once made, and Glycerium given to Pamphilus, all that remains becomes cold. From the extreme brevity of this last scene, one would imagine that the poet himself found this part of the fable languish under his hands. Some of the commentators, fond of that tediousness, which Terence was so studious to avoid, have added seventeen spurious lines of dialogue between Charinus and Chremes. Donatus, though he approved of this underplot, which Terence added to the fable of Menander, yet commends his judgment in avoiding prolixity, by settling only one marriage on the stage, and dispatching the other behind the scenes. But surely the whole episode of Charinus is unnecessary, and the fable would be more clear, more compact, and more complete without it. See the first note to the second act.

The fifth act of Baron is an almost literal, though very ele. gant version, of this of our author.

It is very remarkable, that though Terence is generally considered to be a grave author, as a writer of comedy, the 'Andrian' has much more humour and pleasantry, than either the English or French imitation of it.

$6 Therefore I think, &c.] This whole sentence is transferred by our poet to this play from the Eunuch' of Menander and to this practice alludes the objection mentioned in the prologue. That fables should not be confounded.-Do

NATUS.

87 My soul hath her content so absolute.] The passage in Shakspeare's Othello, from which I have borrowed this line, is a kind of contrast to this in our author. Each of them are speeches of the highest joy and rapture, and each of them founded on the instability of human happiness; but the reader will meet with a still closer comparison between the English and Latin poet in the notes to the third act of the 'Eunuch', to which place I have referred the citation from Shakspeare.

$8 Clap your hands.] Plaudite. All the old tragedies and comedies acted at Rome, concluded in this manner. Donec CANTOR VOS PLAUDITE dicat, says Horace. Who the cantor was, is a matter of dispute. Mons. Dacier thinks it was the whole chorus; others suppose it to have been a single actor; some, the prompter; and some, the compo

ser.

It

Before the word Plaudite in all the old copies is an n, which has also given rise to several learned conjectures. is most probable, according to the notion of Madam Dacier,

that

that this, being the last letter of the Greek Alphabet, was nothing more than the mark of the transcriber to signify the end, like the Latin word Finis in modern books: or it might, as Patrick supposes, stand for ndos, Cantor, denoting that the following word Plaudite, was spoken by him.

CALLIOPIUS RECENSUI.] After Plaudite, in all the old copies of Terence, stand these two words: which signify, "I "Calliopius have revised and corrected this piece." And this proceeds from the custom of the old criticks, who carefully revised all manuscripts: and when they had read and corrected any work, certified the same by placing their names at the end of it.-DACIER.

NOTES

NOTES

TO THE

EUNUCH.

The Eunuch.] This seems to have been the most popular of all the Comedies of Terence. Suetonius and Donatus, both inform us that it was acted with the greatest applause, and that the Poet received a larger price for it from the Ediles, than had ever been paid for any before, viz. 8000 sesterces, which is about equal to 200 crowns, which in those times was a considerable sum.

2 Acted twice.] Acta 11. Donatus informs us it was acted a third time. It is certain therefore that there is something wanting in this title, and that we should read acta II. DIE, acted twice IN ONE DAY, of which fact we are made acquainted by Suetonius.-DACIER.

3 Valerius, and Fannius, consuls.] That is, in the year of Rome 592, and 160 before Christ.

Baïf, a poet, who lived under Charles IX. made a translation of the Eunuch' into French verse, which, if I am not deceived, was never publicly represented, as there was not at that time a company of comedians regularly established at Paris. I have not heard that before, or since his time, we have any other poetical translations of Terence; and my Andrian' is, I believe, the first of his comedies, that has appeared on our stage.-BARON.

Baron is partly mistaken. There is extant in the works of the celebrated Fontaine a comedy intitled 'L'Eunuque,' being, like Baron's Andrian,' founded on Terence, with such alterations, as the modern poet thought adviseable in his age and country. Some of the principal variations will be observed in the course of these notes.

