, on occasion of a revival of the Casina. It would appear from it that the plays of Plautus had rather gone out of fashion immediately after his death; but the public at length, tired with the new comedies, began to call for the reproduction of those of Plautus—

“Nam, nunc novæ quæ prodeunt comœdiæ,

Multo sunt nequiores, quam nummi novi,

Nos postquam rumores populi intelleximus,

Studiose expetere vos Plautinas fabulas,

Antiquam ejus edimus comœdiam.”

From the same prologue it would seem that this play, when first represented, had surpassed in popularity all the dramatic productions of the time—

“Hæc quum primùm acta est, vicit omnes fabulas.”

It cannot, indeed, be denied, that, in the Casina, the unities of time and place are rigidly observed, and, in point of humour, it is generally accounted inferior to none of Plautus’s dramas. The nature, however, of the subject, will admit only of a very slight sketch. The female slave, who gives name to the comedy, is beloved by her master, Stalino, and by his son, Euthynicus,—the former of whom employs Olympio, his bailiff in the country, and the latter his armour-bearer, Chalinus, to marry Casina, each being in hopes, by this contrivance, to obtain possession of the object of his affections. Cleostrata, Stalino’s wife, suspecting her husband’s designs, supports the interests of her son, and, after much dispute, it is settled, that the claims of the bailiff and armour-bearer should be decided by lot. Fortune having declared in favour of the former, Stalino obtains the loan of a neighbour’s house for the occasion, and it is arranged, that its mistress should be invited for one evening by Cleostrata; but the jealous lady counteracts this plan by declining the honour of the visit. At length all concur in making a dupe of the old man. Chalinus is dressed up in wedding garments to personate Casina, and the play concludes with the mortification of Stalino, at finding he had been imposed on by a counterfeit bride.

The plan here adopted by Stalino for securing possession of Casina, is nearly the same with that pursued by the Count Almaviva, in Beaumarchais’ prose comedy, Le Marriage de Figaro; where the Count, with similar intentions, plans a marriage between Suzanne and his valet-de-chambre, Figaro, but has his best-laid schemes invariably frustrated. The concluding part of the Casina has probably, also, suggested the whole of the Marescalco, a comedy of the celebrated Aretine, which turns on the projected nuptials of the character who gives name to the piece, and whose supposed bride is discovered, during the performance of the marriage ceremony, to be a page of the Duke of Mantua, dressed up in wedding garments, in a frolic of the Duke’s courtiers, in order to impose on the Marescalco. Those scenes in the Ragazzo of Lodovico Dolce, where a similar deception is practised and where Giacchetto, the disguised youth, minutely details the event of the trick of which he was made the chief instrument, [pg 126]have also been evidently drawn from the same productive origin.[247]

The closest imitation, however, of the Casina, is Machiavel’s comedy Clitia. Many of its scenes, indeed, have been literally translated from the Latin, and the incidents are altered in very few particulars. The Stalino of Plautus is called Nicomaco, and his wife Sofronia: their son is named Cleandro, and the dependents employed to court Clitia for behoof of their masters, Eustachio and Pirro. The chief difference is, that the young lover, who is supposed to be absent in the Casina, is introduced on the stage by the Italian author, and the object of his affections is a young lady, brought up and educated by his parents, and originally intrusted to their care by one of their friends, which makes the proposal of her marrying either of the servants offered to her choice more absurd than in the Latin original. The bridal garments, too, are not assumed by one of the rival servants, but by a third character, introduced and employed for the purpose. This comedy of Machiavel, his Mandragola, and the renowned tale of Belfegor, were the productions with which that profound politician and historian, who established a school of political philosophy in the Italian seat of the Muses—who applied a fine analysis to the Roman history, and a subtler than Aristotle to the theory of government—attempted, as he himself has so beautifully expressed it,

“Fare il suo tristo tempo piu soave;

Perche altrove non have,

Dove voltare il viso,

Che gli è stato interciso

Mostrar con altre imprese altra virtute.”

Cistellaria, (the Casket.)—The prologue to this play is spoken by the god Auxilium, at the end of the first act. It explains the subject of the piece—compliments the Romans on their power and military glory—and concludes with exhorting them to overcome the Carthaginians, and punish them as they deserve. Hence it is probable, that this play was written during the second Punic war, which terminated in the year 552; and as Plautus was born in the year 525, it may be plausibly conjectured, that the Cistellaria was one of his earliest productions. This also appears from its greater rudeness when compared with his other plays, and from the shortness and simplicity of the plot. But though the argument is trite and sterile, it is enlivened by a good deal of comic [pg 127] humour, particularly in the delineation of some of the subordinate characters. Like many others of Plautus’s plays, it turns on the accidental recognition of a lost child by her parents, in consequence of the discovery of a casket, containing some toys, which had been left with her when exposed, and by means of which she is identified and acknowledged.

In ancient times these recognitions, so frequently exhibited on the stage, were not improbable. The customs of exposing children, and of reducing prisoners of war to slavery—the little connection or intercourse between different countries, from the want of inns or roads—and the consequent difficulty of tracing a lost individual—rendered such incidents, to us apparently so marvellous, of not unusual occurrence in real life. In Greece, particularly, divided as it was into a number of small states, and surrounded by a sea infested with pirates, who carried on a commerce in slaves, free-born children were frequently carried off, and sold in distant countries. By the laws of Athens, marriage with a foreigner was null; or, at least, the progeny of such nuptials were considered as illegitimate, and not entitled to the privileges of Athenian citizens. Hence, the recognition of the supposed stranger was of the utmost importance to herself and lover. In real life, this recognition may have been sometimes actually aided by ornaments and trinkets. Parents frequently tied jewels and rings to the children whom they exposed, in order that such as found them might be encouraged to nourish and educate them, and that they themselves might afterwards be enabled to discover them, if Providence took care for their safety[248]. Plots, accordingly, which hinged on such circumstances, were invented even by the writers of the old Greek comedy. One of the later pieces of Aristophanes, now lost, entitled Cocalus, is said to have presented a recognition; and nearly the same sort of intrigue was afterwards employed by Menander, and, from his example, by Plautus and Terence. From imitation of the Greek and Latin comedies, similar incidents became common both in dramatic and romantic fiction. The pastoral romance of Longus hinges on a recognition of this species; and those elegant productions, in which the Italians have introduced the characters and occupations of rural life into the drama, are frequently founded on the exposure of children, who, after being brought up as shepherds by reputed fathers, are recognised by their real parents, from ornaments or tokens fastened to their persons when abandoned in infancy or childhood.

The Cistellaria has been more directly imitated in Gli Incantesimi of Giovam-Maria Cecchi, a Florentine dramatist of the sixteenth century. That part, however, of the plot which gives name to the piece, has been invented by the Italian author himself.

Curculio.—The subject of this play, turns on a recognition similar to that which occurs in the Cistellaria. It derives its title from the name of a parasite, who performs the part usually assigned by Plautus to an intriguing slave; and he is called Curculio, from a species of worm which eats through corn.

It is worthy of observation, that in the fourth act of this play, the Choragus, who was master of the Chorus, and stage-manager, or leader of the band, is introduced, expressing his fear lest he should be deprived of the clothes he had lent to Curculio, and addressing to the spectators a number of satirical remarks on Roman manners.

Vossius has noticed the inadvertency or ignorance of Plautus in this drama, where, though the scene is laid in Epidaurus, he sends the parasite to Caria, and brings him back in four days. This part of the comedy he therefore thinks has been invented by Plautus himself, since a Greek poet, to whom the geography of these districts must have been better known, would not have carried the parasite to so great a distance in so short a period.

Epidicus.—This play is so called from the name of a slave who sustains a principal character in the comedy, and on whose rogueries most of the incidents depend. Its most serious part consists in the discovery of a damsel, who proves to be sister to a young man by whom she has been purchased as a slave. The play has no prologue; but, at the beginning, a character is introduced, which the ancients called persona protatica,—that is, a person who enters only once, and at the commencement of the piece, for the sake of unfolding the argument, and does not appear again in any part of the drama. Such are Sosia, in the Andria of Terence, and Davus, in his Phormio. This is accounted rather an inartificial mode of informing the audience of the circumstances previous to the opening of the piece. It is generally too evident, that the narrative is made merely for the sake of the spectators; as there seldom appears a sufficient reason for one of the parties being so communicative to the other. Such explanations should come round, as it were, by accident, or be drawn involuntarily from the characters themselves in the course of the action.

The Epidicus is said to have been a principal favourite of [pg 129]the author himself; and, indeed, one of the characters in his Bacchides exclaims,

“Etiam Epidicum, quam ego fabulam æque ac me ipsum amo.”

But, though popular in the ancient theatre, the Epidicus does not appear to be one of the plays of Plautus which has been most frequently imitated on the modern stage. There was, however, a very early Italian imitation of it in the Emilia, a comedy of Luigi da Groto, better known by the appellation of Cieco D’Adria, one of the earliest romantic poets of his country. The trick, too, of Epidicus, in persuading his master to buy a slave with whom his son was in love, has suggested the first device fallen on by Mascarelle, the valet in Moliere’s Etourdi, in order to place the female slave Celie at the disposal of her lover, by inducing his master to purchase her.

Menæchmi—hinges on something of the same species of humour as the Amphitryon—a doubt and confusion with regard to the identity of individuals. According to the Delphin Plautus, it was taken from a lost play of Menander, entitled Διδυμοι; but other commentators have thought, that it was more probably derived from Epicharmus, or some other Sicilian dramatist.

In this play, a merchant of Syracuse had two sons, possessing so strong a personal resemblance to each other, that they could not be distinguished even by their parents. One of these children, called Menæchmus, was lost by his father in a crowd on the streets of Syracuse, and, being found by a Greek merchant, was carried by him to Epidamnum, (Dyracchium,) and adopted as his son. Meanwhile the brother, (whose name, in consequence of this loss, had been changed to Menæchmus,) having grown up, had set out from Syracuse in quest of his relative. After a long search he arrived at Epidamnum, where his brother had by this time married, and had also succeeded to the merchant’s fortune. The amusement of the piece hinges on the citizens of Epidamnum mistaking the Syracusan stranger for his brother, and the family of the Epidamnian brother falling into a corresponding error. In this comedy we have also the everlasting parasite; and the first act opens with a preparation for an entertainment, which Menæchmus of Epidamnum had ordered for his mistress Erotium, and to which the parasite was invited. The Syracusan happening to pass, is asked to come in by his brother’s mistress, and partakes with her of the feast. He also receives from her, in order to bear it to the embroiderer’s, a robe which his brother had carried off from his wife, with the view of presenting it to this [pg 130]mistress. Afterwards he is attacked by his brother’s jealous wife, and her father; and, as his answers to their reproaches convince them that he is deranged, they send straightway for a physician. The Syracusan escapes; but they soon afterwards lay hold of the Epidamnian, in order to carry him to the physician’s house, when the servant of the Syracusan, who mistakes him for his master, rescues him from their hands. The Epidamnian then goes to his mistress with the view of persuading her to return the robe to his wife. At length the whole is unravelled by the two Menæchmi meeting; when the servant of the Syracusan, surprised at their resemblance, discovers, after a few questions to each, that Menæchmus of Epidamnum is the twin-brother of whom his master had been so long in search, and who now agrees to return with them to Syracuse.

The great number of those Latin plays, where the merriment consists in mistakes arising from personal resemblances, must be attributed to the use of masks, which gave probability to such dramas; and yet, if the resemblance was too perfect, the humour, I think, must have lost its effect, as the spectators would not readily perceive the error that was committed.

No play has been so repeatedly imitated as the Menæchmi on the modern stage, particularly the Italian, where masks were also frequently employed. The most celebrated Italian imitation of the Menæchmi is Lo Ipocrito of Aretine, where the twin-brothers, Liseo and Brizio, had the same singular degree of resemblance as the Menæchmi. Brizio had been carried off a prisoner in early youth during the sack of Milan, and returns to that city, after a long absence, in the first act of the play, in quest of his relations. Liseo’s servants, and his parasite, Lo Ipocrito, all mistake Brizio for their patron, and his wife takes him to share an entertainment prepared at her husband’s house, and also intrusts him with the charge of some ornaments belonging to her daughter; while, on the other hand, Brizio’s servant mistakes Liseo for his master. The interest of the play arises from the same sort of confusion as that which occurs in the Menæchmi; and from the continual astonishment of those who are deceived by the resemblance, at finding an individual deny a conversation which they were persuaded he had held a few minutes before. The play is otherwise excessively involved, in consequence of the introduction of the amours and nuptials of the five daughters of Liseo. The plot of the Latin comedy has also been followed in Le Moglie of Cecchi, and in the Lucidi of Agnuolo Firenzuola; but the incidents have been, in a great measure, adapted by these dramatists to the manners of their native country. [pg 131]Trissino, in his Simillimi, has made little change on his original, except adding a chorus of sailors; as, indeed, he has himself acknowledged, in his dedication to the cardinal, Alessandro Farnese. In Gli due Gemelli, which was long a favourite piece on the Italian stage, Carlini acted both brothers; the scenes being so contrived that they were never brought on the stage together—in the same manner as in our farce of Three and the Deuce, where the idea of giving different characters and manners to the three brothers, with a perfect personal resemblance, by creating still greater astonishment in their friends and acquaintances, seems an agreeable addition.

