and if pretence can be found for a manu- "The cunning servant is generally also the mission at the end of the play, the author is person who creates mirth, who confesses his own ready enough to avail himself of it. The plots sensuality and unscrupulous principles with which he has devised, if they have offended other characters, and even addresses the audipleasant exaggeration, plays off his jests on the his master, have amused far more important ence. From these have arisen the comic serpersonages-namely, his audience, and it vants of the moderns; but I doubt whether they

would be positive ingratitude to allow him to have been transferred with sufficient propriety suffer for the entertainment he has caused. and truth as far as our own manners are conBesides his power of endurance, and his cerned. The Greek servant was a slave, consigned facility in inventing schemes, another cha- to the will of his master for the period of his racteristic of the servus is his worldly wis- A man to whom the constitution of society has life, and often exposed to the severest treatment. dom. If his inventive faculty is at the service denied all his original rights is readily pardoned of his young master, his reflections are if he turns his cunning to account; he is in a generally against him; and far from these state of war against his oppressor, and craft is his being lulled to rest, he is generally intruding natural weapon. A servant of the present day, who them, much to the disgust of those who hear has freely chosen his situation and his employer, them. In the 'Mostellaria' we have an in- is nothing less than a confirmed scoundrel, if he stance of a slave who actually leads his his father. As for the open sensuality by which aids a son in carrying on an imposture against master into his evil courses: but mostly he servants and other persons of a lower rank are is an unwilling instrument in the services for stamped as comic characters, this may still be which he is employed, till a malice against used as a motive without scruple; for of him to his old master gives a seasoning to the task. whom life has granted little, but little is exOf courtesans and their arts he has a thorough pected, and he may boldly confess his vulgar knowledge and an equally thorough con- The better the situation of the servant in real disposition without shocking our moral feeling. tempt; and the incivilities which he hurls at life, the less is he fitted for comedy, and it is the mistresses of his young master, while the perhaps a glory of our gentle period if in our hopeful youth is overflowing with expressions pictures of domestic life we see servants who of endearment, have a most curious effect. are really honest fellows, and who are more It seems at the first glance somewhat incon- fitted to make us cry than to make us laugh.” sistent that the slave, with a full knowledge

of his own risk, and his dislike of amours, The next important person to the servant should enter so readily upon plans, the object is the parasite: the poverty-stricken friend, of which is to encourage imprudent youth, who will do anything for a supper: whose and to defy prudent age. The malice of the appetite is in the inverse ratio to his means: slave against his master does not furnish a whose capacity of stomach is equal to that of sufficient motive. But the truth peeps out, a Spanish rogue. He is also a hero in his that all that he does is actually done with way; no knight-errant can be more excluforesight. His old master, though he is for- sively devoted to his lady-love than he is to midable at present, is not, in his opinion, long a supper; it is the one picture constantly for this world; and in assisting the junior in floating before his imagination, the object to his vices, he is only worshipping the rising which every thought is to be directed, and sun.' Cunning, quickness of invention, im- from which no danger may deter him. And pudence, and malice, are the leading charac- the risks in the way of this luckless mortal teristics of the class servus, who is in some are very formidable: he has not merely to instances also a debauchee. The virtuous encounter a civil servant with the answer that slave, who is introduced but seldom, and who his master is not at home, but he is looked is a moral hero in the Captivi,' does not in upon as an invader, who may be repelled any respect belong to the genus. with force. He is heaped with contumelies, The strange conduct of the intriguing foot- and is fortunate if they are not attended with men on the modern stage, and the strange missiles: Curculio, in the play that bears his harshness with which they are treated, are a name, and Peniculus, in the 'Menæchmi,' most striking instance of the influence of the being each represented with one eye, as ancient comedy, from which the peculiarities though the other was lost in the pursuit of his of the slave have been borrowed and trans-avocation. In some cases he has not much ferred to the free domestic. A. W. Schlegel, to do with the plot, but rather seems to rein his 'Dramatic Lectures,' in pointing out lieve the business of the play by an amusing the descent of the modern servant from the confession of his own peculiarities; and that old slave, makes observations so acute, that these were greatly relished may be gathered though they do not precisely accord with the from the fact that the parasite usually has a above, they are worth introducing in connec- soliloquy, in which he describes his character. tion with this subject. Peniculus philosophizes in this manner:

