When in Athens the people began to lose their political influence, and when the management of their affairs was vested in fewer hands than formerly, the oligarchical government restrained this excessive license; but while the poets were prohibited from naming the individuals whose actions they exposed, still they represented real characters so justly, though under fictitious appellations, that there could be no mistake with regard to the persons intended. This species of drama, which comprehends some of the later pieces of Aristophanes,—for example, his Plutus,—and is named the Middle comedy, [pg 97]was soon discovered to be as offensive and dangerous as the old. The dramatists being thus at length forced to invent their subjects and characters, comedy became a general yet lively imitation of the common actions of life. All personal allusion was dropped, and the Chorus, which had been the great vehicle of censure and satire, was removed. The new comedy was thus so different in its features from the middle or the old, that Schlegel has been induced to think, that it was formed on the model of the latest tragedians, rather than on the ancient comedy224. In the productions of Agathon, and even in some dramas of Euripides, tragedy had descended from its primeval height, and represented the distresses of domestic life, though still the domestic life of kings and heroes. Though Euripides was justly styled by Aristotle the most tragic of all poets, his style possessed neither the energy and sublimity of Æschylus, nor the gravity and stateliness of Sophocles, and it was frequently not much elevated above the language of ordinary conversation. His plots, too, like the Rudens of Plautus, often hinge on the fear of women, lest they be torn from the shrines or altars to which they had fled for protection; and what may be regarded as a confirmation of this opinion is, that Euripides, who had been so severely satirized by Aristophanes, was extravagantly extolled by Philemon, in his own age the most popular writer of the new comedy.

While possessing, perhaps, both less art and fire than the old satirical drama, produced in times of greater public freedom, the new comedy is generally reputed to have been superior in delicacy, regularity, and decorum. But although it represented the characters and manners of real life, yet in these characters and manners—to judge at least from the fragments which remain, and from the Latin imitations—there does not appear to have been much variety. There is always an old father, a lover, and a courtezan; as if formed on each other, like the Platonic and licentious lover in the Spanish romances of chivalry. “Their plots,” says Dryden, “were commonly a little girl, stolen or wandering from her parents, brought back unknown to the city,—there got with child by some one, who, by the help of his servant, cheats his father,—and when her time comes to cry Juno Lucina, one or other sees a little box or cabinet which was carried away with her, and so discovers her to her friends;—if some god do not prevent it, by coming down in a machine, and taking the thanks of it to himself. By the plot you may guess much of the cha[pg 98]racters of the persons; an old father, who would willingly before he dies see his son well married; a debauched son, kind in his nature to his mistress, but miserably in want of money; and a servant, or slave, who has so much art as to strike in with him, and help to dupe his father; a braggadocio captain; a parasite; a lady of pleasure. As for the poor honest maid, on whom the story is built, and who ought to be one of the principal actors in the play, she is commonly mute in it. She has the breeding of the old Elizabeth way: which was, for maids to be seen and not to be heard.” Sometimes, however, her breeding appears in being heard and not seen; and Donatus remarks, that invocations of Juno behind the scenes were the only way in which the severity of the Comœdia palliata allowed young gentlewomen to be introduced. Were we to characterize the ancient drama by appellations of modern invention, it might be said, that the ancient comedy was what we call a comedy of character, and the modern a comedy of intrigue.

Nævius, while inventing plots of his own, had tried to introduce on the Roman stage the style of the old Greek comedy; but his dramas did not succeed, and the fate of their author deterred others from following his dangerous career. The government of Athens, which occupies a chief part in the old comedy, was the most popular of all administrations; and hence not only oratory but comedy claimed the right of ridiculing and exposing it. The first state in Greece became the subject of merriment. In one play, the whole body of the people was represented under the allegorical personage of an old doting driveller; and the pleasantry was not only tolerated but enjoyed by the members of the state itself. Cleon and Lamachus could not have repressed the satire of Aristophanes, as the Metelli checked the invectives of Nævius. Under pretence of patriotic zeal, the Greek comic writers spared no part of the public conduct,—councils, revenues, popular assemblies, judicial proceedings, or warlike enterprizes. Such exposure was a restraint on the ambition of individuals,—a matter of importance to a people jealous of its liberties. All this, however, was quite foreign to the more serious taste, and more aristocratic government, of the Romans, to their estimation of heroes and statesmen, to their respect for their legitimate chiefs, and for the dignity even of a Roman citizen. The profound reverence and proud affection which they entertained for all that exalted the honour of their country, and their extreme sensibility to its slightest disgrace, must have interdicted any exhibition, in which its glory was humbled, or its misfortunes held up to mockery. They would not have laughed so [pg 99]heartily at the disasters of a Carthaginian, as the Athenians did at those of a Peloponnesian or Sicilian war. The disposition which led them to return thanks to Varro, after the battle of Cannæ, that he had not despaired of the republic, was very different from the temper which excited such contumelious laughter at the promoters of the Spartan war, and the advisers of the fatal expedition to Syracuse225. When the Roman people were seriously offended, the Tarpeian rock, and not the stage, was the spot selected for their vengeance.