The Menæchmi was translated into English towards the end of the sixteenth century, by William Warner, the author of Albion’s England. This version, which was first printed in 1595, and is entitled, “Menæchmi, a pleasaunt and fine conceited comedy, taken out of the most excellent wittie poet Plautus, chosen purposely, as least harmefull, yet most delightful,” was unquestionably the origin of Shakspeare’s Comedy of Errors. The resemblance of the two Antipholis’, and the other circumstances which give rise to the intrigue, are nearly the same as in Plautus. Some of the mistakes, too, which occur on the arrival of Antipholis of Syracuse at Ephesus, have been suggested by the Latin play. Thus, the Syracusan, on coming to Ephesus, dines with his brother’s wife. This lady had under repair, at the goldsmith’s, a valuable chain, which her husband resolves to present to his mistress, but the goldsmith gives it to the Syracusan. At length the Ephesian is believed insane by his friends, who bring Doctor Pinch, a conjurer, to exorcise him. Shakspeare has added the characters of the twin Dromios, the servants of the Antipholis’s, who have the same singular resemblance to each other as their masters, which has produced such intricacy of plot that it is hardly possible to unravel the incidents.

The Comedy of Errors is accounted one of the earliest, and is certainly one of the least happy efforts of Shakspeare’s genius. I cannot agree with M. Schlegel, in thinking it better than the Menæchmi of Plautus, or even than the best modern imitation of that comedy—Les Menechmes, ou Les Jumeaux, of the French poet Regnard, which is, at least, a more lively and agreeable imitation. All the scenes, however, have been accommodated to French manners; and the plot differs considerably from that of Plautus, being partly formed on an old French play of the same title, by Rotrou, which appeared as early as 1636. One chief distinction is, that the Chevalier Menechme knows of the arrival of his brother from [pg 132]the country, and knows that he had come to Paris in order to receive an inheritance bequeathed to him by his uncle, as also to marry a young lady of whom the Chevalier was enamoured. The Chevalier avails himself of the resemblance to prosecute his love-suit with the lady, and to receive the legacy from the hands of an attorney, while his brother is in the meantime harassed by women to whom the Chevalier had formerly paid addresses, and is arrested for his debts. It was natural enough, as in Plautus, that an infant, stolen and carried to a remote country, should have transmitted no account of himself to his family, and should have been believed by them to be dead; but this can with difficulty be supposed of Regnard’s Chevalier, who had not left his paternal home in Brittany till the usual age for entering on military service, and had ever since resided chiefly at Paris. The Chevalier finds, from letters delivered to him by mistake, that his brother had come to town to receive payment of a legacy recently bequeathed to him: But, unless it was left to any one who bore the name of Menechme, it is not easy to see how the attorney charged with the payment, should have allowed himself to be duped by the Chevalier. Nor is it likely that, suspicious as the elder Menechme is represented, he should trust so much to his brother’s valet, or allow himself to be terrified in the public street and open day into payment of a hundred louis d’or. It is equally improbable that Araminte should give up the Chevalier to her niece, or that the elder Menechme should marry the old maid merely to get back half the sum of which his brother had defrauded him. That all the adventures, besides, should terminate to the advantage of the Chevalier, has too much an air of contrivance, and takes away that hazard which ought to animate pieces of this description, and which excites the interest in Plautus, where the incidents prove fortunate or unfavourable indiscriminately to the two brothers.

In Plautus, the robe which Menæchmus of Epidamnum carries off from his wife, suffices for almost the whole intrigue. It alone brings into play the falsehood and avarice of the courtezan, the inclination of both the Menæchmi for pleasure, the gluttony of the parasite, and rage of the jealous wife: But in the French Menechmes,—trunks, letters, a portrait, promises of marriage, and presents, are heaped on each other, to produce accumulated mistakes. Regnard has also introduced an agreeable variety, by discriminating the characters of the brothers, between whom Plautus and Shakspeare have scarcely drawn a shade of difference. The Chevalier is a polished gentleman—very ingenious; but, I think, not very honest: His brother is blunt, testy, and impatient, [pg 133]and not very wise. The difference, indeed, in their language and manners, is so very marked, that it seems hardly possible, whatever might be the personal resemblance, that the Chevalier’s mistress could have been deceived. These peculiarities of disposition, however, render the mistakes, and the country brother’s impatience under them, doubly entertaining—

“Faudra-t-il que toujours je sois dans l’embarras

De voir une furie attachée a mes pas?”

And when assailed by Araminte, the old maid to whom his brother had promised marriage—

“Esprit, demon, lutin, ombre, femme, ou furie,

Qui que tu sois, enfin laisse moi, je te prie.”

When his brother is at last discovered, and indubitably recognized, he exclaims,

“Mon frere en verité—Je m’en rejouis fort,

Mais j’avais cependant compté sur votre mort.”

Boursault’s comedy, Les Menteurs qui ne mentent point, though somewhat different in its fable from the Latin Menæchmi, is founded on precisely the same species of humour—the exact resemblance of the two Nicandres occasioning ludicrous mistakes and misunderstandings among their valets and mistresses.

The most recent French imitation of the play of Plautus is the Menechmes Grecs, by Cailhava, in which the plot is still more like the Latin comedy than the Menechmes of Regnard; but the characters are new. This piece has been extremely popular on the modern French stage.—“Le public,” says Chenier, “s’est empressé de rendre justice a la peinture piquante de mœurs de la Grece, a la verité des situations, au naturel du dialogue, au merite rare d’une gaité franche, qui ne degenere pas en bouffonnerie[249].”

Miles Gloriosus, (the Braggart Captain.) This was a character of the new Greek comedy, introduced and brought to perfection by Philemon and Menander. These dramatists wrote during the reigns of the immediate successors of Alexander the Great. At that period, his generals who had established sovereignties in Syria and Egypt, were in the practice of recruiting their armies by levying mercenaries in Greece. The soldiers who had thus served in the wars of the Seleucidæ and Ptolemies, were in the habit, when they re[pg 134]turned home to Greece after their campaigns, of astonishing their friends with fabulous relations of their exploits in distant countries. Having been engaged in wars with which Athens had no immediate concern or interest, these partizans met with little respect or sympathy from their countrymen, and their lies and bravadoes having made them detested in Athenian society[250], they became the prototypes of that dramatic character of which the constant attributes were the most absurd vanity, stupidity, profusion, and cowardice. This overcharged character, along with that of the slave and parasite, were transferred into the dramas of Plautus, the faithful mirrors of the new Greek comedy. The first act of the Miles Gloriosus has little to do with the plot: It only serves to acquaint us with the character of the Captain Pyrgopolinices; and it is for this purpose alone that Plautus has introduced the parasite, who does not return to the stage after the first scene. The boasts of this captain are quite extravagant, but they are not so gross as the flatteries of the parasite: indeed it is not to be conceived that any one could swallow such compliments as that he had broken an elephant’s thigh with his fist, and slaughtered seven thousand men in one day, or that he should not have perceived the sarcasms of the parasite intermixed with his fulsome flattery. Previous, however, to the invention of gunpowder, more could be performed in war by the personal prowess of individuals, than can be now accomplished; and hence the character of the braggart captain may not have appeared quite so exaggerated to the ancients as it seems to us. One man of peculiar strength and intrepidity often carried dismay into the hostile squadrons, as Goliah defied all the armies of Israel, and, with a big look, and a few arrogant words, struck so great a terror, that the host fled before him.

Most European nations being imbued with military habits and manners for many centuries after their first rise, the part of a boasting coward was one of the broadest, and most obviously humorous characters, that could be presented to the spectators. Accordingly, the braggart Captain, though he has at length disappeared, was one of the most notorious personages on the early Italian, French, and English stage.

Tinca, the braggart Captain in La Talanta, a comedy by Aretine, is a close copy of Thraso, the soldier in Terence, the play being taken from the Eunuchus, where Thraso is a chief character. But Spampana, the principal figure in the Farsa Satira Morale, a dramatic piece of the fifteenth century, by [pg 135]Venturino of Pesaro, was the original and genuine Capitano Glorioso, a character well known, and long distinguished in the Italian drama. He was generally equipped with a mantle and long rapier; and his personal qualities nearly resembled those of the Count di Culagna, the hero of Tassoni’s mock heroic poem La Secchia Rapita:—

“Quest’ era un Cavalier bravo e galante,

Ch’era fuor de perigli un Sacripante.

Ma ne perigli un pezzo di polmone:

Spesso ammazzato avea qualche gigante,

E si scopriva poi, ch’era un cappone.”

This military poltroon long kept possession of the Italian stage, under the appellations of Capitan Spavento and Spezzafer, till about the middle of the sixteenth century, when he yielded his place to the Capitano Spagnuolo, whose business was to utter Spanish rodomontades, to kick out the native Italian Captain in compliment to the Spaniards, and then quietly accept of a drubbing from Harlequin. When the Spaniards had entirely lost their influence in Italy, the Capitan Spagnuolo retreated from the stage, and was succeeded by that eternal poltroon, Scaramuccio, a character which was invented by Tiberio Fiurilli, the companion of the boyhood of Louis XIV[251].

In imitation of the Italian captain, the early French dramatists introduced a personage, who patiently received blows while talking of dethroning emperors and distributing crowns. The part was first exhibited in Le Brave, by Baif, acted in 1567; but there is no character which comes so near to the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus, as that of Chasteaufort in Cyrano Bergerac’s Pedant Joué. In general, the French captains have more rodomontade and solemnity, with less buffoonery, than their Italian prototypes. The captain Matamore, in Corneille’s Illusion Comique, actually addresses the following lines to his valet:—

“II est vrai que je rêve, et ne saurois resoudre,

Lequel des deux je dois le premier mettre en poudre,

Du grand Sophi de Perse, ou bien du grand Mogol.”

And again—

“Le seul bruit de mon nom renverse les murailles,

Defait les escadrons, et gagne les batailles;

D’un seul commandement que je fais aux trois Parques,

Je depeuple l’état des plus heureux monarques.”

Corneille’s Matamore also resembles the Miles Gloriosus, in his self-complacency on the subject of personal beauty, and his belief that every woman is in love with him. Pyrgopolinices declares—

“Miserum esse pulchrum hominem nimis.”

And in like manner, Matamore—

“Ciel qui sais comme quoi j’en suis persecuté.

Un peu plus de repos avec moins de beaute.

Fais qu’un si long mepris enfin la desabuse.”

Scarron, who was nearly contemporary with Corneille, painted this character in Don Gaspard de Padille, the Fanfaron, as he is called, of the comedy Jodelet Duelliste. Gaspard, however, is not a very important or prominent character of the piece. Jodelet himself, the valet of Don Felix, seems intended as a burlesque or caricature of all the braggarts who had preceded him. Having received a blow, he is ever vowing vengeance against the author of the injury in his absence, but on his appearance, suddenly becomes tame and submissive.

