University of Virginia Library

Hunc venientem sequor. This verse, though in every edition, as Bentley judiciously observes, is certainly spurious: for as Pamphilus has not disappeared since Byrrhia left the stage, he could not say nunc HUNC venientem sequor. If we suppose the line genuine, we must at the same time suppose Terence guilty of a monstrous absurdity.

Other Commentators have also stumbled at this passage; but if in the words follow'd HIM hither, we suppose HIM [HUNC] to refer to Simo, the whole difficulty is removed: and that the Pronoun does really signify Simo is evident from the very circumstance of Pamphilus never having left the stage since the disappearance of Byrrhia. Simo also is represented as coming on the stage homewards, so that Byrrhia might easily have followed him along the street: and it is evident that Byrrhia does not allude to Pamphilus, from the agreeable surprize which he expresses on seeing him there so opportunely for his purpose.

Donatus observes on this Scene between Byrrhia, Simo, Pamphilus, and Davus, that the Dialogue is sustained by four persons, who have little or no intercourse with each other: so that the Scene is not only in direct contradiction to the precept of Horace excluding a fourth person, but is also otherwise vicious in its construction. Scenes of this kind are, I think, much too frequent in Terence, though indeed the form of the antient Theatre was more adapted to the representation of them than the modern. The multiplicity of speeches aside is also the chief error in his Dialogue, such speeches, though very common in Dramatick writers antient and modern, being always more or less unnatural.—Myrtle's suspicions, grounded on the intelligence drawn from Bevil's servant, are more artfully imagined by the English Poet, than those of Charinus created by employing his servant as a Spy on the actions of Pamphilus.