Accordingly, Plautus found it most prudent to imitate the style of the new comedy, which had been brought to perfection, about half a century before his birth, by Menander. All his comedies, however, are not strictly formed on this model, as a few partake of the nature of the middle comedy: not that, like Nævius, he satirized the senators or consuls; but I have little doubt that many of his dramatis personæ, such as the miser and braggart captain, were originally caricatures of citizens of Athens. In borrowing from the Greek, he did not, like modern writers of comedy who wish to conceal their plagiarisms, vary the names of his characters, the scene of action, and other external circumstances, while the substance of the drama remained the same; on the contrary, he preserved every circumstance which could tend to give his dramatic pieces a Greek air:—

Plautus was the son of a freedman, and was born at Sarsina, a town in Umbria, about the year 525. He was called Plautus from his splay feet, a defect common among the Umbrians. Having turned his attention to the stage, he soon realized a considerable fortune by the popularity of his dramas; but by risking it in trade, or spending it, according others, on the splendid dresses which he wore as an actor, and theatrical amusements being little resorted to, on account of the famine then prevailing at Rome, he was quickly reduced to such [pg 100]necessity as forced him to labour at a hand-mill for his daily support226 an employment which at Rome, was the ordinary punishment of a worthless slave. Many of his plays were written in these unfavourable circumstances, and of course have not obtained all the perfection which might otherwise have resulted from his knowledge of life, and his long practice in the dramatic art.

Of the performances of Plautus, the first, in that alphabetical order in which, for want of a better, they are usually arranged, is,

Amphitryon.—Personal resemblances are a most fertile subject of comic incidents, and almost all nations have had their Amphitryon. The Athenians in particular gladly availed themselves of this subject, as it afforded an opportunity of throwing ridicule on the dull Bœotians. It is not certain, however, from what Greek author the play of Plautus was taken. Being announced as a tragi-comedy, some critics227 have conjectured that it was most probably imitated from an Amphitryon mentioned by Athenæus,228 which was the work of Rhinton, a poet of Tarentum, who wrote mock-tragedies and tragi-comedies styled Rhintonica or Hilarotragœdiæ. M. Schlegel, however, alleges that it was borrowed from a play of Epicharmus the Sicilian. The subjects indeed of the ancient Greek comedy, particularly in the hands of Epicharmus, its inventor, were frequently derived from mythology. Even in its maturity, these topics were not renounced, as appears from the titles of several lost pieces of Aristophanes and his contemporaries. Such fabulous traditions continued sometimes to occupy the scenes of the middle comedy, and it was not till the new was introduced that the sphere of the comic drama was confined to the representation of private and domestic life. Euripides also is said to have written a play entitled Alcmena, on the story of Amphitryon, but how far Plautus may have been indebted to him for his plot cannot be now ascertained. It is probable enough, however, that some of the serious parts may have been copied from the Alcmena of Euripides. The catastrophe of Plautus’s Amphitryon is brought about by a storm; and we learn from the Rudens, another play of Plautus, that a tempest was introduced by the Greek tragedian—