The braggart captains of the old English theatre have much greater merit than the utterers of these nonsensical rhapsodies of the French stage. Falstaff has been often considered as a combination of the characters of the parasite and Miles Gloriosus; but he has infinitely more wit than either; and the liberty of fiction in which he indulges, is perhaps scarcely more than is necessary for its display. His cheerfulness and humour are of the most characteristic and captivating sort, and instead of suffering that contumely with which the parasite and Miles Gloriosus are loaded, laughter and approbation attend his greatest excesses. His boasting speeches are chiefly humorous; jest and merriment account for most of them, and palliate them all. It is only subsequent to the robbery that he discovers the traits of a Miles Gloriosus. Most of the ancient braggarts bluster and boast of distant wars, beyond the reach of knowledge or evidence—of exploits performed in Persia and Armenia—of storms and stratagems—of falling pell-mell on a whole army, and putting thousands to the sword, till, by some open and apparent fact, they are brought to shame as cowards and liars; but Falstaff’s boasts refer to recent occurrences, and he always preserves himself from degradation by the address with which he defies detection, and extricates himself from every difficulty. His character, however, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, has some affinity to the captains of the Roman stage, from his being [pg 137]constantly played on in consequence of his persuasion that women are in love with him. The swaggering Pistol in King Henry IV., is chiefly characterized by his inflated language, and is, as Doll calls him, merely “a fustian rascal.” Bessus, in Beaumont and Fletcher’s King and No King, is said by Theobald to be a copy of Falstaff; but he has little or none of his humour. Bessus was an abusive wretch, and so much contemned, that no one called his words in question; but, afterwards, while flying in battle, having accidentally rushed on the enemy, he acquired a reputation for valour; and being now challenged to combat by those whom he had formerly traduced, his great aim is to avoid fighting, and yet to preserve, by boasting, his new character for courage. However fine the scene between Bessus and Arbaces, at the conclusion of the third act, the darker and more infamous shades of character there portrayed ought not to have been delineated, as our contemptuous laughter is converted, during the rest of the play, or, on a second perusal, into detestation and horror. Bobadil, in Ben Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour, has generally been regarded as a copy of the Miles Gloriosus; but the late editor of Jonson thinks him a creation sui generis, and perfectly original. “The soldiers of the Roman stage,” he continues, “have not many traits in common with Bobadil. Pyrgopolinices, and other captains with hard names, are usually wealthy—all of them keep mistresses, and some of them parasites—but Bobadil is poor. They are profligate and luxurious—but Bobadil is stained with no inordinate vice, and is so frugal, that a bunch of radishes, and a pipe to close the orifice of his stomach, satisfy all his wants. Add to this, that the vanity of the ancient soldier is accompanied with such deplorable stupidity, that all temptation to mirth is taken away, whereas Bobadil is really amusing. His gravity, which is of the most inflexible nature, contrasts admirably with the situations into which he is thrown; and though beaten, baffled, and disgraced, he never so far forgets himself as to aid in his own discomfiture. He has no soliloquies, like Bessus and Parolles, to betray his real character, and expose himself to unnecessary contempt: nor does he break through the decorum of the scene in a single instance. He is also an admirer of poetry, and seems to have a pretty taste for criticism, though his reading does not appear very extensive; and his decisions are usually made with somewhat too much promptitude. In a word, Bobadil has many distinguishing traits, and, till a preceding braggart shall be discovered, with something more than big words and beating, to characterize him, it may not be amiss to allow Jonson the [pg 138]credit of having depended on his own resources.” The character of the braggart captain was continued in the Bernardo of Shadwell’s Amorous Bigot, and Nol Bluff, in Congreve’s Old Bachelor. These are persons who apparently would destroy every thing with fire and sword; but their mischief is only in their words, and they “will not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back with any show of resistance.” The braggarts, indeed, of modern dramatists, have been universally represented as cowardly, from Spampana down to Captain Flash. But cowardice is not a striking attribute of the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus, at least it is not made the principal source of ridicule as with the moderns. We have instead, a vain conceit of his person, and his conviction that every woman is in love with him.

This feature in the character of the Miles Gloriosus, produces a principal part in the intrigue of this amusing drama, which properly commences at the second act, and is said, in a prologue there introduced, to have been taken from the Greek play Αλαζων. While residing at Athens, the captain had purchased from her mother a young girl, (whose lover was at that time absent on an embassy,) and had brought her with him to his house at Ephesus. The lover’s slave entered into the captain’s service, and, seeing the girl in his possession, wrote to his former master, who, on learning the fate of his mistress, repaired to Ephesus. There he went to reside with Periplectomenes, a merry old bachelor, who had been a friend of his father, and now agreed to assist him in recovering the object of his affections. The house of Periplectomenes being immediately adjacent to that of the captain, the ingenious slave dug an opening between them; and the keeper, who had been intrusted by the captain with charge of the damsel, was thus easily persuaded by her rapid, and to him unaccountable, transition from one building to the other, that it was a twin sister, possessing an extraordinary resemblance to her, who had arrived at the house of Periplectomenes. Afterwards, by a new contrivance, a courtezan is employed to pretend that she is the wife of Periplectomenes, and to persuade the captain that she is in love with him. To facilitate this amour, he allows the girl, whom he had purchased at Athens, to depart with her twin sister and her lover, who had assumed the character of the master of the vessel in which she sailed. The captain afterwards goes to the house of Periplectomenes to a supposed assignation, where he is seized and beat, but does not discover how completely he had been duped, till the Athenian girl had got clear off with her lover.

This play must, in the representation, have been one of the [pg 139]most amusing of its author’s productions. The scenes are full of action and bustle, while the secret communication between the two houses occasions many lively incidents, and forms an excellent jeu de theatre.

With regard to the characters, the one which gives title to the play is, as already mentioned, quite extravagant; and no modern reader can enjoy the rodomontade of the Miles Gloriosus, or his credulity in listening with satisfaction to such monstrous tales of his military renown and amorous success. Flattery for potential qualities may be swallowed to any extent, and a vain man may wish that others should be persuaded that he had performed actions of which he is incapable; but no man can himself hearken with pleasure to falsehoods which he knows to be such, and which in the recital are not intended to impose upon others. Pleusides, the lover in this drama, is totally insipid and uninteresting, and we are not impressed with a very favourable opinion of his mistress from the account which is given of her near the beginning of the play:—

“Os habet, linguam, perfidiam, malitiam, atque audaciam,

Confidentiam, confirmitatem, fraudolentiam:

Qui arguet se, eum contra vincat jurejurando suo.

Domi habet animum falsiloquum, falsificum, falsijurium.”

The principal character, the one which is best supported, and which is indeed sustained with considerable humour, is that of Periplectomenes, who is an agreeable old man, distinguished by his frankness, jovial disposition, and abhorrence of matrimony. There is one part of his conduct, however, which I wish had been omitted, as it savours too much of cunning, and reminds us too strongly of Ben Jonson’s Volpone. Talking of his friends and relations, he says—

—— “Me ad se, ad prandium, ad cœnam vocant.

Ille miserrimum se retur, minimum qui misit mihi.

Illi inter se certant donis; ego hæc mecum mussito:

Bona mea inhiant: certatim dona mittunt et munera.”

I have often thought that the character of Durazzo, in Massinger’s Guardian, was formed on that of Periplectomenes. Like him, Durazzo is a jovial old bachelor, who aids his nephew Caldoro in his amour with Calista. When the lover in Plautus apologizes to his friend for having engaged him in an enterprize so unsuitable to his years, he replies—

“Quid ais tu? itane tibi ego videor oppido Acheronticus,

Tam capularis; tamne tibi diu vita vivere?

Nam equidem haud sum annos natus præter quinquaginta et quatuor,

Clare oculis video, pernix sum manibus, sum pedes mobilis.”

In like manner Durazzo exclaims—

“My age! do not use

That word again; if you do, I shall grow young,

And swinge you soundly. I would have you know,

Though I write fifty odd, I do not carry

An almanack in my bones to predeclare

What weather we shall have; nor do I kneel

In adoration at the spring, and fall

Before my doctor.” ——

Periplectomenes boasts of his convivial talents, as also of his amorous disposition, and his excellence at various exercises—

“Et ego amoris aliquantum habeo, humorisque meo etiam in corpore:

Nequedum exarui ex amœnis rebus et voluptariis.

* * * *

Tum ad saltandum non Cinædus magis usquam saltat quam ego.”

This may be compared with the boast of Durazzo—

“Bring me to a fence school,

And crack a blade or two for exercise;

Ride a barbed horse, or take a leap after me,

Following my hounds or hawks, and, (by your leave,)

At a gamesome mistress, you shall confess

I’m in the May of my abilities.”

It may be perhaps considered as a confirmation of the above conjecture concerning Massinger’s imitation of Plautus, that the cook in the Guardian is called Cario, which is also the name of the cook of Periplectomenes.

There is, however, a coincidence connected with this drama of Plautus, which is much more curious and striking than its resemblance to the Guardian of Massinger. The plot of the Miles Gloriosus is nearly the same with the story of the Two Dreams related in the Seven Wise Masters, a work originally written by an Indian philosopher, long before the Christian æra, and which, having been translated into Greek under the title of Syntipas, became current during the dark ages through all the countries of Europe, by the different names of Dolopatos, Erastus, and Seven Wise Masters,—the frame remaining substantially the same, but the stories being frequently adapted to the manners of different nations. In this popular story-book the tale of the Two Dreams concerns a knight, and a lady who was constantly confined by a jealous husband, in a tower almost inaccessible. Having become mutually enamoured, in consequence of seeing each other in dreams, the knight repaired to the residence of the husband, by whom he was hospitably received, and was at length allowed to build a habitation on his possessions, at no great distance from the [pg 141]castle in which his wife was inclosed. When the building was completed, the knight secretly dug a communication under ground, between his new dwelling and the tower, by which means he enjoyed frequent and uninterrupted interviews with the object of his passion. At length the husband was invited to an entertainment prepared at the knight’s residence, at which his wife was present, and presided in the character of the knight’s mistress. During the banquet the husband could not help suspecting that she was his wife, and in consequence he repaired, after the feast was over, to the tower, where he found her sitting composedly in her usual dress. This, and his confidence in the security of the tower, the keys of which he constantly kept in his pocket, dispelled his suspicions, and convinced him that the Beauty who had done the honours of the knight’s table, had merely a striking resemblance to his own lovely consort. Being thus gradually accustomed to meet her at such entertainments, he at last complied with his friend’s request, and kindly assisted at the ceremony of the knight’s marriage with his leman. After their union, he complacently attended them to the harbour, and handed the lady to the vessel which the knight had prepared for the elopement. This story also coincides with Le Chevalier a la Trappe, one of the Fabliaux of the Norman Trouveurs[252], with a tale in the fourth part of the Italian Novellino of Massuccio Salernitano, and with the adventures of the Vieux Calender, in Gueulette’s Contes Tartares.

Mercator—is one of the plays for which Plautus was indebted to Philemon, the contemporary and the successful rival of Menander, over whom he usually triumphed by the theatrical suffrages, while contending for the prize of comedy. The Roman critics unanimously concur in representing these popular decisions as unjust and partial. But Quintilian, while he condemns the perverted judgment of those who preferred Philemon to Menander, acknowledges that he must be universally admitted to have merited the next place to his great rival.—“Qui ut pravis sui temporis judiciis Menandro sæpe prælatus est, ita consensu tamen omnium meruit credi secundus[253].”

An interesting account of Philemon is given in the Observer, by Cumberland, who has also collected the strange and inconsistent stories concerning the manner of his death. He is represented to us as having been a man of amiable character, and cheerful disposition, seldom agitated by those furious passions which distracted the mind of Menander. He lived [pg 142]to the extraordinary age of a hundred and one, during which long period he wrote ninety comedies. Of these, the critics and grammarians have preserved some fragments, which are generally of a tender and sentimental, sometimes even of a plaintive cast. Apuleius, however, informs us, that Philemon was distinguished for the happiest strokes of wit and humour, for the ingenious disposition of his plots, for his striking and well managed discoveries, and the admirable adaptation of his characters to their situations in life[254]. To judge by the Latin Mercator, imitated or translated from the Εμπορος of Philemon, it is impossible not to consider him as inferior to those other Greek dramatists from whom Plautus borrowed his Amphitryon, Aulularia, Casina, and Miles Gloriosus; yet it must be recollected, that those are the best comedies which suffer most by a transfusion into another language. The English Hypocrites and Misers would indeed be feeble records of the genius of Moliere. Of one point, however, we may clearly judge, even through the mist of translation. Notwithstanding what is said by Apuleius concerning the purity of Philemon’s dramas, in none of the plays of Plautus is greater moral turpitude represented. A son is sent abroad by his father, with the view of reclaiming him from the dissolute course of life which he had followed. The youth, however, is so little amended by his travels, that he brings a mistress home in the ship with him. The father, seeing the girl, falls in love with her. His son, in order to conceal his passion, proposes to sell its object, but engages one of his acquaintances to purchase her for him. By some mismanagement, she is bought by a friend whom the father had employed for this purpose, and is carried, as had been previously arranged, to the purchaser’s house. The friend’s wife, however, being jealous of this inmate, her husband is obliged to explain matters for her satisfaction, and the old debauchee, in consequence, incurs, before the conclusion of the comedy, merited shame and reproach.

An old libertine may be a very fit subject for satire and ridicule, but in this play there is certainly too much latitude allowed to the debaucheries of youth. The whole moral of the drama is contained in three lines near the conclusion:—

“Neu quisquam posthac prohibeto adolescentem filium

Quin amet, et scortum ducat; quod bono fiat modo:

Si quis prohibuerit, plus perdet clam, quam si præhibuerit palam.”

Nothing can be more ridiculous than the delays and trifling of the persons in this piece, under circumstances which must naturally have excited their utmost impatience. Examples of this occur in the scene which occupies nearly the whole of the first act, between Charinus and his slave Acanthio, and the equally tedious dialogue in the fifth act between Eutychus and Charinus.