For me they have devised the name of Sponge, | purpose, though we must defer our judgment Since when I eat I sweep the table clean. of his taste, till some other feast after the Those who confine their captives or their slaves, manner of the ancients' is given, like that in When they would fly from them, with heavy Peregrine Pickle.' All at any rate can enter into such zeal as that expressed by the parasite Ergasilus (the prototype of the genus) in the Captivi,' when the larder is intrusted to him:

chains,

According to my notion are unwise.
For if we add one evil to another,

The wretched man is more inclined to flee,
And from his bondage he will find a way,
Whether by file or stone he breaks his chains.
Ay, this is folly! Would you keep him safe,
Bind him down well with victuals and good wine,
And fix his sharp nose to a groaning board.
While you supply him with your meat and drink,
Cram him each day as much as he desires,
Whatever be his crime he will not flee.
You'll keep him easily with such a chain !
For good tough shackles are these bonds of

meat;

The more they stretch, the closer do they bind.
-Men. I. 1.

The parasite is sometimes a merchant in drolleries, smart sayings, and quaint conceits: commodities which he barters readily for the good things of the table. Gelasimus, in the Stichus,' regularly declares that he and his jokes are to be sold by auction.

An auction there shall be. I am resolved,
I will make sale of all my property.
What ho! attend! Good bargains if you bid,
I sell right pleasant jests. Who'll buy? who'll
buy?

Who bids a supper? Who a dinner bids?
Come, you will gain the grace of Hercules.
Stay-did you nod? None will give better jests:
There is no parasite shall rival me.
The soft Greek unguent, gentle medicines
Have I for sale; the subtle repartee,
The quick assent and flattering compliment,
A rubber and a bottle, somewhat worn;
And lastly here's the parasite himself,
An empty vessel that will hold your scraps.-
Stich. II. 1.

Immortal Gods! woe to the porker's throat:
Gammons of bacon, what misfortune waits ye!
Woe to sow's teats, destruction to fat brawn!
For butchers and for porkmen what fatigue!-
Capt. IV. 3.

of a

their feasts by pleasantries, are the ancestors The jesting parasites, the men who earn numerous race, of whom Jeremy Diddler, in Mr. Kenney's Raising the Wind,' and the gastronome Sponge, in Who wants a Dinner?' are the most famous. The latter we see bears the name of his forefather Peniculus. Occasionally the parasite does some practical service, and aids the young lover with his stratagems. In this situation

his functions are much the same as those of the servus, and he answers to those scampish friends, in a modern comedy or farce, who are ready at a fixed price to do anything for the walking gentleman' of the piece. But whether he amuses, flatters, lies, or cheats, the object of the pursuit is never varied, but is always-a feast.

6

Those very disreputable persons, the leno and the meretrix, next deserve our notice. With very few exceptions, the whole plot of the Roman comedy turns on the love of a young man of family for a woman who is actually a courtesan, or, having been stolen in her childhood, is intended for that avocation. Every one who has the merest smattering in antiquities, knows that this peculiMany of the speeches of the parasite would arity of the ancient plot is the necessary convey the notion that the author himself result of the constitution of Greek society, was an epicure. Plautus revels in names of in which unmarried virtuous women bore no viands; he luxuriates in the kitchen; the part: so that, adultery not being esteemed whole art of domestic cookery is at his fin- comical at Athens, as it was in London and gers' ends; and the parasite is the organ of Paris at the beginning of the seventeenth his knowledge. Compare the few directions century, meretricious love was the only mowhich Syrus gives to the cooks in the tive left for the dramatist. The only case in Adelphi of Terence, with a speech of which unmarried women who reside with Plautus, when the preparation of a supper is virtuous parents are introduced, is when they the subject matter! We moderns are indeed have been violated by the hero of the piece forbidden to appreciate the force of his glow-in a fit of intoxication; as in the Adelphi' ing catalogues. A number of strange names of Terence or the Truculentus' of Plautus. present themselves, which commentators in- That love is not implied in a contract of marterpret as meaning a kind of fish' and riage, is nowhere more clearly set forth than another kind of fish ;' with here and there a in a long soliloquy of the prudent young man doubt whether the fish be not actually a in the Trinumus,' when, after reflecting vegetable. On us the author bestows mere with himself whether he shall obey the dicwords; but we can see the intensity of his tates of love or prudence, he determines to