The Latin play is introduced by a prologue which is spoken by the God Mercury, and was explanatory to the audience of the circumstances preceding the opening of the piece, and the situation of the principal characters. The term prologue has been very arbitrarily used. In one sense it merely signified the induction to the dramatic action, which informed the spectator of what was necessary to be known for duly understanding it. Aristotle calls that part of a tragedy the prologue, which precedes the first song of the chorus.229 In the Greek tragedies, the prologue was often a long introductory and narrative monologue. Sophocles, however, so dialogued this part of the drama, that it has no appearance of a contrivance to instruct, but seems a natural conversation of the dramatis personæ. Euripides, on the other hand, fell more into the style of the formal narrative prologue, since, before entering on the action or dialogue, one of the persons destined to bear a part in the drama frequently explained to the audience, in a continued discourse, what things seemed essential for understanding the piece. Sometimes, however, in the Greek tragedies, the speaker of this species of prologue is not a person of the drama. In general, these artificial prologues of explanatory narration are addressed directly to the spectators, and hence approach nearly to the prologue, in our acceptation of the term. The poets of the ancient comedy, as we see from Aristophanes, usually adopted, like Sophocles, the mode of explaining preliminary circumstances in the course of the action, whence it has been considered that the old Greek comedies have no prologue; and they certainly have none in the strict modern sense, though the method of Euripides has been employed to a certain degree in the Wasps and Birds, in the former of which Xanthias, interrupting the dialogue with Sosias, turns abruptly to the spectators, and unfolds the argument of the fable. The poets of the middle and new comedy, while departing from Aristophanes in many things, followed him in the form of the prologue; and, as they improved in refinement, interwove still closer the requisite exposition of the fable with its action. The Romans thus found among the Greeks, prologues in a continued narrative, and prologues where the exposition was mixed with the action. From these models they formed a new species, peculiar to themselves, which is entirely separated from the action of the drama, and which generally contains an explanation of circumstances and characters, with such gentle recommendation of the piece as suited the purpose of the author. We shall [pg 102]find that the Latin prologues, dressed up in the form of narrative, sometimes preceded the dramatic induction of the action, and at other times, as in the Miles Gloriosus, followed it. The prologue of the Mostellaria is on the plan adopted by Aristophanes, and that of the Cistellaria is conformable to the practice of our own theatre. To other plays, such as the Epidicus and Bacchides, there were originally no prologues, but they were prefixed after the death of the author, in order to explain the reasons for bringing them forward anew. It thus appears that in his prologues Plautus approached nearer to Euripides than to those comic writers whom in his argument and all other respects he chiefly followed. The prologues of Terence, again, seldom announce the subject. In the manner of the Greeks, his induction is laid in the first scene of the play, and the prologues seem chiefly intended to acknowledge the Greek original of his drama, and to explain matters personal to himself. They rather resemble the choruses of Aristophanes, which in the Wasps and other plays directly address the audience in favour of the poet, and complain of the unjust reception which his dramas occasionally experienced.

In the prologue to the Amphitryon, Plautus calls his play a tragi-comedy230; probably not so much that there is any thing tragical in the subject, (although the character of Alcmena is a serious one,) as, because it is of that mixed kind in which the highest as well as lowest characters are introduced. The plot is chiefly founded on the well-known mythological incident of Jupiter assuming the figure of Amphitryon, general of the Thebans, during his absence with the army, and by that means imposing on his wife Alcmena. The play opens while Jupiter is supposed to be with the object of his passion. Sosia, the servant of Amphitryon, who had been sent on before by his master, from the port to announce his victory and approach, is introduced on the stage, proceeding towards the palace of Amphitryon. While expressing his astonishment at the length of the night, he is met, in front of his master’s house, by Mercury, who had assumed his form, and who, partly by blows and threats, and partly by leading him to doubt of his own identity, succeeds in driving him back. This gives Jupiter time to prosecute his amour, and he departs at dawn. The [pg 103]improbable story related by Sosia is not believed by his master, who himself now advances towards his house, from which Alcmena comes forth, lamenting the departure of her supposed husband; but seeing Amphitryon, she expresses her surprise at his speedy return. The jealousy of Amphitryon is thus excited, and he quits the stage, in order to bring evidence that he had never till that time quitted his army. Jupiter then returns, and Amphitryon is afterwards refused access to his own house by Mercury, who pretends that he does not know him. At length Jupiter and Amphitryon are confronted. They are successively questioned as to the events of the late war by the pilot of the ship in which Amphitryon had returned. As Jupiter also stands this test of identity, the real Amphitryon is wrought up to such a pitch of rage and despair, that he resolves to wreak vengeance on his whole family, and is provoked even to utter blasphemies, by setting the gods at defiance. He is supposed immediately after this to have been struck down by lightning, as, in the next scene, Bromia, the attendant of Alcmena, rushes out from the house, alarmed at the tempest, and finds Amphitryon lying prostrate on the earth. When he has recovered, she announces to him that during the storm Alcmena had given birth to twins:—