The Mercator of Plautus is the origin of La Stiava, an Italian comedy by Cecchi; and in the second scene of the second act, there are two lines which have a remarkable resemblance to the conclusion of the celebrated speech of Jaques, “All the world’s a stage,” in As you Like it.

“Senex cum extemplo est jam nec sentit, nec sapit.

Aiunt solere eum rursum repuerascere.”

Mostellaria,—which the English translator of Plautus has rendered the Apparition,—represents a young Athenian, naturally of a virtuous disposition, who, during the absence of his father on a trading voyage, is led into every sort of vice and extravagance, partly by his inordinate love for a courtezan, and partly by the evil counsels of one of his slaves, called Tranio. During an entertainment, which the youth is one day giving in his father’s mansion, he is suddenly alarmed by the accounts which Tranio brings, of the unexpected return of the old man, whom he had just seen landing near the harbour. At the same time, however, the slave undertakes to prevent his entering the house. In prosecution of this design he there locks up his young master and his guests, and, on the approach of the old gentleman, gravely informs him that the house was now shut up, in consequence of being haunted by the apparition of an unfortunate man, long since murdered in it by the person from whom it had been last purchased. Tranio has scarcely prevailed on the father to leave the door of the dwelling, when they unluckily meet a money-lender, who had come to crave payment of a large debt from the profligate son; but the ingenious slave persuades the father, that the money had been borrowed to pay for a house which was a great bargain, and which his son had bought in place of that which was haunted. A new dilemma, however, arises, from the old gentleman’s asking to see the house: Tranio artfully obtains leave from the owner, who being obliged to go to the Forum, nothing is said on this occasion with regard to the sale. He examines the house a second time along with the owner, but Tranio had previously begged him, as from motives of delicacy, to say nothing concerning his purchase; and [pg 144]the whole passes as a visit, to what is called a Show-house. The old man highly approves of the bargain; but at length the whole deception is discovered, by his accidentally meeting an attendant of one of his son’s companions, who is just going into the haunted house to conduct his master home from that scene of festivity. He has thus occasion to exercise all his patience and clemency in forgiveness of the son by whom he has been almost ruined, and of the slave by whom he had been so completely duped.

In this play, the character of the young man might have been rendered interesting, had it been better brought out; but it is a mere sketch. He is a grave and serious character, hurried into extravagance by bad example, evil counsel, and one fatal passion. A long soliloquy, in which he compares human life to a house, reminds us, in its tone of feeling and sentiment, of “All the world’s a stage.” The father seems a great deal too foolish and credulous, and the slave must have relied much on his weakness, when he ventured on such desperate expedients, and such palpable lies. Slaves, it will already have been remarked, are principal characters in many of the dramas of Plautus; and a curious subject of inquiry is presented in their insolence, effrontery, triumphant roguery, and habitual familiarity with their masters at one moment, while at the next they are threatened with the lash or crucifixion. In Athens, however, where the prototype of this character was found, the slave was treated by his master with much more indulgence than the Spartan Helot, or any other slaves in Greece. The masters themselves, who were introduced on the ancient stage, were not in the first ranks of society; and the vices which required the assistance of their slaves reduced them to an equality. Besides, an Athenian or Roman master could hardly be displeased with the familiarity of those who were under such complete subjection; and the striking contrast of their manners and situation would render their sallies as poignant as the spirited remarks of Roxalana in the seraglio of the Sultan. The character, too, gave scope for those jests and scurrilities, which seem to have been indispensable ingredients in a Roman comedy, but which would be unsuitable in the mouths of more dignified persons. They were, in fact, the buffoons of the piece, who avowed without scruple their sensual inclinations and want of conscience; for not only their impudence, but their frauds and deceptions, seem to have been highly relished by the spectators. It is evident that both the Greeks and Romans took peculiar pleasure in seeing a witty slave cheat a covetous master, and that the ingenuity of the fraud was always thought sufficient [pg 145]atonement for its knavery. Perhaps this unfortunate class of men derived so few advantages from society, that they were considered as entitled, at least on the stage, to break through its ties. The character of a saucy and impudent slave had been already portrayed in the old Greek comedy. In the Plutus of Aristophanes, Carion, the slave of Chremylus, is the most prominent character, and is distinguished by freedom of remark and witty impudence. To these attributes there was added, in the new comedy, a spirit of roguery and intrigue: and in this form the character was almost universally adopted by the Latin dramatists. The slaves of Plautus correspond to the valets—the Crispins, and Merlins of the French theatre, whose race commenced with Merlin, in Scarron’s Marquis Ridicule. They were also introduced in Moliere’s earliest pieces, but not in his best; and were in a great measure dropped by his successors, as, in fact, they had ceased to be the spring of any important event or intrigue in the world. Indeed, I agree with M. Schlegel, in doubting if they could ever have been introduced as happily on the modern as the ancient stage. A wretch who was born in servitude, who was abandoned for life to the capricious will of a master, and was thus degraded below the dignity of man, might excite laughter instead of indignation, though he did not conform to the strictest precepts of honesty. He was placed in a state of warfare with his oppressor, and cunning became his natural arms.

The French dramatist who has employed the character of the intriguing valet to most advantage, is Regnard; to whom, among many other agreeable pieces, we are indebted for a delightful imitation of the Mostellaria of Plautus, entitled, Le Retour Imprevu, comedie en prose, et en une acte.

In this play, the incidents of the Mostellaria have been in general adopted, though they have been somewhat transposed. We have the imposture of Merlin, who corresponds with Plautus’s Tranio, as to the haunted house, and his subterfuge when the usurer comes to claim the money which he had lent. In place, however, of asking to see the new house, the father proposes to deposit some merchandise in it. Merlin then persuades him, that the lady to whom it formerly belonged, and who had not yet quitted it, was unfortunately deprived of reason, and, having been in consequence interdicted by her relations from the use of her property, the house had been exposed to sale. At the same time, the artful valet finds an opportunity of informing the real owner, that the old man had gone mad in consequence of having lost all his merchandise at sea. Accordingly, when they meet, neither of [pg 146]them pays the smallest attention to what each considers the raving of the other. Instead of a courtezan, Regnard has introduced a young lady, with whom Clitandre is in love; but he has given her the manners rather of a courtezan, than a young lady. There is one incident mentioned in the Mostellaria which is omitted in the Retour Imprevu, and of which even Plautus has not much availed himself, though it might have been enlarged on, and improved to advantage: the old man mentions, that he had met the person from whom he had bought the haunted house, and that he had taxed him with the murder of his guest, whose apparition still walked, but that he had stoutly denied the charge.

The Fantasmi of Ercole Bentivoglio, an Italian comedy of the sixteenth century, is formed on the same original as the Retour Imprevu. The Mostellaria has likewise suggested the plot of an old tragi-comedy by Heywood, printed in 1633, and entitled The English Traveller. Fielding’s Intriguing Chambermaid is also derived from the Mostellaria, but through the medium of Regnard’s comedy. Indeed, it may be considered as almost a translation from the French; except that the author has most absurdly assigned the part of the Latin Tranio, and French Merlin, to a chambermaid, whom he calls Mrs Lettice, and has added a great number of songs and double entendres.

It has been said, that the last act of Ben Johnson’s Alchemist, where Face, in order to conceal the iniquities committed in his master’s house during his absence, tries to persuade him, that it was shut up on account of being visited by an apparition, has been suggested by the Mostellaria[255]; but, as there is no resemblance between the two plays in other incidents, we cannot be assured that the Mostellaria was at all in the view of the great English dramatist.

Persa.—In this play, which belongs to the lowest order of comedy, the characters are two slaves, a foot-boy of one of these slaves, a parasite, a pander, and a courtezan, with her waiting-maid. The manners represented are such as might be expected from this respectable group. The incidents are few and slight, hinging almost entirely on a deceit practised against the pander, who is persuaded to give a large sum for a free woman, whom the slaves had dressed up as an Arabian captive, and whom he was obliged to relinquish after having paid the money. The fable is chiefly defective from the trick of the slaves being intended to serve their own purposes. [pg 147]But such devices are interesting only when undertaken for the advantage of higher characters; a comedy otherwise must degenerate into farce.

Pœnulus, (the Carthaginian,) is one of the longest, and, I think, on the whole, the dullest of Plautus’ performances. It turns on the discovery of a lost child, who had been stolen from her Carthaginian parents in infancy, and had been carried to Greece. In none of those numerous plays which turn on the recognition of lost children, has Plautus ever exhibited an affecting interview, or even hit on an expression of natural tenderness. The characters are either not brought on the stage at the conclusion, and we are merely told by some slave or parasite that the discovery had taken place: or, as in the instance of Hanno and his daughter in the present drama, the parties most interested teaze and torment each other with absurd questions, instead of giving way to any species of emotion. It is a high example, however, of the noble and generous spirit of the Romans, that Hanno, the Carthaginian introduced in this play, which was represented in the course of the Punic wars, is more amiable than almost any other character in Plautus. It is evident, from his quibbles and obscene jests, that the Latin dramatist adapted his plays to the taste of the vulgar; and if the picture of a villainous or contemptible Carthaginian could have pleased the Roman public, as the Jew of Malta gratified the prejudices of an English mob, Plautus would not have hesitated to accommodate himself to such feelings, and his Hanno would doubtless have appeared in those hateful colours in which the Jews, or in that ridiculous light in which the French, have usually been exhibited on the British stage.

The employment of different dialects, or idioms, which has been so great a resource of the modern comic muse, particularly on the Italian stage, had been early resorted to in Greece. Aristophanes, in one of his comedies, introduced the jargon of a woman of Lacedæmon, where the Doric dialect was spoken in its rudest form. Plautus, in a scene of the Pœnulus, has made his Carthaginian speak in his native language; and as the Carthaginian tongue was but little known in Greece, it may be presumed that this scene was invented by Plautus himself.

Those remains of the Punic language which have been preserved, (though probably a good deal corrupted,) are regarded as curious vestiges of philological antiquity, and have afforded ample employment for the critics, who have laboured to illustrate and restore them to the right readings. Commentators have found in them traces of all the ancient tongues, [pg 148]according to their own fancy, or some favourite system they had adopted. Joseph Scaliger considered them as little removed from the purity of original Hebrew[256]; and Pareus, in his edition of Plautus, printed them in Hebrew characters, as did Bochart, in his Phaleg et Canaan[257]. Others, from the resemblance of single letters, or syllables, have found in different words the Chinese, Ethiopian, Persian, or Coptic dialects[258]. Plautus, it is well known, had considerable knowledge of languages. Besides writing his own with the greatest purity, he was well acquainted with Greek, Persian, and Punic. The editor of the Delphin Plautus has a notable conjecture on this point: He supposes that in the mill in which Plautus laboured, (as if it had been a large mill on the modern construction,) there was a Carthaginian, a Greek, and a Persian slave, from whom alternately he acquired a knowledge of these tongues in the hours of relaxation from work!

Pseudolus—is one of those plays of Plautus which hinge on the contrivance of a slave in behalf of his young master, who is represented at the commencement of the play, as in despair at not having money sufficient to redeem his mistress, just then sold by Ballio, a slave-dealer, to a Macedonian captain for twenty minæ. Fifteen of these had been paid, and the girl was to be delivered up to him as soon as he sent the remaining five, along with an impression of a seal-ring, which the captain had left behind as a pledge. Pseudolus, the slave, having encountered the captain’s messenger, on his way to deliver a letter containing the token and the balance of the stipulated price, personates the pander’s servant, and is in consequence intrusted with the letter. While the messenger is refreshing himself at a tavern, Pseudolus persuades one of his fellow-slaves to assume the character of the captain’s emissary, and to present the credentials (which Pseudolus places in his possession) to the pander, who immediately acknowledges their authenticity, and, without hesitation, delivers up the girl in return. When the real messenger afterwards arrives, the slave-merchant treats him as an impostor hired by Pseudolus.

Next to the slave, the principal character in this comedy is that of the pander, which is sketched with the strong pencil [pg 149]of a master, and is an admirable representation of that last stage of human depravity and wretchedness, in which even appearances cease to be preserved with the world, and there exists no longer any feeling or anxiety concerning the opinion of others. Calidorus, the lover of the girl, upbraids him for his breach of faith—

“Juravistine te illam nulli venditurum nisi mihi?

Ballio. Fateor. Cal. Nempe conceptis verbis. Bal. Etiam consultis quoque.

Cal. Perjuravisti, sceleste. Bal. At argentum intro condidi:

Ego scelestus nunc argentum promere possum domo.”

M. Dacier, however, is of a different opinion with regard to the merit of this character. He thinks that the Pseudolus, though mentioned by Cato in Cicero’s Dialogue De Senectute, as a finished piece which greatly delighted its author[259], and though called, by one of his commentators, Ocellus Fabularum Plauti[260] was chiefly in Horace’s view when he spoke, in his Epistles, of Plautus’ want of success in the characters of a young passionate lover, a parsimonious father, and a cunning pimp,—

—— “Aspice, Plautus

Quo pacto partes tutetur amantis ephebi,

Ut patris attenti, lenonis ut insidiosi.”

