Moliere may be found in the _Ecole des Peres_, by Baron, author of the
_Andrienne_. The genius of this celebrated actor seems to have been
constrained by copying from Terence, which has deprived his drama of all
air of originality, while, at the same time, his alterations are such as
to render it but an imperfect image of the _Adelphi_. It were, therefore,
to be wished, that he had adhered more closely to the Roman poet, or, like
Moliere, deviated from him still farther. His exhibition of Clarice and
Pamphile, the mistresses of the two young men, on the stage, has no better
effect than the introduction of Glycerium in his _Andrienne_. The
characters of Telamon and Alcée are so altered, as to preserve neither the
strength nor delicacy of those of Micio and Demea; while the change of
disposition, which the severe father undergoes in the fifth act, has been
neither rejected nor retained: He accedes to the proposals for his
children’s happiness, but his complaisance is evidently forced and
sarcastic; and he ultimately, in a fit of bad humour, breaks off all
connection with his family:
“J’abandonne les Brus, les Enfans, et le Frere;
Je ne saurois deja les souffrir sans horreur,
Et je les donne tous au diable de bon cœur.”
Diderot had evidently his eye on the characters of Micio and Demea in
drawing those of M. d’Orbesson and Le Commandeur, in his _Comedie
Larmoyante_, entitled _Le Pere de Famille_. The scenes between the Pere de
Famille and his son, St Albin, who had long secretly visited Sophie, an
unknown girl in indigent circumstances, seem formed on the beautiful
dialogue, already mentioned, which passes between Micio and his adopted
child.
The _Adelphi_ is also the origin of Shadwell’s comedy, the _Squire of
Alsatia_. Spence, in his _Anecdotes_(314), says, on the authority of
Dennis the critic, that the story on which the _Squire of Alsatia_ was
built, was a true fact. That the whole plot is founded on fact, I think
very improbable, as it coincides most closely with that of the _Adelphi_.
Sir William and Sir Edward Belfond are the two brothers, while Belfond
senior and junior correspond to Æschinus and Ctesipho. The chief
alteration, and that to which Dennis probably alluded, is the importance
of the part assigned to Belfond senior; who, having come to London, is
beset and cozened by all sorts of bankrupts and cheats, inhabitants of
Alsatia, (Whitefriars,) and by their stratagems is nearly inveigled into a
marriage with Mrs Termagant, a woman of infamous character, and furious
temper. The part of Belfond junior is much less agreeable than that of
Æschinus. His treatment of Lucia evinces, in the conclusion, a
hard-hearted infidelity, which we are little disposed to pardon,
especially as we feel no interest in his new mistress, Isabella. On the
whole, though the plots be nearly the same, the tone of feeling and
sentiment are very different, and the English comedy is as remote from the
Latin original, as the grossest vulgarity can be from the most simple and
courtly elegance. The _Squire of Alsatia_, however, took exceedingly at
first as an occasional play. It discovered the cant terms, that were
before not generally known, except to cheats themselves; and was a good
deal instrumental towards causing the great nest of villains in the
metropolis to be regulated by public authority(315).
In Cumberland’s _Choleric Man_, the chief characters, though he seems to
deny it in his dedicatory epistle to Detraction, have also been traced
after those of the _Adelphi_. The love intrigues, indeed, are different;
but the parts of the half-brothers, Manlove and Nightshade, (the
choleric-man,) are evidently formed on those of Micio and Demea; while the
contrasted education, yet similar conduct, of the two sons of Nightshade,
one of whom had been adopted by Manlove, and the father’s rage on
detecting his favourite son in an amorous intrigue, have been obviously
suggested by the behaviour of Æschinus and Ctesipho.
The philanthropic speeches of Micio have been a constant resource both to
the French dramatists and our own, and it would be endless to specify the
various imitations of his sentiments. Those of Kno’well, in Ben Jonson’s
_Every Man in his Humour_, have a particular resemblance to them. His
speech, beginning—
“There is a way of winning more by love(316),”
is evidently formed on the celebrated passage in Terence,—
“Pudore et liberalitate liberos,” &c.