But by far the most celebrated imitation of Plautus is the Amphitrion of Moliere, who has managed with much delicacy a subject in itself not the most decorous. He has in general followed the steps of the Roman dramatist, but where he has departed from them, he has improved on the original. Instead of the dull and inconsistent prologue delivered by Mercury, which explains the subject of the piece, he has introduced a scene between Mercury and Night, (probably suggested by the Dialogues of Lucian between Mercury and the Sun on the same occasion,) in which Mercury announces the state of matters while requesting Night to prolong her stay on earth for the sake of Jupiter. At the commencement of the piece, Plautus has made Sosia repeat to himself a very minute, though picturesque [pg 105]account of the victory of the Thebans, as preparatory to a proper description of it to Alcmena. This Moliere has formed into a sort of dialogued soliloquy between Sosia and his Lantern, which rehearses the answers anticipated from Alcmena, till the discourse is at length interrupted by the arrival of Mercury, when the speaker has lost himself among the manœuvres of the troops. In the Latin Amphitryon, Mercury threatens Sosia, and he replies to his rodomontade by puns and quibbles, which have been omitted by the French poet, who makes the spectators laugh by the excessive and ridiculous terror of Sosia, and not by pleasantries inconsistent with his feelings and situation. Moliere has copied from Plautus the manner in which Sosia is gradually led to doubt of his own identity: his consequent confusion of ideas has been closely imitated, as also the ensuing scenes of the quarrel and reconciliation between Jupiter and Alcmena. He has added the part of Cleanthes, the wife of Sosia, suggested to him by a line put into the mouth of Sosia by Plautus—

The Amphitrion of Moliere was published in 1668, so that Dryden, in his imitation of Plautus’s Amphitryon, which first appeared in 1690, had an opportunity of also availing himself of the French piece. But, even with this assistance, he has done Plautus less justice than his predecessor. He has sometimes borrowed the scenes and incidents of Moliere; but has too frequently given us ribaldry in the low characters, and bombast in the higher, instead of the admirable grace and liveliness of the French dramatist. His comedy commences earlier than either the French or Latin play. Phœbus makes his appearance at the opening of the piece. The first arrival of Jupiter in the shape of Amphitryon is then represented, apparently in order to introduce Phædra, the attendant of Alcmena, exacting a promise from her mistress, before she knew, who had arrived, that they should that night be bed-fellows as usual since Amphitryon’s absence. To this Phædra, Dryden has assigned an amour with Mercury, to the great jealousy of Sosia’s wife, Bromia; and has mixed up the whole play with pastoral dialogues and rondeaus, to which, as he[pg 107] informs us in his dedication, “the numerous choir of fair ladies gave so just an applause.” The scenes of a higher description are those which have been best managed. The latest editor, indeed, of the works of Dryden, thinks that in these parts he has surpassed both the French and Roman dramatist. “The sensation to be expressed,” he remarks, “is not that of sentimental affection, which the good father of Olympus was not capable of feeling; but love of that grosser and subordinate kind, which prompted Jupiter in his intrigues, has been expressed by none of the ancient poets in more beautiful verse, than that in which Dryden has clothed it, in the scenes between Jupiter and Alcmena.” Milbourne, who afterwards so violently attacked the English poet, highly compliments him on the success of this effort of his dramatic muse—

Lady M. W. Montague gives a curious account, in one of her letters, of a German play on the subject of Amphitryon, which she saw acted at Vienna.—“As that subject had been already handled by a Latin, French, and English poet, I was curious to see what an Austrian author could make of it. I understand enough of that language to comprehend the greatest part of it; and, besides, I took with me a lady that had the [pg 108]goodness to explain to me every word. I thought the house very low and dark; but the comedy admirably recompensed that defect. I never laughed so much in my life. It began with Jupiter falling in love out of a peep-hole in the clouds, and ended with the birth of Hercules. But what was most pleasant was, the use Jupiter made of his metamorphosis; for you no sooner saw him under the figure of Amphitryon, but, instead of flying to Alcmena with the raptures Dryden puts into his mouth, he sends for Amphitryon’s tailor, and cheats him of a laced coat, and his banker of a bag of money—a Jew of a diamond ring, and bespeaks a great supper in his name; and the greatest part of the comedy turns upon poor Amphitryon’s being tormented by these people for their debts. Mercury uses Sosia in the same manner; but I could not easily pardon the liberty the poet had taken of larding his play with not only indecent expressions, but such gross words as I do not think our mob would suffer from a mountebank.”