These three characters all occur in this comedy; and Dacier maintains that they are very poorly supported by the poet.—Calidorus is a young lover, but his character (says the critic,) is so cold and lifeless, that he hardly deserves the name. His father, Simo, corresponds as little to the part of the Patris attenti; for he encourages the slave to deceive himself, and promises him a recompense if he succeed in over-reaching the slave-merchant, and placing in the hands of his son the girl on whom he doated. Ballio, the slave-dealer, so far from sustaining the character lenonis insidiosi, who should deceive every one, very foolishly becomes the dupe of a lying valet[261].

The scene between Calidorus and the pander, from which some lines are extracted above, and that by which it is preceded, where Ballio gives directions to his slaves, seem to have suggested two scenes in Sir Richard Steele’s comedy of the Funeral. The play has been more closely imitated by Baptista Porta, the celebrated author of the Magia Naturalis in La Trappolaria, one of the numerous plays with the com[pg 150]position of which he amused his leisure, after the mysteries and chimeras of his chief work had excited the suspicion of the court of Rome, and he was in consequence prohibited from holding those assemblies of learned men, who repaired to his house with their newly discovered secrets in medicine and other arts. His play, which was first printed at Bergamo in 1596, is much more complicated in its incidents than the Latin original. Trappola, the Pseudolus of the piece, feigns himself, as in Plautus, to be the pander’s slave, and persuades a parasite to act the part of the pander himself: By this stratagem, the parasite receives from the captain’s servant the stipulated money and tokens, but delivers to him in return his ugly wife Gabrina, as the Beauty he was to receive; and there follows a comical scene, produced by the consequent amazement and disappointment of the captain. The parasite then personates the captain’s servant, and, by means of the credentials of which he had possessed himself, obtains the damsel Filesia, whom he carries to her lover. With this plot, chiefly taken from Plautus, another series of incidents, invented by the Italian dramatist, is closely connected. The father of the young lover, Arsenio, had left his wife in Spain; and also another son, who had married there, and exactly resembled his brother in personal appearance. Arsenio being ordered by his father to sail from Naples, where the scene is laid, for Spain, in order to convey home his relatives in that country, and being in despair at the prospect of this separation from his mistress, the father is persuaded, by a device of the cheat Trappola, that he had not proceeded on the voyage, as his brother had already arrived. Availing himself of his resemblance, Arsenio personates his Spanish brother, and brings his mistress as his wife to his father’s house, where she remains protected, in spite of the claims of the captain and pander, till the whole artifice is discovered by the actual arrival of the old lady from Spain. Arsenio’s mistress being then strictly questioned, proves to be a near connection of the family, who had been carried off in childhood by corsairs, and she is now, with the consent of all, united to her lover.

There is also a close imitation of the incidents of the Pseudolus in Moliere’s Etourdi, which turns on the stratagems of a valet to place a girl in possession of his master Lelie. His first device, as already mentioned, was suggested by the Epidicus[262]; but this having failed, he afterwards contrives to get into the service of his master’s rival, Leander, who, having purchased the girl from the proprietor, had agreed to send a [pg 151]ring as a token, at sight of which she was to be delivered up. The valet receives the ring for this very purpose, carries it to the owner, and by such means is just on the point of obtaining possession of the girl, when his stratagem, as usual, is defeated by the etourderie of his master. This notion of the valet’s best-laid plans being always counteracted, was probably suggested by the Bacchides of Plautus, where Mnesilochus repeatedly frustrates the well-contrived schemes of his slave Chrysalus; though, perhaps through the medium of the Inavertito of the Italian dramatist, Nicolo Barbieri, printed in 1629, or Quinault’s Amant Indiscret, which was acted four years before Moliere’s Etourdi, and is founded on the same plan with that drama. In the particular incidents the Etourdi is compounded of the tricks of Plautus’ slaves; but Moliere has shown little judgment in thus heaping them on each other in one piece. Such events might occur once, but not six or seven times, to the same person. In fact, the valet is more of an Etourdi than his master, as he never forewarns him of his plans; and we feel as we advance, that the play could not be carried on without a previous concert among the characters to connive at impossibilities, and to act in defiance of all common sense or discretion.

Rudens.—This play, which is taken from a Greek comedy of Diphilus, has been called Rudens by Plautus, from the rope or cable whereby a fisherman drags to shore a casket which chiefly contributes to the solution of the fable. In the prologue, which is spoken by Arcturus, we are informed of the circumstances which preceded the opening of the drama, and the situation in which the characters were placed at its commencement. Plautus has been frequently blamed by the critics for the fulness of his preliminary expositions, as tending to destroy the surprise and interest of the succeeding scenes. But I think he has been unjustly censured, even with regard to those prologues, where, as in that of the Pœnulus, he has anticipated the incidents, and revealed the issue of the plot. The comedies of Plautus were intended entirely for exhibition on the public stage, and not for perusal in the closet. The great mass of the Roman people in his age was somewhat rude: They had not been long accustomed to dramatic representations, and would have found it difficult to follow an intricate plot without a previous exposition. This, indeed, was not necessary in tragedies. The stories of Agamemnon and Œdipus, with other mythical subjects, so frequently dramatized by Ennius and Livius Andronicus, were sufficiently known; and, as Dryden has remarked, “the people, as soon as they heard the name of Œdipus, knew as well as [pg 152]the poet that he had killed his father by mistake, and committed incest with his mother; that they were now to hear of a great plague, an oracle, and the ghost of Laius[263].” It was quite different, however, in those new inventions which formed the subjects of comedies, and in which the incidents would have been lost or misunderstood without some introductory explanation. The attention necessary to unravel a plot prevents us from remarking the beauties of sentiment or poetry, and draws off our attention from humour or character, the chief objects of legitimate comedy. We often read a new play, or one with which we are not acquainted, before going to see it acted. Surprise, which is everything in romance, is the least part of the drama. Our horror at the midnight murders of Macbeth, and our laughter at the falsehoods and facetiousness of Falstaff, are not diminished, but increased, by knowing the issue of the crimes of the one, and the genial festivity of the other. In fact, the sympathy and pleasure so often derived from our knowledge outweighs the gratification of surprise. The Athenians were well aware that Jocasta, in the celebrated drama of Sophocles, was the mother of Œdipus; but the knowledge of this fact, so far from abating the concern of the spectators, as Dryden supposes[264], must have greatly contributed to increase the horror and interest excited by the representation of that amazing tragedy. The celebrated scene of Iphigenia in Tauris, between Electra and Orestes, the masterpiece of poetic art and tragic pathos, would lose half its effect if we were not aware that Orestes was the brother of Electra, and if this were reserved as a discovery to surprise the spectators. Indeed, so convinced of all this were the Greek dramatists, that, in many of their plays, as the Hecuba and Hippolytus of Euripides, the issue of the drama is announced at its commencement.

But, be this as it may, the prologue itself, which is prefixed to the Rudens, is eminently beautiful. Arcturus descends as a star from heaven, and opens the piece, somewhat in the manner of the Angel who usually delivers the prologue in the ancient Italian mysteries—of the Mercury who frequently recites it in the early secular dramas, and the Attendant Spirit in the Masque of Comus, who, by way of prologue, declares his office, and the mission which called him to earth. In a manner more consistent with oriental than with either Greek or Roman mythology, Arcturus represents himself as mingling with mankind during day, in order to observe their actions, [pg 153]and as presenting a record of their good and evil deeds to Jupiter, whom the wicked in vain attempt to appease by sacrifice—

“Atque hoc scelesti in animum inducunt suum,

Jovem se placare posse donis, hostiis:

Et operam et sumptum perdunt.” ——

Arcturus having thus satisfactorily accounted for his knowledge of the incidents of the drama, proceeds to unfold the situation of the principal characters. Dæmones, before whose house in Cyrene the scene is laid, had formerly resided at Athens, where his infant daughter had been kidnapped, and had been afterwards purchased by a slave merchant, who brought her to Cyrene. A Greek youth, then living in that town, had become enamoured of her, and having agreed to purchase her, the merchant had consented to meet him and fulfil the bargain at an adjacent temple. But being afterwards persuaded that he could procure a higher price for her in Sicily, the slave-dealer secretly hired a vessel, and set sail, carrying the girl along with him. The ship had scarcely got out to sea when it was overtaken by a dreadful tempest over which Arcturus is figured as presiding. The play opens during the storm, in a manner eminently beautiful and romantic—an excellence which none of the other plays of Plautus possess. Dæmones and his servant are represented as viewing the tempest from land, and pointing out to each other the dangers and various vicissitudes of a boat, in which were seated two damsels who had escaped from the ship, and were trying to gain the shore, which, after many perils, they at length reached. The decorations of this scene are said to have been splendid, and disposed in a very picturesque manner. Madame Dacier conjectures, “that at the farther end of the stage was a prospect of the sea, intersected by many rocks and cliffs, which projected considerably forward on the stage. On one side the city of Cyrene was represented as at a distance; on the other, the temple of Venus, with a court before it, in the centre of which stood an altar. Adjacent to the temple, and on the same side, was the house of Dæmones, with some scattered cottages in the back ground.” Pleusidippus, the lover, comes forward to the temple during the storm, and then goes off in search of Labrax, the slave-merchant, who had likewise escaped from the shipwreck. The damsels, whose situation is highly interesting, having now got on shore, appear among the cliffs, and after having deplored their misfortunes, they are received into the temple by the [pg 154]priestess of Venus, who reminds them, however, that they should have come clothed in white garments and bringing victims! Here they are discovered by the slave of Pleusidippus, who goes to inform his master. Labrax then approaches to the vicinity of the temple of Venus, and having discovered that the damsels who had saved themselves from the wreck were secreted there, he rushes in to claim and seize them. Thus far the play is lively and well conducted, but the subsequent scenes are too long protracted. They are full of trifling, and are more loaded than those of any other comedy of Plautus, with quaint conceits, the quibbling witticisms, and the scurrilities of slaves. The scene in which Labrax attempts to seize the damsels at the altar, and Dæmones protects them, is insufferably tedious, but terminates at length with the pander being dragged to prison. After this, the fisherman of Dæmones is introduced, congratulating himself on having found a wallet which had been lost from the pander’s ship, and contained his money, as well as some effects belonging to the damsels. The ridiculous schemes which he proposes, and the future grandeur he anticipates in consequence of his good fortune, is an excellent satire on the fantastic projects of those who are elevated with a sudden success. Having been observed, however, by the servant of Pleusidippus, who suspected that this wallet contained articles by which Palæstra might discover her parents, a long contest for its possession ensues between them, which might be amusing in the representation, but is excessively tiresome in perusal. This may be also remarked of the scene where their dispute is referred to the arbitration of Dæmones, who apparently is chosen umpire for no other reason than because this was necessary to unravel the plot. Dæmones discovers, from the contents of the wallet, that Palæstra is his daughter. The principal interest being thus exhausted, the remaining scenes become more and more tedious. We feel no great sympathy with the disappointment of the fisherman, and take little amusement in the bargain which he drives with the pander for the restoration of the gold, or his stipulation with his master for a reward, on account of the important service he had been instrumental in rendering him.

This play has been imitated by Ludovico Dolce, in his comedy Il Ruffiano, which was published in 1560, and which, the author says in his prologue, was “vestita di habito antico, e ridrizzato alla forma moderna.” The Ruffiano is not a mere translation from the Latin: the language and names are altered, and the scenes frequently transposed. There is likewise introduced the additional character of the old man Lucretio, [pg 155]father to the lover; also his lying valet Tagliacozzo, and his jealous wife Simona. Lucretio comes from Venice to the town where the scene of the play is laid, to recover a son who had left home in quest of a girl in the possession of Secco the Ruffiano. The first act is occupied with the details of Lucretio’s family misfortunes, and it is only in the commencement of the second act that the shipwreck and escape of the damsels are introduced, so that the play opens in a way by no means so interesting and picturesque as the Rudens of Plautus. The women having taken refuge in a church, Lucretio offers them shelter in his own house, which exposes them to the rage of his jealous wife Simona. By the assistance, however, of one of these girls, he discovers his lost son, who was her lover; and the recognition of the damsel herself as daughter of Isidoro, who corresponds to the Dæmones of Plautus, is then brought about in the same manner as in the Latin original, and gives rise to the same tedious and selfish disputes among the inferior characters. Madame Riccoboni has also employed the Rudens in her comedy Le Naufrage.