have nothing to do with love, and immedi- | with all their aberrations are so exceedingly ately offers marriage to his friend's sister. amiable and reverential to their parents, that The case of violation, and that where the the audience must feel anxious for their wel female slave turns out to be a woman of good fare. The character of Ctesipho in the ‘Adelfamily, are the only two where love-matches phi' who wishes his father was confined to make their appearance; and as in neither of his bed, to be kept out of the way, and then these cases the attachment begins with what adds, 'so far as is consistent with his health,' we should in modern parlance call honoura- is a striking instance of the youth of Terence's ble intentions,' while in the first the crime is comedy. The youth of Plautus is, on the the result of a temporary insanity and not of other hand, sometimes a very unamiable serious purpose, these exceptions do no more mauvais sujet,' and sometimes a mere walkin fact than prove the rule, that meretricious ing gentleman,' though this remark will not love is the foundation of comedy. The apply universally, as there is as much differcourtesans, though sometimes independent ence between one of the usual droll comedies women, are more frequently the slaves of the of Plautus and his 'Trinumus' as there is beleno, and the highest act of devotion on the tween him and Terence. On the subject of part of a youthful lover is to liberate his mis- moralizing speeches, it may be observed that tress. The sum by which this can be effect- Plautus, according to our notions, displays ed being a tolerably large one, and the young much abruptness in his reflective soliloquies, man's father generally being a stern discipli- which stand as it were apart from the action narian, and averse from such attachments, the of the piece. We have youths meditating process by which it is obtained constitutes the upon dissipation; good slaves on the duty of machinery of the plot. For the courtesan a servant to his master;-indeed, Plautus, herself the author not unfrequently inspires who has not so many moral sentences as Tean interest, and in some cases she evinces an rence, evinces a peculiar attachment to these attachment for the lover of the comedy, which moral essays. That these isolated speeches is inconsistent with the policy of her profes- did not, however, arise merely from a crude sion, and thus exposes herself to the reproach- state of the art, is very clear; for they are es of her more worldly friends, her master or usually in a lyric measure, and have much her mother. The leno, who is what in mo- the same relation to the comedy, which a redern language would be called the keeper flective chorus of Euripides has to his trageof a house of ill-fame,' is on the other hand dy. They were doubtless considered as always detested, and considered utterly out of ornaments.

the pale of humanity. The grossest fraud, The old men, like those of Terence, are the most violent personal chastisement, may either severe disciplinarians, or over indulbe heaped on this unfortunate being; and gent to the vices of youth, though there is a the author, in making him undergo the se- character in Plautus which we do not find in verest sufferings, seems rejoicing in a sort of Terence-the amorous old man, who loathes savage ferocity. The leno is the common his wife, and runs after courtesans, and who pestilence of youth; against him all parties is the parent of those old Satyrs so common join; and nothing gives greater pleasure than in the drama of our Charles II. All that bewhen the piece closes with his miseries. In longed to the coarseness of an amour was, as him there is no redeeming virtue, unless it far as we can judge from the six plays, carebe the absence of hypocrisy; for he openly fully kept in the background by Terence; he predicates of himself all those qualities which did not, like Plautus, introduce a roaring he hears in the mouth of his enemies. Of party of rakes and harlots drunk over their the courtesans there is only one thoroughly supper before the eyes of his audience; he depraved in all the comedies of Flautus, and did not turn inside out the house kept by a that is the heroine of the worst-the Trucu- leno; and the wanton ejaculations of the old sinner he probably considered offensive. The The young lover is generally in Plautus only resemblance that we find to the squabthe least interesting person of all, his charac-bles between the old gentlemen and ladies, teristic being that he desires to possess his that are so strongly depicted by Plautus, is mistress, and orders the wits of others to be in the 'Phormio, but there the offence was set to work for that end. He is somewhat committed by the husband in his youth, and addicted to moralizing, and the result of his all grossness is avoided. The severe discireflections seems to be that he is perfectly plinarian is, however, the more usual characaware of the evils of a course of dissipation, ter, his severity being of great service to the but must persist in it. The young men of plot; since the son, not hoping to obtain Terence are most delicately coloured, and anything by persuasion, relies solely on cun

lentus.'

