University of Virginia Library

Terence here with reason endeavours to make the most of a circumstance peculiar to his play. In other Comedies, every body, Actors as well as Spectators, are at last equally acquainted with the whole intrigue and Catastrophe; and it would even be a defect in the plot, were there any obscurity remaining. But Terence, like a true Genius, makes himself superior to Rules, and adds new beauties to his piece by forsaking them. His reasons for concealing from part of the personages of the Drama the principal incident of the Plot, are so plausible and natural, that he could not have followed the beaten track without offending against manners and decency. This bold and uncommon turn is one of the chief graces of the Play.

See the notes to the third act of this Comedy.

Terence had recourse to the expedient of double plots. And this, I suppose, is what gained him the reputation of being the most artificial writer for the Stage. The Hecyra [The Step-Mother] is the only one of his Comedies, of the true antient cast. And we know how it came off in the representation. That ill success and the simplicity of its conduct have continued to draw upon it the same unfavourable treatment from the critics, to this day; who constantly speak of it, as much inferior to the rest; whereas, for the genuine beauty of dramatick design and the observance, after the ancient Greek manner, of the nice dependency and coherence of the fable, throughout, it is, indisputably, to every reader of true taste, the most masterly and exquisite of the whole collection.

Though I would not attempt to justify the town-criticks of the days of Terence, who passed a sentence of absolute condemnation on this Comedy, yet I cannot think that it failed merely for want of duplicity of intrigue; nor that the Criticks of Horace's time esteemed Terence the most artificial writer for the stage, only because he combined two stories into one. May we not, at this day, speak of the uncommon art of Terence in the preparation of his incidents, and conduct of his fable, without being supposed to imply a particular commendation of his double plots? and may we not allow the beauty of design in writing on a single plot, and yet at the same time discover so many capital defects in the conduct of a particular piece, as may reduce it to a much lower standard of merit than that of other Comedies constructed on a less correct model? Tous les genres, says Mons. Voltaire, sont bons, hors le genre ennuyeux. For my part, I had much rather see or read the Comedy of the Provoked Husband, which so flagrantly transgresses the unity of action that it is almost two plays in one, than the cold production of any affected lover of simplicity, who, on the sole merit of a single plot, tells a dull story in a dull manner, without any interest of incident, strength of character, or vivacity of dialogue. It is not the insertion of an Episode that will enliven the fable; but the just delineation of character and proper conduct of the plot, simple or complicated, that gives it spirit. Mons. Voltaire justly observed, in his letters on our nation, that the Love-Episode in Addison's Cato throws a languor on the whole piece. The Theatre affords a constant evidence of the same fact in Tate's alteration of King Lear; and, to instance rather in Comedy, the Andrian of our Author would be much better without the story of Charinus. Interesting incidents, however, there must be: or insipidity will ensue, unless the attention be diverted from examining the plot, by Buffoonery; which is as vicious in the manners of Comedy, as Pantomime changes in the fable. Terence, “whose taste was abhorrent from ribaldry,” has, I think, in this play suffered the interest of his piece to languish; and if there is any just observation in the preceding notes, there is a lameness, notwithstanding the simplicity, in the conduct of the fable. The first act, being entirely consumed in narration, is very inartificial, and what is still worse, redundant; the discovery of the main incident is made in the most uninteresting manner, by a long soliloquy in the third act; and the catastrophe itself is managed in the same cold manner, by another long soliloquy; the incidents, that should have filled the fifth act, being injudiciously precluded by what is supposed to pass in the preceding interval.—In point of character also, The Step-Mother has much less merit than the rest of our author's pieces. Laches and Phidippus are far inferior to Simo, Menedemus, Chremes, Micio, Demea, &c. nor is Pamphilus equal to the Pamphilus of the Andrian, or Phædria, or Æschinus, &c.—This play has by some Criticks been coupled with the Self-Tormentor for purity of stile and beauty of sentiment. It is not void of those graces, no more than it is wholly destitute of art in the construction of the plot, but surely it possesses them in a much less eminent degree than the Self-Tormentor. Can the narration of Parmeno, not to dwell on its being needless, be compared with that of Menedemus? or with that of Simo in the Andrian; or that of Geta in the Phormio?—I have endeavoured to omit no opportunity of taking notice of the beautiful passages of this play; and I have indeed been more than ordinarily assiduous to point them out, in order to shew that in the most indifferent productions of a great author, there are some things worthy our attention and imitation. On the whole, however, I am sorry to be obliged to differ once more from the learned and ingenious Critick above cited: And I cannot help thinking it rather singular, that he, who every where maintains that character is the chief object of Comedy, should yet seem to draw conclusions directly opposite to these premises, and not only prefer Terence (whose artificial fables rendered him popular) to all other Comick Dramatists, but also rank the Step-Mother, merely on account of “the nice dependency and coherence of the fable,” higher in merit than any other of his pieces, confessedly more rich in character. I must own that, so far from being able to acquiesce in the opinion, that “it is, indisputably, to every reader of true taste, the most masterly and exquisite of the whole collection,” I am, in this instance, much rather inclined to say with Volcatius,

“The last, and least in merit of the six.”

Mons. Diderot, so often mentioned in these notes, has given us two excellent serious Comedies, Le Fils Naturel, and Le Pére de Famille: in the conduct of the first, if I am not deceived, he seems to have kept his eye on the Step-Mother, and in the second on The Brothers; and, in my opinion, he has gone as far beyond Terence in the Fils Naturel, as he has fallen short of him in the Pére de Famille.