PLAUTUS, (continued 2)

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 XIV251.

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.”

[pg 136]

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.”

[pg 140]

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 Trouveurs252, 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 secundus253.”

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 life254. 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.”

[pg 143]

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 Mostellaria255; 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 Hebrew256; and Pareus, in his edition of Plautus, printed them in Hebrew characters, as did Bochart, in his Phaleg et Canaan257. Others, from the resemblance of single letters, or syllables, have found in different words the Chinese, Ethiopian, Persian, or Coptic dialects258. 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 author259, and though called, by one of his commentators, Ocellus Fabularum Plauti260 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 valet261.

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 Epidicus262; 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 Laius263.” 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 supposes264, 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, renuncii265.”

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 Charmers266. 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 accomplishments267. 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 author268; 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 Gellius269 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 him270.” 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, agnoscerentur271.” 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 hundred272. Gellius informs us, that Lucius Ælius, a most learned man, was of opinion that not more than twenty-five were of his composition273. 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 incipit274:” 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 this275, 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 time276. 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 all277. 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 Diphilus278. 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 spurious279.

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 diction280; 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 critics281. 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 Oratore282. 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 Saturnalia283. 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 scenes284. 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 them285.”

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:

[pg 168]

“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.