Stichus—is so called from a slave, who is a principal character in the comedy. The subject is the continued determination of two ladies to persist in their constancy to their husbands, who, from their long absence, without having been heard of, were generally supposed to be dead. In this resolution they remain firm, in spite of the urgency of their fathers to make them enter into second marriages, till at length their conjugal fidelity is rewarded by the safe arrival of their consorts. It would appear that Plautus had not found this subject sufficient to form a complete play; he has accordingly filled up the comic part of the drama with the carousal of Stichus and his fellow slaves, and the stratagems of the parasite Gelasimus, in order to be invited to the entertainments which the husbands prepared in honour of their return.

Trinummus—is taken from the Thesaurus of Philemon; but Plautus has changed the original title into Trinummus—a jocular name given to himself by one of the characters hired to carry on a deception, for which he had received three pieces of money, as his reward. The prologue is spoken by two allegorical personages, Luxury, and her daughter Want, the latter of whom had been commissioned by her mother to take up her residence in the house of the prodigal youth Lesbonicus. The play is then opened by a Protatick person, as he is called, who comes to chide his friend Callicles for behaviour which appeared to him in some points incomprehensible; in consequence of which the person accused explains his conduct at once to the spectators and his angry monitor. It seems Char[pg 156]mides, an Athenian, being obliged to leave his own country on business of importance, intrusted the guardianship of his son and daughter to his friend Callicles. He had also confided to him the management of his affairs, particularly the care of a treasure which was secreted in a concealed part of his dwelling. Lesbonicus, the son of Charmides, being a dissolute youth, had put up the family mansion to sale, and his guardian, in order that the treasure entrusted to him might not pass into other hands, had purchased the house at a low price. Meanwhile a young man, called Lysiteles, had fallen in love with the daughter of Charmides, and obtained the consent of her brother to his marriage. Her guardian was desirous to give her a portion from the treasure, but does not wish to reveal the secret to her extravagant brother. The person calling himself Trinummus is therefore hired to pretend that he had come as a messenger from the father—to present a forged letter to the son and to feign that he had brought home money for the daughter’s portion. While Trinummus is making towards the house, to commence performance of his part, Charmides arrives unexpectedly from abroad, and seeing this Counterfeit approaching his house, immediately accosts him. A highly comic scene ensues, in which the hireling talks of his intimacy with Charmides, and also of being entrusted with his letters and money; and when Charmides at length discovers himself, he treats him as an impostor. The entrance of Charmides into his house is the simple solution of this plot, of which the nodus is neither very difficult nor ingenious. This meagre subject is filled up with an amicable contest between Lesbonicus and his sister’s lover, concerning her portion,—the latter generously offering to take her without dowry, and the former refusing to give her away on such ignominious terms.

The English translators of Plautus have remarked, that the art of the dramatist in the conduct of this comedy is much to be admired:—“The opening of it,” they observe, “is highly interesting; the incidents naturally arise from each other, and the whole concludes happily with the reformation of Lesbonicus, and the marriage of Lysiteles. It abounds with excellent moral reflections, and the same may be said of it with equal justice as of the Captives:—

‘Ad pudicos mores facta est hæc fabula.’ ”

On the other hand, none of Plautus’ plays is more loaded with improbabilities of that description into which he most readily falls. Thus Stasimus, the slave of Lesbonicus, in order to save a farm which his master proposed giving as a portion to [pg 157]his sister, persuades the lover’s father that a descent to Acheron opened from its surface,—that the cattle which fed on it fell sick,—and that the owners themselves, after a short period, invariably died or hanged themselves. In order to introduce the scene between Charmides and the Counterfeit, the former, though just returned from a sea voyage and a long absence, waits in the street, on the appearance of a stranger, merely from curiosity to know his business; and in the following scene the slave Stasimus, after expressing the utmost terror for the lash on account of his tarrying so long, still loiters to propound a series of moral maxims, inconsistent with his character and situation.

The plot of the Dowry of Giovam-maria Cecchi is precisely the same with that of the Trinummus; but that dramatist possessed a wonderful art of giving an air of originality to his closest imitations, by the happy adaptation of ancient subjects to Italian manners. The Tresor Caché of Destouches is almost translated from the Trinummus, only he has brought forward on the stage Hortense, the Prodigal’s sister, and has added the character of Julie, the daughter of the absent father’s friend, of whom the Prodigal himself is enamoured. In this comedy the character of the two youths are meant to be contrasted, and are more strongly brought out in the imitation, from both of them being in love. A German play, entitled Schatz, by the celebrated dramatist Lessing, is also borrowed from this Latin original. The scene, too, in Trinummus, between Charmides and the counterfeit messenger, has given rise to one in the Suppositi of Ariosto, and through that medium to another in Shakspeare’s Taming of the Shrew, where, when it is found necessary for the success of Lucentio’s stratagem at Padua, that some one should personate his father, the pedant is employed for this purpose. Meanwhile, the father himself unexpectedly arrives at Padua, and a comical scene in consequence passes between them.

Truculentus—is so called from a morose and clownish servant, who, having accompanied his master from the country to Rome, inveighs against the depraved morals of that city, and especially against Phronesium, the courtezan by whom his master had been enticed. His churlish disposition, however, is only exhibited in a single scene. On the sole other occasion on which he is introduced, he is represented as having become quite mild and affable. For this change no reason is assigned, but it is doubtless meant to be understood that he had meanwhile been soothed and wheedled by the arts of some courtezan. The characters, however, of the Truculentus and his rustic master, have little to do with the main plot of the drama, [pg 158]which is chiefly occupied with the fate of the lovers, whom Phronesium enticed to their ruin. When she had consumed the wealth of the infatuated Dinarchus, she lays her snares for Stratophanes, the Babylonian captain, to whom she pretends to have borne a son, in order that she may prey on him with more facility. This drama is accordingly occupied with her feigned pregnancy, her counterfeited solicitude, and her search for a supposititious child, to which she persuades her dupe that she had given birth, but which afterwards proves to be the child of her former lover Dinarchus, by a young lady to whom he had been betrothed.

In the first act of this play an account is given of the mysteries of a courtezan’s occupation, which, with a passage near the commencement of the Mostellaria, and a few fragments of Alexis, a writer of the middle comedy, gives us some insight into the practices by which they entrapped and seduced, their lovers, by whom they appear to have been maintained in prodigious state and splendour. In a play of Terence, one of the characters, talking of the train of a courtezan, says,

“Ducitur familia tota,

Vestispicæ, unctor, auri custos, flabelliferæ, sandaligerulæ,

Cantrices, cistellatrices, nuncii, renuncii[265].”

The Greek courtezan possessed attainments, which the more virtuous of her sex were neither expected nor permitted to acquire. On her the education which was denied to a spotless woman, was carefully bestowed. To sing, to dance, to play on the lyre and the lute, were accomplishments in which the courtezan was, from her earliest years, completely instructed. The habits of private life afforded ample opportunity for the display of such acquirements, as the charm of convivial meetings among the Greeks was thought imperfect, unless the enjoyments were brightened by a display of the talents which belonged exclusively to the Wanton. But though these refinements alone were sufficient to excite the highest admiration of the Greek youth, unaccustomed as they were to female society, and often procured a splendid establishment for the accomplished courtezan, some of that class embraced a much wider range of education; and having added to their attainments in the fine arts, a knowledge of philosophy and the powers of eloquence, they became, thus trained and educated, the companions of orators, statesmen, and poets. The arrival of Aspasia at Athens is said to have produced a change in the manners of that city, and to have formed a new and remark[pg 159]able epoch in the history of society. The class to which she belonged was of more political importance in Athens than in any other state of Greece; and though I scarcely believe that the Peloponnesian war had its origin in the wrongs of Aspasia, the Athenian courtezans, with their various interests, were often alluded to in grave political harangues, and they were considered as part of the establishment of the state. Above all, the comic poets were devoted to their charms, were conversant with their manners, and often experienced their rapacity and infidelity; for, being unable to support them in their habits of expense, an opulent old man, or dissolute youth, was in consequence frequently preferred. The passion of Menander for Glycerium is well known, and Diphilus, from whom Plautus borrowed his Rudens, consorted with Gnathena, celebrated as one of the most lively and luxurious of Athenian Charmers[266]. Accordingly, many of the plays of the new comedy derive their names from celebrated courtezans; but it does not appear, from the fragments which remain, that they were generally represented in a favourable light, or in their meridian splendour of beauty and accomplishments[267]. In the Latin plays, the courtezans are not drawn so highly gifted in point of talents, or even beauty, as might be expected; but it was necessary to paint them as elegant, fascinating, and expensive, in order to account for the infatuation and ruin of their lovers. The Greeks and Romans were alike strangers to the polite gallantry of Modern Europe, and to the enthusiastic love which chivalry is said to have inspired in the middle ages. Thus their hearts and senses were left unprotected, to become the prey of such women as the Phronesium of the Truculentus, who is a picture of the most rapacious and debauched of her class, and whose vices are neither repented of, nor receive punishment, at the conclusion of the drama. Dinarchus may be regarded as a representation of the most profligate of the Greek or Roman youth, yet he is not held up to any particular censure; and, in the end, he is neither reformed nor adequately punished. The portion, indeed, of the lady whom he had violated, and at last agrees to espouse, is threatened by her father to be diminished, but this seems merely said in a momentary fit of resentment.

This play, with all its imperfections, is said to have been a great favourite of the author[268]; and was a very popular comedy at Rome. It has descended to us rather in a mutilated state, which may, perhaps, have deprived us of some fine sen[pg 160]tences or witticisms, which the ancients had admired; for, as a French translator of Plautus has remarked, their approbation could scarcely have been founded on the interest of the subject, the disposition of the incidents, or the moral which is inculcated.

The character of Lolpoop, the servant of Belfond Senior, in Shadwell’s Squire of Alsatia, has been evidently formed on that of the Truculentus, in this comedy. His part, however, as in the original, is chiefly episodical; and the principal plot, as shall be afterwards shown, has been founded on the Adelphi of Terence.

The above-mentioned plays are the twenty dramas of Plautus, which are still extant. But, besides these, a number of comedies, now lost, have been attributed to him. Aulus Gellius[269] mentions, that there were about a hundred and thirty plays, which, in his age, passed under the name of Plautus; and of these, nearly forty titles, with a few scattered fragments, still remain. From the time of Varro to that of Aulus Gellius, it seems to have been a subject of considerable discussion what plays were genuine; and it appears, that the best informed critics had come to the conclusion, that a great proportion of those comedies, which vulgarly passed for the productions of Plautus, were spurious. Such a vast number were probably ascribed to him, from his being the head and founder of a great dramatic school; so that those pieces, which he had perhaps merely retouched, came to be wholly attributed to his pen. As in the schools of painting, so in the dramatic art, a celebrated master may have disciples who adopt his principles. He may give the plan which they fill up, or complete what they have imperfectly executed. Many paintings passed under the name of Raphael, of which Julio Romano, and others, were the chief artists. “There is no doubt,” says Aulus Gellius, “but that those plays, which seem not to have been written by Plautus, but are ascribed to him, were by certain ancient poets, and afterwards retouched and polished by him[270].” Even those comedies which were written in the same taste with his, came to be termed Fabulæ Plautinæ, in the same way as we still speak of Æsopian fable, and Homeric verse. “Plautus quidem,” says Macrobius, “ea re clarus fuit, ut post mortem ejus, comœdiæ, quæ incertæ ferebantur, Plautinæ tamen esse, de jocorum copia, agnoscerentur[271].” It is thus evident, that a sufficient number of jests stamped a dramatic piece as the production of Plautus in the [pg 161]opinion of the multitude. But Gellius farther mentions, that there was a certain writer of comedies, whose name was Plautius, and whose plays having the inscription “Plauti,” were considered as by Plautus, and were named Plautinæ from Plautus, though in fact they ought to have been called Plautianæ from Plautius. All this sufficiently accounts for the vast number of plays ascribed to Plautus, and which the most learned and intelligent critics have greatly restricted. They have differed, however, very widely, as to the number which they have admitted to be genuine. Some, says Servius, maintain, that Plautus wrote twenty-one comedies, others forty, others a hundred[272]. Gellius informs us, that Lucius Ælius, a most learned man, was of opinion that not more than twenty-five were of his composition[273]. Varro wrote a work, entitled Quæstiones Plautinæ, a considerable portion of which was devoted to a discussion concerning the authenticity of the plays commonly assigned to Plautus, and the result of his investigation was, that twenty-one were unquestionably to be admitted as genuine. These were subsequently termed Varronian, in consequence of having been separated by Varro from the remainder, as no way doubtful, and universally allowed to be by Plautus. The twenty-one Varronian plays are the twenty still extant, and the Vidularia. This comedy appears to have been originally subjoined to the Palatine MS. of the still existing plays of Plautus, but to have been torn off, since, at the conclusion of the Truculentus, we find the words “Vidularia incipit[274]:” And Mai has recently published some fragments of it, which he found in an Ambrosian MS. Such, it would appear, had been the high authority of Varro, that only those plays, which had received his indubitable sanction, were transcribed in the MSS. as the genuine works of Plautus; yet it would seem that Varro himself had, on some occasion, assented to the authenticity of several others, induced by their style of humour corresponding to that of Plautus. He had somewhere mentioned, that the Saturio (the Glutton,) and the Addictus, (the Adjudged,) were written by Plautus during the period in which he laboured as a slave at the hand-mill. He was also of opinion, that the Bœotia was by Plautus; and Aulus Gellius concurs with him in this[275], citing certain verses delivered by a hungry parasite, which, he says, are perfectly Plautinian, and must satisfy [pg 162]every person to whom Plautus is familiar, of the authenticity of that drama. From this very passage, Osannus derives an argument unfavourable to the authenticity of the play. The parasite exclaims against the person who first distinguished hours, and set up the sun-dials, of which the town was so full. Now, Osannus maintains, that there were no sun-dials at Rome in the time of Plautus, and that the day was not then distributed into hours, but into much larger portions of time[276]. The Nervolaria was one of the disputed plays in the time of Au. Gellius; and also the Fretum, which Gellius thinks the most genuine of all[277]. Varro, in the first Book of his Quæstiones Plautinæ gives the following words of Attius, which, I presume, are quoted from his work on poetry and poets, entitled Didascalica. “For neither were the Gemini, the Leones, the Condalium, the Anus Plauti, the Bis Compressa, the Bœotia, or the Commorientes, by Plautus, but by M. Aquilius.” It appears, however, from the prologue to the Adelphi of Terence, that the Commorientes was written by Plautus, having been taken by him from a Greek comedy of Diphilus[278]. In opposition to the above passage of Attius, and to his own opinion expressed in the Quæstiones Plautinæ, Varro, in his treatise on the Latin Language, frequently cites, as the works of Plautus, the plays enumerated by Attius, and various others; but this was probably in deference to common opinion, or in agreement with ordinary language, and was not intended to contradict what he had elsewhere delivered, or to stamp with the character of authenticity productions, which he had more deliberately pronounced to be spurious[279].

