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Originality cannot be affirmed of either, but, if possible, there is less of it in Terence; and the dubious praise of more correct copying is at least outweighed by the circumstance that, while the younger poet reproduced the agreeableness, he knew not how to reproduce the merriment of Menander, so that the comedies of Plautus imitated from Menander, such as the -Stichus-, the -Cistellaria-, the -Bacchides-, probably preserve far more of the flowing charm of the original than the comedies of the "-dimidiatus Menander-." And, while the aesthetic critic cannot recognize an improvement in the transition from the coarse to the dull, as little can the moralist in the transition from the obscenity and indifference of Plautus to the accommodating morality of Terence.
Bacch. 24; Trin. 609; True. iii. 2, 23. Innocent jokes, such as Capt. 160, 881, of course passed uncensured. The compliment paid to Massilia in Cas. v. 4., i, deserves notice. Thus the prologue of the -Cistellaria- concludes with the following words, which may have a place here as the only contemporary mention of the Hannibalic war in the literature that has come down to us:
The popularity of Plautus was not confined to Rome, either republican or imperial. Dramatic writers of modern times, as Shakspeare, Dryden, and Moliere, have recognized the effectiveness of his plots, and have adopted or imitated them. About twenty of his plays are extant, among which the Captivi, the Epidicus, the Cistellaria, the Aulularia, and the Rudens are considered the best.
Originality cannot be affirmed of either, but, if possible, there is less of it in Terence; and the dubious praise of more correct copying is at least outweighed by the circumstance that, while the younger poet reproduced the agreeableness, he knew not how to reproduce the merriment of Menander, so that the comedies of Plautus imitated from Menander, such as the -Stichus-, the -Cistellaria-, the -Bacchides-, probably preserve far more of the flowing charm of the original than the comedies of the "-dimidiatus Menander-." And, while the aesthetic critic cannot recognize an improvement in the transition from the coarse to the dull, as little can the moralist in the transition from the obscenity and indifference of Plautus to the accommodating morality of Terence.
They comprise three variations on the theme which, to modern taste, has become so excessively tedious, of the Fourberies de Scapin the Epidicus, Mostellaria, and Persa; the Poenulus, a dull play, which owes its only interest to the passages in it written in the Carthaginian language, which offer a tempting field for the conjectures of the philologist; two more, the Mercator and Stichus, of confused plot and insipid dialogue; and a mutilated fragment of the Cistellaria, or Travelling-Trunk, which would not have been missed had it shared the fate of the Carpet-Bag.
Bacch. 24; Trin. 609; True. iii. 2, 23. Innocent jokes, such as Capt. 160, 881, of course passed uncensured. The compliment paid to Massilia in Cas. v. 4., i, deserves notice. Thus the prologue of the -Cistellaria- concludes with the following words, which may have a place here as the only contemporary mention of the Hannibalic war in the literature that has come down to us:
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