1832.] [ 44f> ] >* 



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SPECIMENS OF LATIN COMEDY N o . III. 



' 

 k) gj- THE MEXAECHMI, OF PLA.UTJJS* 







" Credite, non ludo ; nam sunt mihi dramata Plauti, 

 Nil nisi lautitia; deliciaeque merac." 



Lamb. Pithop, ' 



WE remember to have read somewhere, we believe in the life of 

 Demosthenes, by that most narrative and unparalleled biographer, 

 Plutarch, an anecdote to this effect : a young Athenian once asked this 

 " mightiest chief of Grecian eloquence," what he considered the first 

 thing to be attended to in oratory ? to which he replied, action : the 

 interrogateur then asked, what he considered the second ? to which also, 

 lie replied, action, in a more decisive tone : and " what is the third ?" 

 said the youth ; action, replied the orator in a voice of thunder. 



Now, if we were called upon in a similar manner, to say, what we 

 deem the most fertile subject of comic merriment, we should unhesi- 

 tatingly reply, personal resemblances, and if asked, what we deemed the 

 second, we should but reiterate our answer ; and if interrogated respect- 

 ing the third, we should refer the person who thus pestered us with his 

 interrogatories to the April Number of the Monthly Magazine, (that 

 never-sufficiently-to-be-lauded publication,) for the year 1832, page 445, 

 where he would have an ocular declaration of our opinion. 



The leading trait both in the Captives and the Amphitryon, is the 

 mistake and comic humour arising from the similarity and convertibility 

 of two characters ; in the Captives, of Tyndarus and Philocrates, in the 

 Amphitryon, of Sosia and Mercury, Jupiter and the General, who has 

 given name to the play. And so in the Menaechmi, the amusement of 

 the piece hinges on the series of mistakes and divers hallucinations into 

 which the Epidamnians fall in consequence of the perfect resemblance 

 of the twin brothers, and their final confrontation. But, though the 

 leading trait is essentially the same in this play as in the two from 

 which we have made extracts before, yet the plot is so beautifully 

 varied, and the scenes are so exquisitely diversified, that what in other 

 hands would probably have been but a monotonous repetition, assumes 

 under the management of Plautus, the air of novelty and perfect origi- 

 nality. 



The Captives, was imitated by Rotrou, the Amphitryon, by Dryden 

 and Moliere, but the Menaechmi, has been imitated by Shakspeare, in 

 his well known Comedy of Errors ; which, though it does not stand 

 high in the gamut of our great dramatist's compositions, bears neverthe- 

 less, the evident stamp of Shakspeare ; but we cannot agree with the 

 celebrated Schlegel, in thinking it superior to the Menaechmi of Plautus. 

 The fact of Shakspeare and Dryden, par nobile fratrum, having lighted 

 their torches at the lamp of Plautus, is no inconsiderable testimony to 

 the excellence of the Roman comedian. 



Few, if any plays, have been so frequently imitated and translated as 

 this, particularly in the Italian theatre ; where the Lo Ipocrito of Aretine 

 holds the highest rank, though the respective imitations of Cecchi, 

 Firenzuola, and Trissino, enjoy considerable reputation. The Me- 

 naechmi, received a version into English as early as 1595, the title of 

 which -bore these words; "a pleasaunt and fine conceited comedie, 



