University of Virginia Library

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.