From the review which has now been given of the comedies of Plautus, something may have been gathered of their general scope and tenor. In each plot there is sufficient action, movement, and spirit. The incidents never flag, but rapidly accelerate the catastrophe. Yet, if we regard his plays in the mass, there is a considerable, and perhaps too great, uniformity in their fables. They hinge, for the most part, on the love of some dissolute youth for a courtezan, his employment of a slave to defraud a father of a sum sufficient to supply his expensive pleasures, and the final discovery that his mistress is a free-born citizen. The charge against [pg 163]Plautus of uniformity in his characters, as well as in his fables, has been echoed without much consideration. The portraits of Plautus, it must be remembered, were drawn or copied at a time when the division of labour and progress of refinement had not yet given existence to those various descriptions of professions and artists—the doctor, author, attorney—in short, all those characters, whose habits, singularities, and whims, have supplied the modern Thalia with such diversified materials, and whose contrasts give to each other such relief, that no caricature is required in any individual representation. The characters of Alcmena, Euclio, and Periplectomenes, are sufficiently novel, and are not repeated in any of the other dramas; but there is ample range and variety even in those which he has most frequently employed—the avaricious old man—the debauched young fellow—the knavish slave—the braggart captain—the rapacious courtezan—the obsequious parasite—and the shameless pander. On most of these parts some observations have been made, while mentioning the different comedies in which they are introduced. The severe father and thoughtless youth, are those in which he has best succeeded, or at least they are those with which we are best pleased. The captain always appears to us exaggerated, and the change which has taken place in society and manners prevents us, perhaps, from entering fully into the characters of the slave, the parasite, and pander; but in the fathers and sons, he has shown his knowledge of our common nature, and delineated them with the truest and liveliest touches. In the former, the struggles of avarice and severity, with paternal affection, are finely wrought up and blended. Even when otherwise respectable characters, they are always represented as disliking their wives, which was not inconsistent with the manners of a Grecian state, in which marriage was merely regarded as a duty; and was a feature naturally enough exhibited on the theatre of a nation, one of whose most illustrious characters declared in the Senate, as a received maxim, that Romans married, not for the sake of domestic happiness, but to rear up soldiers for the republic.

The Latin style of Plautus excels in briskness of dialogue, as well as purity of expression, and has been highly extolled by the learned Roman grammarians, particularly by Varro, who declares, that if the Muses were to speak Latin they would employ his diction[280]; but as M. Schlegel has remarked, it is necessary to distinguish between the opinion of philologers, and that of critics and poets. Plautus wrote at a period when [pg 164]his country as yet possessed no written or literary language. Every phrase was drawn from the living source of conversation. This early simplicity seemed pleasing and artless to those Romans, who lived in an age of excessive refinement and cultivation; but this apparent merit was rather accidental than the effect of poetic art. Making, however, some allowance for this, there can be no doubt that Plautus wonderfully improved and refined the Latin language from the rude form in which it had been moulded by Ennius. That he should have effected such an alteration is not a little remarkable. Plautus was nearly contemporary with the Father of Roman song—according to most accounts he was born a slave—he was condemned, during part of his life, to the drudgery of the lowest manual labour—and, so far as we learn, he was not distinguished by the patronage of the Great, or admitted into Patrician society. Ennius, on the other hand, if he did not pass his life in affluence, spent it in the exercise of an honourable profession, and was the chosen familiar friend of Cato, Scipio Africanus, Fulvius Nobilior, and Lælius, the most learned as well as polished citizens of the Roman republic, whose conversation in their unrestrained intercourse must have bestowed on him advantages which Plautus never enjoyed. But perhaps the circumstance of his Greek original, which contributed so much to his learning and refinement, and qualified him for such exalted society, may have been unfavourable to that native purity of Latin diction, which the Umbrian slave imbibed from the unmixed fountains of conversation and nature.

The chief excellence of Plautus is generally reputed to consist in the wit and comic force of his dialogue; and, accordingly, the lines in Horace’s Art of Poetry, in which he derides the ancient Romans for having foolishly admired the “Plautinos sales,” has been the subject of much reprehension among critics[281]. That the wit of Plautus often degenerates into buffoonery, scurrility, and quibbles,—sometimes even into obscenity,—and that, in his constant attempts at merriment, he too often tries to excite laughter by exaggerated expressions, as well as by extravagant actions, cannot, in[pg 165]deed, be denied. This, I think, was partly owing to the immensity of the Roman theatres, and to the masks and trumpets of the actors, which must have rendered caricature and grotesque inventions essential to the production of that due effect, which, with such scenic apparatus, could not be created, unless by overstepping the modesty of nature. It must be always be recollected, that the plays of Plautus were written solely to be represented, and not to be read. Even in modern times, and subsequently to the invention of printing, the greatest dramatists—Shakspeare, for example—cared little about the publication of their plays; and in every age or country, in which dramatic poetry has flourished, it has been intended for public representation, and has been adapted to the taste of a promiscuous audience. It is the most social of all sorts of composition; and he who aims at popularity or success in it, must leave the solitudes of inspiration for the bustle of the world.

The contemplative poet may find his delight, and his reward, in the mere effort of imagination, but the poet of the drama must seek them in the applause of the multitude. He must stoop to men—be the mover of human hearts—and triumph by the living and hourly passions of our nature. Now, in the days of Plautus, the smiles of the polite critic were not enough for a Latin comedian, because in those days there were few polite critics at Rome; he required the shouts and laughter of the multitude, who could be fully gratified only by the broadest grins of comedy. Accordingly, many of the jests of Plautus are such as might be expected from a writer anxious to accommodate himself to the taste of the times, and naturally catching the spirit of ribaldry which prevailed.

During the age of Plautus, and indeed long after it, the general character of Roman wit consisted rather in a rude and not very liberal satire, than a just and temperate ridicule, restrained within the bounds of decency and good manners. A favourite topic, for example, of ancient raillery, was corporal defects;—a decisive proof of coarseness of humour, especially as it was recommended by rule, and enforced by the authority of the greatest masters, as one of the most legitimate sources of ridicule.—“Est deformitatis et corporis vitiorum satis bella materies ad jocandum,” says Cicero, in his treatise De Oratore[282]. The innumerable jests there recorded as having produced the happiest effects at the bar, are the most miserable puns and quibbles, coarse practical jokes, or personal reflections. The cause of this defect in elegance of wit and raillery, has been attributed by Hurd to the free and popular constitution of Rome. This, by placing all its citizens, at least [pg 166]during certain periods, on a level, and diffusing a general spirit of independence, took off those restraints of civility which are imposed by the dread of displeasing, and which can alone curb the licentiousness of ridicule. The only court to be paid was from the orators to the people, in the continual and immediate applications to them which were rendered necessary by the form of government. On such occasions, the popular assemblies had to be entertained with those gross banters, which were likely to prove most acceptable to them. Design growing into habit, the orators, and after them the nation, accustomed themselves to coarse ridicule at all times, till the humour passed from the rostrum, or forum, to the theatre, where the amusement and laughter of the people being the direct and immediate aim, it was heightened to still farther extravagance. This taste, says Hurd, was also fostered and promoted at Rome by the festal license which prevailed in the seasons of the Bacchanalia and Saturnalia[283]. Quintilian thinks, that, with some regulation, those days of periodical license might have aided the cultivation of a correct spirit of raillery; but, as it was, they tended to vitiate and corrupt it. The Roman muse, too, had been nurtured amid satiric and rustic exhibitions, the remembrance of which was still cherished, and a recollection of them kept alive, by the popular Exodia and Fabulæ Atellanæ.

Such being the taste of the audience whom he had to please, and who crowded to the theatre not to acquire purity of taste, but to relax their minds with merriment and jest, it became the great object of Plautus to make his audience laugh; and for this he sacrificed every other consideration. “Nec quicquam,” says Scaliger, “veritus est, modo auditorem excitaret risu.” With this view, he must have felt that he was more likely to succeed by emulating the broader mirth of the old or middle comedy, than by the delicate railleries and exquisite painting of Menander. Accordingly, though he generally borrowed his plots from the writers of the new comedy, his wit and humour have more the relish of the old, and they have been classed by Cicero as of the same description with the drollery which enlivened its scenes[284]. The audience, for whom the plays of Plautus were written, could understand or enjoy only a representation of the manners and witticisms to which they were accustomed. To the fastidious critics of the [pg 167]court of Augustus, an admirer of Plautus might have replied in the words of Antiphanes, a Greek dramatist of the middle comedy, who being commanded to read one of his plays to Alexander the Great, and finding that the production was not relished by the royal critic, thus addressed him: “I cannot wonder that you disapprove of my comedy, for he who could be entertained by it must have been present at the scenes it represents. He must be acquainted with the public humours of our vulgar ordinaries—have been familiar with the impure manners of our courtezans—a party in the breaking up of many a brothel—and a sufferer, as well as actor, in those unseemly riots. Of all these things you are not informed; and the fault lies more in my presumption in intruding them on your hearing, than in any want of fidelity with which I have portrayed them[285].”

Indeed, this practice of consulting the tastes of the people, if it be a fault, is one which is common to all comic writers. Aristophanes, who was gifted with far higher powers than Plautus, and who was no less an elegant poet than a keen satirist, as is evinced by the lyric parts of his Frogs, often prostituted his talents to the lowest gratifications of the multitude. Shakspeare regarded the drama as entirely a thing for the people, and treated it as such throughout. He took the popular comedy as he found it; and whatever enlargements or improvements he introduced on the stage, were still calculated and contrived according to the spirit of his predecessors, and the taste of a London audience. When, in Charles’s days, a ribald taste became universal in England, “unhappy Dryden” bowed down his genius to the times. Even in the refined age of Louis XIV., it was said of the first comic genius of his country, that he would have attained the perfection of his art,

“Si moins ami du peuple en ses doctes peintures,

Il n’eût point fait souvent grimacer ses figures,

Quitte, pour le bouffon, l’agreable et le fin,

Et, sans honte, a Terence allié Tabarin.”

Boileau.

Lopez de Vega, in his Arte de hacer Comedias, written, in 1609, at the request of a poetical academy, and containing a code of laws for the modern drama, admits, that when he was about to write a comedy, he laid aside all dramatic precepts, and wrote solely for the vulgar, who had to pay for their amusement:

“Quando he de escribir una comedia,

Encierro los preceptos con seis llaves;

Saco a Terencio y Plauto de mi studio

Para que no den voces, porque suele

Dar gritos la verdad en libios mudos;

Y escribo por el arte que inventaron

Los que el vulgar aplauso pretendieron,

Porque como los paga el vulgo, es justo

Hablarle in necio para darle gusto.”