_Hecyra_—Several of Terence’s plays can hardly be accounted comedies, if
by that term be understood, dramas which excite laughter. They are in what
the French call the _genre serieux_, and are perhaps the origin of the
_comedie larmoyante_. The events of human life, for the most part, are
neither deeply distressing nor ridiculous; and, in a dramatic
representation of such incidents, the action must advance by
embarrassments and perplexities, which, though below tragic pathos, are
not calculated to excite merriment. Diderot, who seems to have been a
great student of the works of Terence, thinks the _Hecyra_, or
Mother-in-law, should be classed among the serious dramas. It exhibits no
buffoonery, or tricks of slaves, or ridiculous parasite, or extravagant
braggart captain; but contains a beautiful and delightful picture of
private life, and those distresses which ruffle “the smooth current of
domestic joy.” It was taken from a play of Apollodorus; but, as Donatus
informs us, was abridged from the Greek comedy,—many things having been
represented in the original, which, in the imitation, are only related. In
the _Hecyra_, a young man, called Pamphilus, had long refused to marry, on
account of his attachment to the courtezan Bacchis. He is at length,
however, constrained by his father to choose a wife, whose gentleness and
modest behaviour soon wean his affections from his mistress. Pamphilus
being obliged to leave home for some time, his wife, on pretence of a
quarrel with her mother-in-law, quits his father’s house; and Pamphilus,
on his return home, finds, that she had given birth to a child, of which
he supposed that he could not have been the father. His wife’s mother begs
him to conceal her disgrace, which he promises; and affecting
extraordinary filial piety, assigns as his reason for not bringing her
home, the capricious behaviour of which she had been guilty towards his
mother. That lady, in consequence, offers to retire to the country.
Pamphilus is thus reduced to the utmost perplexity; and all plausible
excuses for not receiving his wife having failed, his father suspects that
he had renewed his intercourse with Bacchis. He, accordingly, sends for
that courtezan, who denies the present existence of any correspondence
with his son; and, being eager to clear the character as well as to secure
the happiness of her former lover, she offers to confirm her testimony
before the family of the wife of Pamphilus. During the interview which she
in consequence obtains, that lady’s mother perceives on her hand a ring
which had once belonged to her daughter, and which Bacchis now
acknowledges to have received from Pamphilus, as one which he had taken
from a girl whom he had violated, but had never seen. It is thus
discovered by Pamphilus, that the lady to whom he had offered this injury
before marriage was his own wife, and that he himself was father of the
child to whom she had just given birth.
The fable of this play is more simple than that of Terence’s other
performances, in all of which he had recourse to the expedient of double
plots. This, perhaps, was partly the reason of its want of success on its
first and second representations. When first brought forward, in the year
589, it was interrupted by the spectators leaving the theatre, attracted
by the superior interest of a boxing-match, and rope-dancers. A combat of
gladiators had the like unfortunate effect when it was attempted to be
again exhibited, in 594. The celebrated actor, L. Ambivius, encouraged by
the success which he had experienced in reviving the condemned plays of
Cæcilius, ventured to produce it a third time on the stage(317), when it
received a patient hearing, and was frequently repeated. Still, however,
most of the old critics and commentators speak of it as greatly inferior
to the other plays of Terence. Bishop Hurd, on the contrary, in his notes
on Horace, maintains, that it is the only one of his comedies which is
written in the true ancient Grecian style; and that, for the genuine
beauty of dramatic design, as well as the nice coherence of the fable, it
must appear to every reader of true taste, the most masterly and exquisite
of the whole collection. Some scenes are doubtless very finely wrought
up,—as that between Pamphilus and his mother, after he first suspects the
disgrace of his wife, and that in which it is revealed to him by his
wife’s mother. The passage in the second scene of the first act,
containing the picture of an amiable wife, who has succeeded in effacing
from the heart of her husband the love of a dissolute courtezan, has been
highly admired. But, notwithstanding these partial beauties, and the
much-applauded simplicity of the plot, there is, I think, great want of
skilful management in the conduct of the fable; and if the outline be
beautiful, it certainly is not so well filled up as might have been
expected from the taste of the author. In the commencement, he introduces
the superfluous part of Philotis, (who has no concern in the plot, and
never appears afterwards,) merely to listen to the narrative of the
circumstances and situation of those who are principal persons in the
drama. It is likewise somewhat singular, that Pamphilus, when told by the
mother of the injury done to his wife, should not have remembered his own
adventure, and thus been led to suspect the real circumstances. This
communication, too, ought, as it probably did in the Greek original, to
have formed a scene between Pamphilus and his wife’s mother; but, instead
of this, Pamphilus is introduced relating to himself the whole discourse
which had just passed between them. At length, the issue of the fable is
disclosed by another long soliloquy from the courtezan. Indeed, all the
plays of Terence abound in soliloquies very inartificially introduced; and
there is none of them in which he has so much erred in this way as in the
_Hecyra_. The wife of Pamphilus, too, the character calculated to give
most interest, does not appear at all on the stage; and the whole play is
consumed in contests between the mother-in-law and the two fathers. The
characters of these old men,—the fathers of Pamphilus and his wife,—so far
from being contrasted, as in the _Adelphi_, have scarcely a shade of
difference. Both are covetous and passionate; very ready to vent their bad
humour on their wives and children, and very ready to exculpate them when
blamed by others. The uncommon and delicate situation in which Pamphilus
is placed, exhibits him in an interesting and favourable point of view. He
wishes to conceal what had occurred, yet is scarcely able to dissemble.
