SPECIMENS OF LATIN COMEDY. 89 



EUCL. Tell me, upon your faith, you have not stol'n 

 This gold. 



LYC. Upon my faith. 



EUCL. Nor do you know 



Who took it? 



LYC. No, upon my faith. 



EUCL. And if 



You should discover him, you'll reveal him to me ! 



LYC. I'll do 't. 



EUCL. Nor will you take, whoe'er he be, 

 A portion of the spoil, to hide the thief ? 



LYC. I will not. 



EUCL. What if you deceive me ? 



LYC. Then 



May Jupiter do with me what he will ! 



EUCL. I'm satisfi'd. Now tell me what's your pleasure. 



Our space forbids us to give even an enumeration, much less a 

 comparison of the numerous imitations which have been called forth 

 from the pens of modern dramatists, by the Aulularia of our author ; 

 but there is one remark which we cannot forbear making, that while 

 they, to add to the interest and effect of the play, by increasing the 

 intricacy of the plot, have represented the miser as entangled in the 

 toils of love, the Roman, with a better knowledge of life and cha- 

 racter, has made avarice the soul passion of Euclio, directing every 

 other feeling and absorbing every other desire. 



The chief characteristic of Plautus is a simplicity and naivete of 

 dialogue, carried on with the briskness and rapidity of life, thickly 

 interspersed with broad jokes, and frequently descending to the 

 coarsest comicalities, betraying his familiarity with the vulgar, and 

 his aim at popularity with the lower orders. He always inclines to 

 the farcical, and often merges into offensive drolleries ; but in the 

 vis comica, and the sales t of conversational retort he undeniably 

 excels. For this he was much read in the later aud more civilized 

 ages of Rome, and in our opinion justly admired, though Horace 

 takes occasion to censure the reading public of his time for patron- 

 izing the gross buffooneries of the antiquated Plautus. We cannot 

 be astonished at a bulky octavo being written to prove that Cam- 

 byses was wounded not in the knee, but in the thigh ; when we see 

 a grave quarto, a pacific ocean of controversial vituperation, coming 

 from the pen of a German critic to defend the sentiment of the 

 Roman lyrist. But, how r ever, professional pique aud the pride of 

 condemnatory criticism may have induced the protege of Mecaenas 

 and the favourite of the polished court of Augustus, to disparage the 

 obsolete language and rustic wit of Plautus, his comedies were the 

 amusement, as St. Jerome, himself, tells us, of his literary leisure 

 and have ever been admired by the learned and philosophic reader, 

 who has sufficient knowledge to discover the correctness of their 

 portraits and their faithfulness to real life. 



We purpose, in our next number, to give some extracts from the 

 only extant specimen of the Greek Satyric Drama, with an outline of 

 its nature, and of the use to which it was applied. A. A. 



* Horat. de Art. Port. c. 271. 