His indulgent conformity, however, to the unpolished taste of his age, ought not to be admitted as an excuse for the obscenities which Plautus has introduced. But though it must be confessed, that he is liable to some censure in this particular, he is not nearly so culpable as has been generally imagined. The commentators, indeed, have been often remarkably industrious in finding out allusions, which do not consist very clearly with the plain and obvious meaning of the context. The editor of the Delphin Plautus has not rejected above five pages from the twenty plays on this account; and many passages even in those could hardly offend the most scrupulous reader. Some of the comedies, indeed, as the Captivi and Trinummus, are free from any moral objection; and, with the exception of the Casina, none of them are so indelicate as many plays of Massinger and Ford, in the time of James I., or Etheridge and Shadwell, during the reigns of Charles II. and his successor.

It being the great aim of Plautus to excite the merriment of the rabble, he, of course, was little anxious about the strict preservation of the dramatic unities; and it was a more important object with him to bring a striking scene into view, than to preserve the unity of place. In the Aulularia, part of the action is laid in the miser’s dwelling, and part in the various places where he goes to conceal his treasure: in the Mostellaria and Truculentus, the scene changes from the street to apartments in different houses.

But, notwithstanding these and other irregularities, Plautus so enchanted the people by the drollery of his wit, and the buffoonery of his scenes, that he continued the reigning favourite of the stage long after the more correct plays of Cæcilius, Afranius, and even Terence, were first represented.

CÆCILIUS,

who was originally a slave, acquired this name with his freedom, having been at first called by the servile appellation of [pg 169]Statius[286]. He was a native of Milan, and flourished towards the end of the sixth century of Rome, having survived Ennius, whose intimate friend he was, about one year, which places his death in 586. We learn from the prologue to the Hecyra of Terence, spoken in the person of Ambivius, the principal actor, or rather manager of the theatre, that, when he first brought out the plays of Cæcilius, some were hissed off the stage, and others hardly stood their ground; but knowing the fluctuating fortunes of dramatic exhibitions, he had again attempted to bring them forward. His perseverance having obtained for them a full and unprejudiced hearing, they failed not to please; and this success excited the author to new efforts in the poetic art, which he had nearly abandoned in a fit of despondency. The comedies of Cæcilius, which amounted to thirty, are all lost, so that our opinion of their merits can be formed only from the criticisms of those Latin authors who wrote before they had perished. Cicero blames the improprieties of his style and language[287]. From Horace’s Epistle to Augustus, we may collect what was the popular sentiment concerning Cæcilius—

“Vincere Cæcilius gravitate—Terentius arte.”

It is not easy to see how a comic author could be more grave than Terence; and the quality applied to a writer of this cast appears of rather difficult interpretation. But the opinion which had been long before given by Varro affords a sort of commentary on Horace’s expression—“In argumentis,” says he, “Cæcilius palmam poscit; in ethesi Terentius.” By gravitas, therefore, as applied to Cæcilius, we may properly enough understand the grave and affecting plots of his comedies; which is farther confirmed by what Varro elsewhere observes of him—“Pathe Trabea, Attilius, et Cæcilius facile moverunt.” Velleius Paterculus joins him with Terence and Afranius, whom he reckons the most excellent comic writers of Rome—“Dulcesque Latini leporis facetiæ per Cæcilium, Terentiumque, et Afranium, sub pari ætate, nituerunt[288].”

A great many of the plays of Cæcilius were taken from Menander; and Aulus Gellius informs us that they seemed agreeable and pleasing enough, till, being compared with their Greek models, they appeared quite tame and disgusting, and the wit of the original, which they were unable to imitate,[pg 170] totally vanished[289]. He accordingly contrasts a scene in the Plocius (or Necklace,) of Cæcilius, with the corresponding scene in Menander, and pronounces them to be as different in brightness and value as the arms of Diomed and Glaucus. The scenes compared are those where an old husband complains that his wife, who was rich and ugly, had obliged him to sell a handsome female slave, of whom she was jealous. This chapter of Aulus Gellius is very curious, as it gives us a more perfect notion than we obtain from any other writer, of the mode in which the Latin comic poets copied the Greeks. To judge from this single comparison, it appears that though the Roman dramatists imitated the incidents, and caught the ideas of their great masters, their productions were not entirely translations or slavish versions: A different turn is frequently given to a thought—the sentiments are often differently expressed, and sometimes much is curtailed, or altogether omitted.

AFRANIUS,

though he chose Roman subjects, whence his comedies were called Togatæ, was an imitator of the manner of Menander—

“Dicitur Afranî toga convenisse Menandro.”

Indeed he himself admits, in his Compitales, that he derived many even of his plots from Menander and other Greek writers—

“Fateor, sumpsi non a Menandro modo,

Sed ut quisque habuit, quod conveniret mihi;

Quod me non posse melius facere credidi.”

Cicero[290] calls Afranius an ingenious and eloquent writer. Ausonius, in one of his epigrams, talks “facundi Afrani.” He is also praised by Quintilian, who censures him, however, for the flagitious amours which he represented on the stage[291], on account of which, perhaps, his writings were condemned to[pg 171] the flames by Pope Gregory I. The titles of forty-six of his plays have been collected by Fabricius, and a few fragments have been edited by Stephens. One of these, in the play entitled Sella, where it is said that wisdom is the child of experience and memory, has been commended by Aulus Gellius, and is plausibly conjectured[292] to have been introduced in a prologue spoken in the person of Wisdom herself—

“Usus me genuit, mater peperit Memoria:

Sophiam vocant me Graii; vos Sapientiam.”

The following lines from the Vopiscum have also been frequently quoted:

“Si possent homines delinimentis capi,

Omnes haberent nunc amatores anus.

Ætas, et corpus tenerum, et morigeratio,

Hæc sunt venena formosarum mulierum[293].”

LUSCIUS LAVINIUS,

also a follower of Menander, was the contemporary and enemy of Terence, who, in his prologues, has satirized his injudicious translations from the Greek—

“Qui bene, vertendo et eas describendo male,

Ex Græcis bonis, Latinas fecit non bonas[294].”

In particular, we learn from the prologue to the Phormio, that he was fond of bringing on the stage frantic youths, committing all those excesses of folly and distraction which are supposed to be produced by violent love. Donatus has afforded us an account of the plot of his Phasma, which was taken from Menander. A lady, who, before marriage, had a daughter, the fruit of a secret amour with a person now living in a house adjacent to her husband’s, made an opening in the wall of her own dwelling, in order to communicate with that in which her former paramour and daughter resided. That this entrance might appear a consecrated spot to her husband’s family, she decked it with garlands, and shaded it with branches of trees. To this passage she daily repaired as if to pay her devotions, but in fact, to procure interviews with her [pg 172]illegitimate daughter. Her husband also had, by a former wife, a son, who dwelt in his father’s house, and who, having one day accidentally peeped through the aperture, beheld the girl; and, as she was possessed of almost supernatural beauty, he was struck with awe, as at the sight of a Spirit or divinity, whence the play received the name of Phasma. The young man, discovering at length that she is a mortal, conceives for her a violent passion, and is finally united to her, with the consent of his father, and to the great satisfaction of the mother. There is another play of Menander, which has also been closely imitated by Luscius Lavinius. Plautus, we have seen, borrowed his Trinummus from the Thesaurus of Philemon. But Menander also wrote a Thesaurus, which has been copied by Lavinius. An old man, by his last will, had commanded, that, ten years after his death, his son should carry libations to the monument under which he was to be interred. The youth, having squandered his fortune, sold the ground on which this monument stood to an old miser. At the end of ten years, the prodigal sent a servant to the tomb with due offerings, according to the injunctions of his deceased father. The servant applied to the new proprietor to assist him in opening the monument, in which they discovered a hoard of gold. The miserly owner of the soil seized the treasure, and retained it on pretence of having deposited it there for safety during a period of public commotion. It is claimed, however, by the young man, who goes to law with him; and the plot of the comedy chiefly consists in the progress of the suit[295]—the dramatic management of which has been ridiculed by Terence, in the prologue to the Eunuchus, since, contrary to the custom and rules of all courts of justice, the author had introduced the defendant pleading his title to the treasure before the plaintiff had explained his pretensions, and entered on the grounds of his demand. Part of the old Scotch ballad, The Heir of Linne, has a curious resemblance to the plot of this play of Luscius Lavinius.

Turpilius, Trabea, and Attilius, were the names of comic writers who lived towards the end of the sixth and beginning of the seventh century, from the building of Rome. Of these, and other contemporary dramatists, it would now be difficult to say more than that their works have perished, and to repeat a few scattered incidental criticisms delivered by Varro or Cicero. To them probably may be attributed the Baccharia, Cæcus, Cornicularia, Parasitus, and innumerable other comedies, of which the names have been preserved by gramma[pg 173]rians. Of such works, once the favourites of the Roman stage, few memorials survive, and these only to be found separate and imperfect in the quotations of scholiasts. Sometimes from a single play numerous passages have been preserved; but they are so detached, that they neither give us any insight into the fable to which they appertain, nor enable us to pronounce on the excellence of the dramatic characters. In general, they comprise so small a portion of uninterrupted dialogue, that we can scarcely form a judgment even of the style and manner of the poet, or of the beauty of his versification. All that is now valuable in these fragments is a few brief moral maxims, and some examples of that vis comica, which consists in an ingenious and forcible turn of expression in the original language.

It is not difficult to account for the vast number of dramatic productions which we thus see were brought forward at Rome in the early ages of the Republic. There are two ways in which literature may be supported,—By the patronage of distinguished individuals, as it was in the time of Mæcenas and the age of Lorenzo de Medici; or, By the encouragement of a great literary public, as it is now rewarded in modern Europe. But, in Rome, literature as yet had not obtained the protection of an emperor or a favourite minister; and previous to the invention of printing, which alone could give extensive circulation to his productions, a poet could hardly gain a livelihood by any means, except by supplying popular entertainments for the stage. These were always liberally paid for by the Ædiles, or other directors of the public amusements. To this species of composition, accordingly, the poet directed his almost undivided attention; and a prodigious facility was afforded to his exertions by the inexhaustible dramatic stores which he found prepared for him in Greece.

TRABEA.

The plays of Quintus Trabea, supposed to belong chiefly to the class called Togatæ, are frequently cited by the grammarians, and are mentioned with approbation by Cicero. He in particular commends the lines where this poet so agreeably describes the credulity and overweening satisfaction of a lover—

“Tantâ lætitiâ auctus sum ut mihi non constem:

Nunc demum mihi animus ardet.

Lena, delinita argento, nutum observabit meum—

Quid velim quid studeam: adveniens digito impellam januam:

Fores patebunt—de improviso Chrysis, ubi me aspexit,

Alacris obviam mihi veniet, complexum exoptans meum;

Mihi se dedet.—Fortunam ipsam anteibo fortunis meis[296].”

The name of Trabea was made use of in a well known deception practised on Joseph Scaliger by Muretus. Scaliger piqued himself on his faculty of distinguishing the characteristic styles of ancient writers. In order to entrap him, Muretus showed him some verses, pretending that he had received them from Germany, where they had been transcribed from an ancient MS. attributed to Q. Trabea—

“Here, si querelis, ejulatu, fletibus,

Medicina fieret miseriis mortalium,

Auro parandæ lachrymæ contra forent:

Nunc hæc ad minuenda mala non magis valent

Quam Nænia præficæ ad excitandos mortuos:

Res turbidæ consilium, non fletum, expetunt[297].”

Scaliger was so completely deceived, that he afterwards cited these verses, as lines from the play of Harpace, by Q. Trabea, in the first edition of his Commentary on Varro’s Dialogues De Re Rustica, in order to illustrate some obscure expression of his author—“Quis enim,” says he, “tam aversus a Musis, tamque humanitatis expers, qui horum publicatione offendatur.” Muretus, not content with this malicious trick, afterwards sent him some other verses, to which he affixed the name of Attius, expressing, but more diffusely, the same idea. Scaliger, in his next edition of Varro, published them, along with the former lines, as fragments from the Œnomaus, a tragedy by Attius, and a plagiarism from Trabea—observing, at the end of his note, “Fortasse de hoc nimis.” Muretus said nothing for two years; but, at the end of that period, he published a volume of his own Latin poems, and, along with them, under the title Afficta Trabeæ, both sets of verses which [pg 175]he had thus palmed on Scaliger for undoubted remnants of antiquity. The whole history of the imposture was fully disclosed in a note: Both poems, it was acknowledged, were versions of a fragment, attributed by some to Menander, and by others to Philemon, beginning,—Ει τα δακρυα ἡμιν, κ.τ.λ. They have been also translated into Latin by Naugerius[298].

The progress of time, the ravages of war, and the intervention of a period of barbarism, which have deprived us of so many dramatic works of the Romans, have fortunately spared six plays of

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?