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The want of marginal directions, however trifling they may at first sight appear, has occasioned, as it necessarily must, much confusion and obscurity in several passages of the antient Dramatick Writers: and is a defect in the manuscripts, and old editions of those authors in the learned languages, which has in vain been attempted to be supplied by long notes of laborious commentators, and delineations of the figures of the characters employed in each scene. This simple method of illustrating the dialogue, and rendering it clear and intelligible to the most ordinary reader, I propose to persue throughout this translation: And I cannot better enforce the utility of this practice, than by few extracts from a very ingenious treatise on Dramatick Poetry, written in French by Mons. Diderot, and annext to his Play, called the Father of a Family.

“The Pantomime is a part of the Drama, to which the author ought to pay the most serious attention: for if it is not always present to him, he can neither begin, nor conduct, nor end a scene according to truth and nature; and the action should frequently be written down instead of dialogue.

“The Pantomime should be written down, whenever it creates a picture; whenever it gives energy, or clearness, or connection to the Dialogue; whenever it paints character; whenever it consists in a delicate play, which the reader cannot himself supply; whenever it stands in the place of an answer; and almost always at the beginning of a scene.

“Whether a poet has written down the Pantomime or not, it is easy to discover at first sight, whether he has composed after it. The conduct of the piece will not be the same; the scenes will have another turn; the Dialogue will relish of it.”

Moliere, as this ingenious Critick observes, has always written down the Pantomime, (as he phrases it) and Terence seems plainly to have had it always in his view, and to have paid a constant attention to it in his compositions, though he has not set it down in words.

Nempe ut curentur recte hæc. Madam Dacier will have it that Simo here makes use of a kitchen-term in the word curentur. I believe it rather means to take care of any thing generally; and at the conclusion of this very scene, Sosia uses the word again speaking of things very foreign to cookery. Sat est, Curabo.”

There is a beautiful passage in the Duke of Milan of Massinger very similar to the above. The situations of the persons are somewhat alike, Sforza being on the point of opening his mind to Francisco. The English Poet has with great address transferred the sentiment from the inferior to the superior character, which certainly adds to its delicacy.

“Terence stands alone in every thing, but especially in his narrations. It is a pure and transparent stream which flows always evenly, and takes neither swiftness nor noise but that which it derives from its course and the ground it runs over. No wit, no display of sentiment, not a sentence that wears an epigrammatical air, none of those definitions always out of place, except in Nicole or Rochefoucauld. When he generalizes a maxim, it is in so simple and popular a manner, you would believe it to be a common proverb which he has quoted: Nothing but what belongs to the subject. I have read this poet over with attention; there are in him no superfluous scenes, nor any thing superfluous in the scenes.”

This being the first narration in our author, and exceedingly beautiful, I could not help transcribing the foregoing passage from the French Treatise above-mentioned. The narrations in the Greek Tragedies have been long and justly admired; and from this and many other parts of Terence, taken from Greek authors, we may fairly conclude that their Comedies were equally excellent in that particular.

Postquam excessit ex Ephebis. The Ephebia was the first stage of youth, and youth the last stage of boyhood. Donatus.

It was at that age that the Greeks applied themselves to the study of philosophy, and chose out some particular sect, to which they attached themselves. Plato's Dialogues give us sufficient light into that custom. Dacier.

No quid nimis. A sentiment not unbecoming a servant, because it is common, and is therefore not put into the mouth of the master.

Though the Commentators are full of admiration of this golden saying, “Do nothing to excess,” yet it is plain that Terence introduces it here as a characteristick sentiment. Sosia is a dealer in old sayings. The very next time he opens his mouth, he utters another. I thought it necessary therefore, for the sake of the preservation of character, to translate this antient proverb by one of our own, though the modern maxim is not exprest with equal elegance.

The mention of this distance of time is certainly artful, as it affords time for all the events, previous to the opening of the piece, to have happened with the strictest probability. The comment of Donatus on this passage is curious.

The author hath artfully said three years, when he might have given a longer or a shorter period. Since it is probable that the woman might have lived modestly one year; set up the trade, the next; and died, the third. In the first year, therefore, Pamphilus knew nothing of the family of Chrysis; in the second, he became acquainted with Glycerium; and in the third, Glycerium marries Pamphilus, and finds her parents.

