University of Virginia Library

Uxor ubi me ad filiam ire sensit, se duxit foras. Madam Dacier joins this scene to the third act, and assigns this verse as her reason for it. I have chosen rather to follow the old division, which seems to me to be the right. This scene brings on a new part of the plot; which occupies the rest of this fourth act. The continuity of the scenes being broken at the departure of Myrrhina proves nothing, or too much: for Terence often takes that liberty in the middle of an act, and the scene is certainly left vacant by Laches. Besides, Myrrhina does not, as Madam Dacier asserts, leave the house immediately on the entrance of Phidippus, in order to avoid him; but is frightened out of doors by his running to Philumena's chamber on hearing the cries of the Child. This, it is most natural to suppose, happened some time after he had returned home, and all these circumstances are with much greater propriety made to fill the interval between the two acts, than huddled into the compass of six lines. Terence, indeed, sometimes runs into that very absurdity; but I think we need not industriously force him out of his way on purpose to make him guilty of it.

This is a preparation for the Catastrophe; for the Ring produces the discovery.

This preparation being made by a soliloquy, which tells the circumstance directly to the audience, is not so artful as might be expected from Terence.

This idea of the long life of a Step-Mother being odious to her family is applied in a very beautiful and uncommon manner by Shakespeare.

Though Sostrata industriously endeavours to stifle her resentment, yet, in spite of herself, some little indignation, arising from a sense of the ill usage she has received, will mix in what she says; which the Poet has purposely thrown into her discourse, in order to paint the manners, and express character. Donatus.

Fors fuat pol! Madam Dacier refines prodigiously on these three words, and supposing great difficulty in them, explains them by a very long periphrasis. Donatus seems to consider them as mere words of assent, agreeable to the mild character of Sostrata; and if I might venture to correct a French translation, I would say that Madam Dacier might have rendered them more properly by the common expression of A la bonne heure!

Odiosa hæc est ætas adolescentulis. E medio æquom excedere est. Postremo jam nos fabulæ sumus, Pamphile, Senex atque Anus. There is nothing, I suppose, in these words, which provokes a smile. Yet the humour is strong. In his solicitude to promote his son's satisfaction, he lets fall a sentiment truly characteristick, and which old men usually take great pains to conceal; I mean the acknowledgment of that suspicious fear of contempt, which is natural to old age. So true a picture of life in the representation of this weakness, might, in other circumstances, have created some pleasantry; but the occasion, which forced it from him, discovering, at the same time, the amiable disposition of the speaker, covers the ridicule of it, or more properly converts it into an object of esteem.

I cannot help thinking that the latter part of this ingenious remark is rather too refined. If the characteristick humour of the passage is strong, the ridicule seems rather intended to be heightened by the comick turn of expression. The complections of men are so different, and the muscles of some are so much more easily relaxed into a smile than those of others, that it is difficult to pronounce exactly in what degree such a sober piece of pleasantry would act upon them. But there are many instances of passages of true humour, which do not immediately raise a laugh, or even provoke a smile: and it is sufficient if they are conceived in the same vein of pleasantry, that runs though the rest of the work. The stroke of character before us seems to me to be just in the same stile with that which this critick takes notice of, in the third act, and of which he says, that “it is an observation drawn naturally and forcibly from Laches;—and this too without design; which is important, and shews the distinction of what, in the more restrained sense of the word, we call humour, from other modes of pleasantry.”

Quo pacto hoc aperiam? This is the common reading, which Bentley and Madam Dacier convert to operiam, how shall I hide it? I see no occasion for any alteration. Pamphilus did not mean to divulge the secret; but in his present embarassment he might easily be perplexed how to assign plausible reasons for his way of acting.

According to law, the Male Children always followed the father. Donatus.

Quem ipse neglexit pater, ego alam? Donatus on this passage takes notice of a reading, which entirely changes the sense. Quem ipsa neglexit, pater; where we have ipsa for ipse, and Pater is a vocative. “Shall I, father, take care of a child, whom the mother herself has abandoned?” But the other reading is certainly the best. It is full of passion, and is strongly descriptive of the situation of Pamphilus. There is indeed an objection that may be offered, from a supposition, that this were betraying Philumena. But we are to imagine it a start of passion, and that Laches, totally ignorant of that secret, catches at the last words Ego alam? “I educate him?” which the actor might deliver with greater energy than the preceding. Patrick.

Phidippus utters these words with an air of disinclination to be present at this conference; and the characters are well sustained in this instance: for it would not become him to discourse coolly with a courtezan whom he supposed to be the seducer of Pamphilus from his daughter, although he might very properly advise such a conversation, as conducive to the peace of both families. Donatus.

Me segregatum habuisse, uxorem ut duxit, a me Pamphilum. How shall we reconcile this solemn protestation of Bacchis to a passage in the first act?

Are we to suppose that Bacchis, who behaves so candidly in every other instance, wantonly perjures herself in this? or that the Poet, by a kind of infatuation strangely attending him in this Comedy, flatly contradicts himself?

Terence, by his uncommon art, has attempted many innovations with great success. In this comedy he introduces, contrary to received prejudices, a good Step-Mother, and an honest courtezan; but at the same time he so carefully assigns their motives of action, that by him alone every thing seems reconcilable to truth and nature; for this is just the opposite of what he mentions in another place, as the common privilege of all poets, “to paint good matrons, and wicked courtezans.” Donatus.

It is not unlikely that the method of bringing about the discovery by means of Bacchis going into the family, gave Sir Richard Steele the hint of sending Sealand to Indiana's lodgings for the same purpose. When we are professedly imitating one part of an author, we naturally enough make use of other passages in his works; and what inclines me the more to this conjecture, is that Steele makes exactly the same use of the Bracelet, that Terence does of the Ring, though the presence of Isabella rendered it not so necessary. Such an inconsistency might very possibly proceed from imitation.

This soliloquy seems to be rather idle and unnecessary: but it is but justice to observe of this act in general, that the perplexity of the fable is very artfully increased, and that the incidents tending to the catastrophe are well contrived and most naturally introduced.