University of Virginia Library

Ni metuam patrem, habeo pro illa re illum quod moneam probe. Madam Dacier, and several English translations, make Pamphilus say that he could give Crito a hint or two. What hints he could propose to suggest to Crito I cannot conceive. The Italian translation, printed with the Vatican Terence, seems to understand the words in the same manner that I have translated them, in which sense (the pronoun illum referring to Simo instead of Crito) they seem to be the most natural words of Pamphilus on occasion of his father's anger, and the speech immediately preceding.

Rhamnus, Piræus, &c. are to be understood as maritime towns of Attica. Donatus.

P. Nempe. Si. Id scilicet. Donatus, and some others after him, understand these words of Simo and Pamphilus, as requiring a fortune of Chremes with his daughter: and one of them says, that Simo, in order to explain his meaning in the representation, should produce a bag of money. This surely is precious refinement, worthy the genius of a true Commentator. Madam Dacier, who entertains a just veneration for Donatus, doubts the authenticity of the observation ascribed to him. The sense I have followed is, I think, the most obvious and natural interpretation of the words of Pamphilus and Simo, which refer to the preceding, not the subsequent speech, of Chemes.

All our own translators of this poet have betrayed great ignorance in their estimations of antient sums: and Madam Dacier, and the common Latin Interpreters, seem not to have given themselves much trouble on this head: but this part of antient learning ought not to be past over slightly, since the wealth and plenty of a great and famous state are to be discovered from it. The name of the Talent ought to be preserved in a translation, as should the Mina, Half-Mina, Drachma, and Obolus, for the same reason for which Terence preserved them in his Latin Translations of Greek Plays, viz. because the scene is in Athens, and these are Attick pieces of money. The common Attick Talent, which is Talent mentioned thro' Terence, contained sixty Minæ, as Gronovius, in a note to the Cistellaria of Plautus, and other accurate Enquirers have agreed. Ten Talents therefore were equal to 1937 l. 10 s. of our money, which we may reasonably suppose a tolerable good fortune, considering the price of provisions then in that part of Greece; which we may partly judge of from the passage, where the Obolus is mentioned in the second act of this play. Cooke.

Crito is, as Donatus calls him, persona in catastrophen machianata, a character formed to bring about the catastrophe. To supply his place in the fable, Sir Richard Steele has converted Phania, the brother of Chremes mentioned in the foregoing scene, into a sister, and substituted Isabella for Crito. But here, I think, and in almost every circumstance of the Discovery, the art of the English Poet is much inferior to that of his Original. Isabella does not maintain her importance in the Drama so well as Crito. Indiana indeed serves to add a degree of Pathos to the scene: but the relation of the incidents of her life, and throwing off her little ornaments in a kind of Tragedy-Rant, till Isabella appears to unravel the mystery, is surely much less natural than the minute detail of circumstances, so finely produced by our Author. It is, says Donatus, the greatest praise, when the spectator may imagine those things to happen by chance, which are produced by the utmost industry of the Poet.

Non RECTE vinctus est.-haud ita jussi. The conceit in the original is a Pun upon the word recte, impossible to be preserved exactly in the translation. Donatus observes very well on this passage, that the jocularity of the old gentleman on this occasion, is a characteristick mark of his thorough reconciliation.