Parmeno, the slave of Pamphilus, a lazy inquisitive character, is
humorously kept, through the whole course of the play, in continual
employment, and total ignorance. Sostrata’s mild character, and the
excellent behaviour of Bacchis, show, that in this play, Terence had
attempted an innovation, by introducing a good mother-in-law, and an
honest courtezan, whose object was to acquire a reputation of not
resembling those of her profession. It appears from the Letters of
Alciphron and from Athenæus, that there actually was a Greek courtezan of
the name of Bacchis, distinguished from others of her class, in the time
of Menander, by disinterestedness, and comparative modesty of demeanour.
This circumstance, added to the fact of Menander having written a play,
entitled _Glycerium_, (which was the name of his mistress,) leads us to
believe that the Greek comedies sometimes represented, not merely the
general character of the courtezan, but individuals of that profession;
and that probably the Bacchis of Apollodorus, and his imitator Terence,
may have been the courtezan of this name, who rejected the splendid offers
of the Persian Satrap, to remain the faithful mistress of the poor
Meneclides(318).
_Phormio_—like the last mentioned play, was taken from the Greek of
Apollodorus, who called it _Epidicazomenos_. Terence named it _Phormio_,
from a parasite whose contrivances form the groundwork of the comedy, and
who connects its double plot. In this play two brothers had gone abroad,
each leaving a son at home, one of whom was called Antipho, and the other
Phædria, under care of their servant Geta. Antipho having fallen in love
with a woman apparently of mean condition, in order that he might marry
her, yet at the same time possess a plausible excuse to his father for his
conduct, persuades Phormio to assume the character of her patron. Phormio
accordingly brings a suit against Antipho, as her nearest of kin, and he,
having made no defence, is ordained in this capacity, according to an
Athenian law, to marry the supposed orphan. About the same time, Phædria,
the other youth, had become enamoured of a music girl; but he had no money
with which to redeem her from the slave merchant. The old men, on their
return home, are much disconcerted by the news of Antipho’s marriage, as
it had been arranged between them that he should espouse his cousin.
Phormio, at the suggestion of Geta, avails himself of this distress, in
order to procure money for redeeming Phædria’s music girl. He consents to
take Antipho’s wife home to himself, provided he gets a portion with her,
which being procured, is immediately laid out in the purchase of Phædria’s
mistress. After these plots are accomplished, it is discovered that
Antipho’s wife is the daughter of his uncle, by a woman at Lemnos, with
whom he had an amour before marriage, and that she had come to Athens
during his absence in search of her father. This is found out at the end
of the third act, but the play is injudiciously protracted, after the
principal interest is exhausted, with the endeavours of the old men to
recover the portion which had been given to Phormio, and the dread of
Chremes lest the story of his intrigue at Lemnos should come to the
knowledge of his wife. The play accordingly languishes after the
discovery, notwithstanding all the author’s attempts to support the
interest of the piece by the force of pleasantry and humour.