It is absolutely necessary that the reputation of Glycerium should be supposed to be spotless and unblemished: and as she could never be made an honest woman, if it were not clear that she was so before marriage, Chrysis, with whom she lived, is partly to be defended, partly to be praised; whom although it is necessary to confess to be a courtezan, yet her behaviour is rendered as excusable as such a circumstance will admit. Donatus.

Captus est, habet. Terms taken from the Gladiators. Dacier.

There is a beautiful sentiment uttered by Manoa in the Samson Agonistes of Milton, which seems to be partly borrowed from this passage in our author.

'Tis strange, the Criticks have never discovered a similar sentiment to this in Shakespeare. When Valentine in Twelfth-Night reports the inconquerable grief of Olivia for the loss of a brother, the Duke observes upon it,

Common sense directs us, for the most part, to regard Resemblances in great writers, not as the pilferings, or frugal acquisitions of needy art, but as the honest fruits of Genius, the free and liberal bounties of unenvying Nature.

A complaisant father, to go to the funeral of a courtezan, merely to oblige his son. Cooke.

Nothing can mark the flat simplicity of Sosia's character stronger than the insipidity of this speech.

The Greeks and Romans made use of this expression to signify a Courtezan; and I believe they borrowed that term from the people of the east; as we find it used in that sense in the books of the Old Testament.

Donatus seems to think the word used here merely as a contemptuous expression.

Mala mens, malus animus. Animus, the heart, conceives the bad actions, and Mens, the mind, devises the means of carrying them into execution. Dacier.

Here we take our last leave of Sosia, who is in the language of the commentators, a Protatick Personage, that is, as Donatus explains it, one who appears only once in the beginning (the Protasis) of the piece, for the sake of unfolding the argument, and is never seen again in any part of the play. The narration being ended, says Donatus, the character of Sosia is no longer necessary. He therefore departs, and leaves Simo alone to carry on the action. With all due deference to the antients, I cannot help thinking this method, if too constantly practised, as I think it is in our author, rather inartificial. Narration, however beautiful, is certainly the deadest part of theatrical compositions; it is indeed, strictly speaking, scarce Dramatick, and strikes the least in the representation: and the too frequent introduction of a character, to whom a principal person in the Fable is to relate in confidence the circumstances previous to the opening of the play, is surely too direct a manner of conveying that information to the audience. Every thing of this nature should come obliquely, fall in a manner by accident, or be drawn, as it were, perforce, from the parties concerned, in the course of the action: a practice, which if reckoned highly beautiful in Epick, may be almost set down as absolutely necessary in Dramatick Poetry. It is, however, more adviseable even to seem tedious, than to hazard being obscure. Terence certainly opens his plays with great address, and assigns a probable reason for one of the parties being so communicative to the other; and yet it is too plain that this narration is made merely for the sake of the audience, since there never was a duller hearer than Master Sosia, and it never appears in the sequel of the Play, that Simo's instructions to him are of the least use to frighten Davus, or work upon Pamphilus. Yet even this Protatick Personage is one of the instances of Terence's art, since it was often usual in the Roman Comedy, as may be seen even in Plautus, to make the relation of the argument the express office of the Prologue.

Sir Richard Steele has opened the Conscious Lovers in direct imitation of the Andrian, but has unfolded the argument with much less art, as will perhaps appear in the course of the notes on this act. In this place it is sufficient to observe, that the delineation of the characters in the English author is infinitely inferior to that of those in the Roman. Simo is the most finished character in the play. Sir John Bevil, I fear, is but an insignificant personage. Humphry, while he has all the plainness and dullness of Sosia, possesses neither his fidelity nor secrecy; for he goes between the father and the son, and in some measure betrays both.

Sir Richard Steele has modernized the characters of Davus and Mysis with great elegance and humour in his sprightly Footman and Chambermaid, Tom and Phillis.

Te in pistrinum, Dave, dedam. The prison mentioned here, and in many other passages of our author, was a kind of House of Correction for slaves, to which they were sent to grind corn, as disorderly persons are made to beat hemp in our Bridewell.

This, says Donatus, is a short and comick deliberation, calculated to excite the attention of the audience to the impending events; artfully relating part of the argument, but in order to prepare the events without anticipating them, representing the circumstances of the story as fabulous; and in order to enliven it, passing from dry narration to mimickry.