G g

5 Yet

5 Yet if there's one, &c.] Meaning Lavinius, the poet censured in the prologue to the Andrian.'-DONATUS.

• The Phantom of Menander.] The Phantom' [Daσμx] was the title of a comedy of Menander; in which a young man looking through a hole in the wall, which divides his fa. ther's house from a neighbour's, beholds a virgin of extraor dinary beauty, and is affected with an awful reverence, as at the sight of a Divinity; from which the play is called the 'Phantom.' The mother (who had this child by a secret amour before her marriage with the young man's father, and educated her privately in the house of her next-door neighbour) is represented to have made the hole in the wall, and to have decked the passage with garlands, and green branches, that it might look like a consecrated place; whither she daily went to her devotions, and used to call forth her daughter to converse with her there. The youth, coming by degrees to the knowledge of her being but a mortal, his passion for her becomes so violent, as to admit of no cure but marriage; which at last is accomplished to the great satisfaction of the mother and daughter, the joy of the lover, and the consent of his father. This argument of the Phasma' Bentley gives us; but to whom we are obliged for it, says he does not know, whether to Donatus or some older scholiast.-COOKE.

6

7 In the Thesaurus.] In the Thesaurus,' or Treasure, of Lavinius, a young fellow having squandered his estate, sends a servant, ten years after his father's death, according to the will of the deceased, to carry provisions to his father's monument; but he had before sold the ground, in which the monument stood, to a covetous old man; to whom the ser. vant applied to help him to open the monument; in which they discovered a hoard of gold and a letter. The old fel. low seizes the treasure, and keeps it, under pretence of having deposited it there, for safety, during times of war: the young fellow goes to law with him; and the old man is represented as opening the cause thus: "Athenians, why should I relate the war with the Rhodians? &c." which Terence ridicules, because the young man who was the plaintiff, should first shew his own title to it.-Thus far Bentley, from the same scholiast. This note is a clear explanation of the passage to which it belongs. Hare concurs with Madam Dacier in her opinion, that this story of the Treasure' was on. ly an incident foisted by Lavinius into the Phantom' of Menander, and not a distinct play: but was I not determined by the more learned Bentley, the text itself would not permit

me

me to concur in their opinion, as the words atque in Thesauro scripsit, seem plainly to be a transition to another play.-COOKE.

Menander, and his contemporary Philemon, each of them wrote a comedy under this title. the story of Menander's; and we know that of Philemon's We have in the above note from the Trinummus' of Plautus, which was a translation of it.

Leave to examine it.] Perfecit, sibi ut inspiciundi es set copia. The word inspiciundi certainly carries a stronger sense than merely to be present at the representation. The meaning of the whole passage I take to be this. That having obtained leave to peruse the MS. he furnished himself with objections against the piece, which he threw out when it came to be represented before the Magistrates.

17

9 When 'twas rehears'd before the Magistrates.] This is a remarkable passage, for it informs us that when the Ma gistrates had bought a piece, they had it represented at their own house, before it was played in public.-DACIER.

The Colax, &c.] Colax is a Greek word [xoλag] sig. nifying a flatterer, which was the reason the Greeks gave that name to their parasites.-DACIER.

"But that he knew, &c.] If Plautus wrote a play under the title of Colax, I should think it very unlikely for Terence not to have seen it, considering how soon he flourished after Plautus, his being engaged in the same studies, and his having such access to the libraries of the great. Among the Fragments of Plautus is one verse said to be a line of the Colax:' yet I am inclined to believe, Plautus never translated Menander's Colax.' The character of the vain-glorious Soldier here mentioned I am apt to think the same with that which is the hero of Plautus's comedy now extant, and called Miles Gloriosus;' from which Terence could not take his Thraso. Pyrgopolinices and Thraso are both full of themselves, both boast of their valour, and their intimacy with princes, and both fancy themselves beloved by all the women who see them; and they are both played off by their parasites; but they differ in their manners and their speech. Plautus's Pyrgopolinices is always in the clouds, and talking big, and of blood and wounds, like our heroes commonly called Derby Captains. Terence's Thraso never says too little, nor too much, but is an easy ridiculous character, con tinually supplying the audience with mirth, without the wild extravagant

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