The double plot of this play has been said to be united, by both hingeing
on the part of the parasite. But this is not a sufficient union either in
tragedy or comedy. I cannot, therefore, agree with Colman, “that the
construction of the fable is extremely artful,” or that “it contains a
vivacity of intrigue perhaps even superior to that of the Eunuch,
_particularly in the catastrophe_. The diction,” he continues, with more
truth, “is pure and elegant, and the first act as chastely written as that
of the _Self-Tormentor_ itself. The character of Phormio is finely
separated from that of Gnatho, and is better drawn than the part of any
parasite in Plautus. Nausistrata is a lively sketch of a shrewish wife, as
well as Chremes an excellent draught of a hen-pecked husband, and more in
the style of the modern drama than perhaps any character in ancient
comedy, except the miser of Plautus. There are also some particular scenes
and passages deserving of all commendation, as the description of natural
and simple beauty in the person of Fannia, and that in which Geta and
Phædria try to inspire some courage into Antipho, overwhelmed by the
sudden arrival of his father(319).”
It is curious that this play, which Donatus says is founded on passions
almost too high for comedy, should have given rise to the most farcical of
all Moliere’s productions, _Les Fourberies de Scapin_. a celebrated,
though at first, an unsuccessful play, where, contrary to his usual
practice, he has burlesqued rather than added dignity to the incidents of
the original from which he borrowed. The plot, indeed, is but a frame to
introduce the various tricks of Scapin, who, after all, is a much less
agreeable cheat than Phormio: His deceptions are too palpable, and the old
men are incredible fools. As in Terence, there are two fathers, Argante
and Geronte, and during the absence of the former, his son Octave falls in
love with and marries a girl, whom he had accidentally seen bewailing the
death of her mother. At the same time, Leandre, the son of Geronte,
becomes enamoured of an Egyptian, and Scapin, the valet of Octave, is
employed to excuse to the father the conduct of his son, and to fleece him
of as much money as might be necessary to purchase her. The first of these
objects could not well be attained by Terence’s contrivance of the
law-suit; and it is therefore pretended that he had been forced into the
marriage by the lady’s brother, who was a bully, (Spadassin,) and to whom
the father agrees to give a large sum of money, that he might consent to
the marriage being dissolved. It is then discovered that the girl whom
Octave had married is the daughter of Geronte, and the Egyptian is found
out, by the usual expedient of a bracelet, to be the long lost child of
Argante. Many of the most amusing scenes and incidents are also copied
from Terence, as Scapin instructing Octave to regulate his countenance and
behaviour on the approach of his father—his enumeration to the father of
all the different articles for which the brother of his son’s wife will
require money, and the accumulating rage of Argante at each new _item_.
Some scenes, however, have been added, as that where Leandre, thinking
Scapin had betrayed him, and desiring him to confess, obtains a catalogue
of all the _Fourberies_ he had committed since he entered his service,
which is taken from an Italian piece entitled _Pantalone, Padre di
Famiglia_. He has also introduced from the _Pedant Joué_ of Cyrano
Bergerac, the device of Scapin for extorting money from Geronte, which
consists in pretending that his son, having accidentally gone on board a
Turkish galley, had been detained, and would be inevitably carried captive
to Algiers, unless instantly ransomed. In this scene, which is the best of
the play, the struggle between habitual avarice and parental tenderness,
and the constant exclamation, “_Que diable alloit il faire dans cette
galere du Turc_,” are extremely amusing. Boileau has reproached Moliere
for having
“Sans honte à Terence allié Tabarin,”
in allusion to the scene where Scapin persuades Geronte that the brother,
accompanied by a set of bullies, is in search of him, and stuffs him, for
concealment, into a sack, which he afterwards beats with a stick. This is
compounded of two scenes in the French farces, the _Piphagne_ and the
_Francisquine_ of Tabarin, and, like the originals from which it is
derived, is quite farcical and extravagant:—
“Dans ce sac ridicule ou Scapin s’enveloppe,
Je ne reconnois plus l’auteur du Misanthrope(320).”
The chief improvement which Moliere has made on Terence is the reservation
of the discovery to the end; but the double discovery is improbable. The
introduction of Hyacinthe and Zerbinette on the stage, is just as
unsuccessful as the attempt of Baron to present us, in his _Andrienne_,
with a lady corresponding to Glycerium. Moliere’s Hyacinthe is quite
insipid and uninteresting, while Zerbinette retains too much of the
Egyptian, and is too much delighted with the cheats of Scapin, to become
the wife of an honest man.
