University of Virginia Library

There is, perhaps, no play of Terence, wherein the Author has pointed out the place and time of action with more exactness than in the present: and yet the settling those two points has occasioned a most furious controversy between two learned Frenchmen, Hedelin and Menage. Madam Dacier, in her remarks, has endeavoured to moderate between them, sometimes inclining to one side, and sometimes to the other. I, perhaps, in my turn, shall occasionally differ from all three, not doubting but I shall become equally liable to the reprehensions of future criticks. I shall however, endeavour to found my remarks on an accurate examination of the piece itself, and to draw my arguments from within rather than from without. The principal cause of the different errors of Hedelin and Menage, seems to me to have been an idle parade of learning, foreign to the purpose; together with an obstinate adherence to their several systems, which having once adopted, they were resolved to square all their arguments to the support of their opinions, rather than to direct them towards the investigation of truth. The matters in dispute between them, though drawn out to a great length of controversy, lie in a very narrow compass. But there being in both an apparent jealousy of their characters as scholars, both were induced to multiply quotations and illustrations from other authors, instead of turning their attention sufficiently to the text, and making the poet a comment on himself; which every writer, especially those who attempt the Drama, ought to be. Each were in some instances wrong; and even when they were in the right, having condescended to maintain their opinion with false arguments, each in their turn afforded the opponent an opportunity of cavilling with some appearance of justice. Many examples of this will, I think, appear in the course of these notes, from which it may be concluded, that there is no point whatever, that lies so plain and level to the understanding, but it may be rendered obscure and intricate by learned and ingenious disputants, who chuse it as a subject for the exercise of their talents and a display of their erudition.