How much more artful is the conduct of Terence in this place than that of Sir Richard Steele in the Conscious Lovers, who besides the long narration, with which the play opens, has obliged the patient Humphrey to hear a second story, with which he has burthened the conclusion of his first act, from young Bevil.

Inceptio est amentium, haud amantium. A play upon words, impossible to be exactly preserved in the translation.

Decreverunt tollere. The word tollere strictly signifies to take up, and alludes to the custom of those times. As soon as a child was born, it was laid on the ground; and if the father was willing to educate it, he ordered it to be taken up: but if he said nothing, it was a token signifying that he would have it exposed. Dacier.

The Forum is very frequently spoken of in the Comick authors; and from various passages in which Terence mentions it, it may be collected, that it was a publick place, serving the several purposes of a market, the seat of the Courts of Justice, a publick walk, and an Exchange.

The two most beautiful characters in this play, in my opinion, are the Father and Son. It has already been observed how much Sir Richard Steele falls short of Terence in delineating the first; and I must own, though Bevil is plainly the most laboured character in the Conscious Lovers, I think it inferior to Pamphilus. The particular differences in their character I propose to point out in the course of these notes: at present I shall only observe in general, that, of the two, Bevil is the more cool and refined, Pamphilus the more natural and pathetick.

Id mutavit, quia me immutatum videt. The verb immutare in other Latin authors, and even in other parts of Terence himself, signifies to change: as in the Phormio, Antipho says Non possum immutarier. “I cannot be changed.” But here the sense absolutely requires that immutatum should be rendered NOT changed. Madam Dacier endeavours to reconcile this, according to a conjecture of her father's, by shewing that immutatus stands for immutabilis; as immotus for immobilis, invictus for invincibilis, &c. But these examples do not remove the difficulty; since those participles always bear a negative sense, which immutatus does not: and thence arises all the difficulty. Terence certainly uses the verb immature both negatively and positively, as is plain from this passage and the above passage from the Phormio: and I dare say with strict propriety. In our own language we have instances of the same word bearing two senses directly opposite to each other. The word Let for instance is used in the contradictory meanings of permission and prohibition. The modern acceptation of the word is indeed almost entirely confined to the first sense; though we say even at this day without LET or molestation. Shakespeare in Hamlet, says,

Aliquid monstri alunt. Dacier and some others imagine these words to signify some plot that is hatching. Donatus and the commentators on him interpret them as referring to the woman, which is the sense I have followed; and I think the next sentence confirms this interpretation.

Dum in dubio est animus, paulo momento huc illuc impellitur. Dacier thinks that these words allude to scales, which sense I have adopted in the translation; but I rather think with Donatus that they refer to any great weight, which while it is yet unfixt, and hangs in suspence, is driven by the slightest touch here or there. In the beautiful story of Myrrha in Ovid's Metamorphoses, there is a passage, which the Commentators with great justice suppose to be an imitation of this sentence.

Laborat e dolore. Though the word laborat has tempted Donatus and the rest of the Commentators to suppose that this sentence signified Glycerium's being in labour, I cannot help concurring with Cooke, that it means simply, that she is weighed down with grief. The words immediately subsequent corroborate this interpretation: and at the conclusion of the scene, when Mysis tells him, she is going for a midwife, Pamphilus hurries her away as he would naturally have done here, had he understood by these words, that her mistress was in labour.

Per Genium tuum. Most editors give Ingenium: but as Bentley observes, this [per Genium] was the most usual way of adjuring; and there is a passage in Horace, plainly imitated from this in our author, where the measure infallibly determines the reading.

How much more affecting is this speech, than Bevil's dry detail to Humphry of his meeting with Indiana! a detail the more needless and inartificial, as it might with much more propriety and pathos have been entirely reserved for Indiana herself in the scene with her father.

Methinks Mysis has loitered a little too much, considering her errand; but perhaps Terence knew, that some women would gossip on the way, though on an affair of life and death.

This two-edged reflection glancing at once on Terence and the ladies is, I think, very ill-founded. The delay of Mysis, on seeing the emotion of Phamphilus, is very natural; and her artful endeavours to interest his passions in favour of her mistress, are rather marks of her attention, than neglect.

The first act of Baron's Andrian is little else than a mere version of this first act of Terence. Its extreme elegance and great superiority to the Prose Translation of Dacier, is a strong proof of the superior excellence and propriety of a Poetical Translation of the works of this author.