From the above sketches some idea may have been formed of Terence’s plots,
most of which were taken from the Greek stage, on which he knew they had
already pleased. He has given proofs, however, of his taste and judgment,
in the additions and alterations made on those borrowed subjects; and I
doubt not, had he lived an age later, when all the arts were in full glory
at Rome, and the empire at its height of power and splendour, he would
have found domestic subjects sufficient to supply his scene with interest
and variety, and would no longer have accounted it a greater merit—“Græcas
transferre quam proprias scribere.”
Terence was a more rigid observer than his Roman predecessors of the
unities of time and place. Whatever difference of opinion may be
entertained with regard to the preservation of these unities in tragedy,
since great results are often slowly prepared, and in various quarters,
there can be no doubt that they are appropriate in comedy, which, moving
in a domestic circle, and having no occasion to wander, like the tragic or
epic muse, through distant regions, should bring its intrigue to a rapid
conclusion. Terence, however, would have done better not to have adhered
so strictly to unity of place, and to have allowed the scene to change at
least from the street or portico in front of a house, to the interior of
the dwelling. From his apparently regarding even this slight change as
inadmissible, the most sprightly and interesting parts of the action are
often either absurdly represented as passing on the street, though of a
nature which must have been transacted within doors, or are altogether
excluded. A striking example of the latter occurs in the _Eunuchus_, where
the discovery of Chærea by his father in the eunuch’s garb has been
related, instead of being represented. Plautus, who was of bolder genius,
varies the place of action, when the variation suits his great purpose of
merriment and jest.
But though Terence has perhaps too rigidly observed the unities of time
and place, in none of his dramas, with a single exception, has that of
plot been adhered to. The simplicity and exact unity of fable in the Greek
comedies would have been insipid to a people not thoroughly instructed in
the genuine beauties of the drama. Such plays were of too thin contexture
to satisfy the somewhat gross and lumpish taste of a Roman audience. The
Latin poets, therefore, bethought themselves of combining two stories into
one, and this junction, which we call the double plot, by affording the
opportunity of more incidents, and a greater variety of action, best
contributed to the gratification of those whom they had to please. But of
all the Latin comedians, Terence appears to have practised this art the
most assiduously. Plautus has very frequently single plots, which he was
enabled to support by the force of drollery. Terence, whose genius lay
another way, or whose taste was abhorrent from all sort of buffoonery, had
recourse to the other expedient of double plots; and this, I suppose, is
what gained him the popular reputation of being the most artful writer for
the stage. The _Hecyra_ is the only one of his comedies of the true
ancient cast, and we know how unsuccessful it was in the
representation(321). In managing a double plot, the great difficulty is,
whether also to divide the interest. One thing, however, is clear, that
the part which is episodical, and has least interest, should be unravelled
first; for if the principal interest be exhausted, the subsidiary intrigue
drags on heavily. The _Andrian_, _Self Tormentor_, and _Phormio_, are all
faulty in this respect. On the whole, however, the plots of Terence are,
in most respects, judiciously laid: The incidents are selected with taste,
connected with inimitable art, and painted with exquisite grace and
beauty.
Next to the management of the plot, the characters and manners represented
are the most important points in a comedy; and in these Terence was
considered by the ancients as surpassing all their comic poets.—“In
argumentis,” says Varro, “Cæcilius palmam poscit, in ethesi Terentius.” In
this department of his art he shows that comprehensive knowledge of the
humours and inclinations of mankind, which enabled him to delineate
characters as well as manners, with a genuine and apparently unstudied
simplicity. All the inferior passions which form the range of comedy are
so nicely observed, and accurately expressed, that we nowhere find a truer
or more lively representation of human nature. He seems to have formed in
his mind such a perfect idea both of his high and low characters, that
they never for a moment forget their age or situation, whether they are to
speak in the easy indifferent tone of polished society, or with the
natural expression of passion. Nor do his paintings of character consist
merely of a single happy stroke unexpectedly introduced: His delineations
are always in the right place, and so harmonize with the whole, that every
word is just what the person might be supposed to say under the
circumstances in which he is placed:—