character this play is distinguished from the erality of readers than any one of the comerest, the principle on which it is composed is dies of Plautus. not different from the 'Menæchmi.' A number of ludicrous mistakes are to arise from The ASINARIA is a comedy abounding in two persons bearing an exact resemblance to humour, and needlessly defaced by the most two others, and the fable of Jupiter and revolting indecency. Argyrippus, a young Alcmena, where the divine lover takes the lover' of the usual description, is violently shape of the human husband, furnishes just enamoured of Philenium, a courtesan, and such a resemblance as is required by the would purchase her of her mother for a whole poet, who, to heighten the humour, introduces year. He has however no money, and the the comic servant Sosia, whose form is taken quarrel between him and the procuress: the by Mercury. Thus while the more serious youth upbraiding the old lady for her forgetembarrassments arise from the likeness of the fulness of past obligations, and she boldly two Amphitryons, the chief mistake arises pleading her own interest as sufficient excuse, from the resemblance of the two Sosias, and and forbidding him to approach the house till the utter stupefaction of the real one, at find- his purse is replenished: is one of the most ing that he has got a counterpart. In no highly-wrought and vigorous scenes in the play has Plautus exhibited a richer vein of whole drama of Plautus. The courtesan herhumour than in this. He has seen the drol- self is not avaricious, but sincerely devoted to lery of the idea in its full force, and he works Argyrippus, and there is another quarrel beupon it, determined to elicit as much 'fun' tween her and her mother, because she prefers as possible. Over and over again has Sosia her love to her interest. The sum required to tell his master, how 'I beat me,' and how is to be obtained by the two sharp servants, there is another 'I' at home beside the 'I' Libanus and Leonida, the mother of Argyripwho addresses him. Yet Amphitryon will pus being the formidable person of the family, not understand. To be sure the matter is in- and the father, Demænetus, encouraging the tricate, but still the reader may wonder he servants to cheat his wife for the sake of his does not get more enlightened at the very son. A merchant arrives to pay for some circumstantial statement of Sosia. It is not asses that have been sold, and Leonida, predulness in Amphitryon: no! that is not the tending to be the steward, who is in the wife's cause why so frequent a repetition is demand-service, gets possession of the money. The ed:-it is the determination of Plautus not to assumption of this character, and the incredu let go a joke so long as it is capable of excit- lity of the merchant, lead to the richest sort ing even a smile. Broadly comic as the play of farcical drollery. The money being obis, he has called it a tragi-comedy in his tained, the father allows Argyrippus to purprologue, under the impression that where chase his mistress, on the disgusting condition gods and kings are introduced, the term come- that he is to have a share in her favour. By dy would be misapplied. Indeed, through- this unfortunate contract a most amusing play out the whole prologue he has shown a very is rendered repugnant in the extreme. It great degree of care in making his purpose ends with the appearance of the wife, who clear to his audience, as if he fancied he had has been informed, by the parasite of a disap produced a fable that almost surpassed the limits of their comprehension. Mercury, who speaks it, explains that he will be distinguished from Sosia by the little wings in his hat, while a golden ornament will distinguish Jupiter from Amphitryon; and as if The AULULARIA is tolerably well known as still fearing that his explanation may lead to being the foundation of the Avare' of Mosome misunderstanding, he adds that none of lière. It is a play of a kind the very reverse the characters of the piece will be able to per- of the one just described, consisting in delinceive these marks, as they are visible to the eation of character, rather than in intrigue. spectators only. Again, in the third act the Euclio, the originally poor man, who has audience are formally addressed by Jupiter found the pot (olla) of gold, from which the and Mercury, as if the action of the piece name is taken, is not a personage who comes were even yet not sufficiently clear. Every- within the range of the usual characters of thing tends to show that the author felt he Plautus. These, as we have shown, are rathwas treading on difficult ground. The adap- er symbols of classes, than individuals; but in tation by Molière, who has given Sosia a wife, Euclio we have a perfect individuality, as and who has been followed by our own Dry- completely worked out, and as highly finishden, renders this play more familiar to the gen-ed, as any character in the whole works of

pointed lover, of the festivities that are taking place at the house of the courtesan, and who therefore rushes in upon the feast, and drives out her old husband with all sorts of reproaches.