SPECIMENS OF LATIN COMEDY. No. IV. 

 THE AULULARIA; OB, THE MISER OF PLAUTUS. 



AFTER so long an interruption of our acquaintance with the Roman 

 Comedian,* it may appear necessary, in introducing another of his 

 plays to our readers, to give some kind of preliminary notice of the 

 subject, to maintain throughout the epic character of our series. But, 

 unfortunately, there are few points on which we have such a meagre- 

 ness of accurate information, as the origin of Latin comedy : much 

 has been said, but to little purpose. That it took its rise, however, 

 from the Grecian drama is placed beyond dispute, by the confessions 

 of Plautus and Terence themselves, and by the readiness with which 

 many of their plays affiliate themselves to those of Epicharmus and 

 Menander. 



The Romans were of all people, perhaps, the most illiterate in their 

 origin ; they were, as their name t implies, essentially warlike, a na- 

 tion of strength ; they were too active to speculate, too busy to phi- 

 losophize ; too much occupied in subjugation and rule, to discourse 

 in the quiet of an academical retreat ; in a word, they were too much 

 engrossed in deeds of valour, to attend to the improvement of the 

 language that was to record them, much less to the cultivation of the 

 higher walks of literature : 



" In regere imperio populos, Romane, memento." 



And that a refined comedy is the production only of a very refined 

 age, will hardly be denied : strong as is the vis imitairix, of which 

 CiceroJ speaks, the innate propensity to imitate, and to admire good 

 imitation, a people who, like the Romans, are continually doing, in- 

 cessantly making and maintaining war, have no time to devote to 

 the improvement of society, or to cultivating the higher and more 

 accomplished civilities of life ; amidst which alone true comedy can 

 flourish. The first ideas of such a community relate to physical 

 power ; with them the strongest man is the best man : their highest 

 idea of virtue is pre-eminence in bodily strength, very different from 

 the notions which the Greeks formed of the same character, embodied 

 in their expressive epithets xaXo? xayaQo?. This circumstance alone is 

 sufficient to explain all the difference in the character of the nation 

 and literature of the Greeks and Romans : the inferiority of Virgil to 

 Homer is not in degree, but in kind ; a Roman could never have 

 produced the Iliad ; a Roman never could have written an universal 

 poem a poem which every nation must admire, and every individual 

 must feel : a work displaying throughout such truth and breathing 

 harmony, that nothing is surprising, because of the perfection of the 



* Vide p. 445. Number for April, 

 t c Pwpi, strength : 'PUIUMIOI. a people of strength. 

 $ II. de Orat. 219. 



The Latin virtus is their only word to express virtue, and their highest 

 word to denote valour. 