Asinaria, is translated from the Greek of Demophilus, a writer of the Middle comedy. The subject is the trick put on an ass-driver by two roguish slaves, in order to get hold of the money which he brought in payment of some asses he had purchased from their master, that they might employ it in supplying the extravagance of their master’s son. The old man, however, is not the dupe in this play: On the contrary, he is a confederate in the plot, which was chiefly devised against his wife, who, having brought her husband a great portion, imperiously governed his house and family. By this means the youth is restored to the possession of a mercenary mistress, from whom he had been excluded by a more wealthy rival. The father stipulates, as a reward for the part which he had acted in this stratagem, that he also should have a share in the favours of his son’s mistress; and the play concludes with this old wretch being detected by his wife, carousing at a nocturnal banquet, a wreath of flowers on his head, with his son and the courtezan. It would appear, from the concluding address to the spectators, that neither the moral sense of the author, nor of his audience, was very strong [pg 109]or correct, as the bystanders on the stage, so far from condemning these abandoned characters, declare that the most guilty of the three had done nothing new or surprising, or more than what was customary:

However exceptionable in point of morals, this play possesses much comic vivacity and interest of character. The courtezan and the slaves are sketched with spirit and freedom, and the rapacious disposition of the female dealer in slave-girls, is well developed.

It is curious that this immoral comedy should have been so frequently acted in the Italian convents. In particular, a translation in terza rima was represented in the monastery of St Stefano at Venice, in 1514232. It was not of a nature to be often imitated by modern writers, but Moliere, who has borrowed so many of the plots of other plays of Plautus, has extracted from this drama several situations and ideas. Cleæreta, in the third scene of the first Act of the Asinaria, gives, as her advice, to a gallant—

In like manner, in the Femmes Savantes, Henriette, while counselling Clitandre to be complaisant, says—

Aulularia.—It is not known from what Greek author this play has been taken; but there can be no doubt that it had [pg 110]its archetype in the Greek drama. The festivals of Ceres and Bacchus, which in their origin were innocent institutions, intended to celebrate the blessings of harvest and vintage, having degenerated by means of priestcraft, became schools of superstition and debauchery. From the adventures and intrigues which occurred at the celebration of religious mysteries, the comic poets of Greece frequently drew the incidents of their dramas233, which often turned on damsels having been rendered, on such occasions, the mothers of children, without knowing who were the fathers. In like manner, the intrigue of the Aulularia has its commencement in the daughter of Euclio being violated during the celebration of the mysteries of Ceres, without being aware from whom she had received the injury. The Aulularia, however, is principally occupied with the display of the character of a Miser. No vice has been so often pelted with the good sentences of moralists, or so often ridiculed on the stage, as avarice; and of all the characters that have been there represented, that of the miser in the Aulularia of Plautus, is perhaps the most entertaining and best supported. Comic dramas have been divided into those of intrigue and character, and the Aulularia is chiefly of the latter description. It is so termed from Aula, or Olla, the diminutive of which is Aulula, signifying the little earthen pot that contained a treasure which had been concealed by his grandfather, but had been discovered by Euclio the miser, who is the principal character of the play. The prologue is spoken by the Lar Familiaris of the house; and as the play has its origin in the discovery of a treasure deposited under a hearth, the introduction of this imaginary Being, if we duly consider the superstitions of the Romans, was happy and appropriate. The account given by the Lar of the successive generations of misers, is also well imagined, as it convinces us that Euclio was a genuine miser, and of the true breed. The household god had disclosed the long-concealed treasure, as a reward for the piety of Euclio’s daughter, who presented him with offerings of frankincense and of wine, which, however, it is not very probable the miser’s daughter could have procured, especially before the discovery of the treasure. The story of the precious deposit, of which the spectators could not possibly have been informed without this supernatural interposition, being thus related, we are introduced at once to the knowledge of the principal character, who, having found the treasure, employs himself in guarding it, and lives in continual apprehension, lest it should be dis[pg 111]covered that he possesses it. Accordingly, he is brought on the stage driving off his servant, that she may not spy him while visiting this hoard, and afterwards giving directions of the strictest economy. He then leaves home on an errand very happily imagined—an attendance at a public distribution of money to the poor. Megadorus now proposes to marry his daughter, and Euclio comically enough supposes that he has discovered something concerning his newly acquired wealth; but on his offering to take her without a portion, he is tranquillized, and agrees to the match. Knowing the disposition of his intended father-in-law, Megadorus sends provisions to his house, and also cooks, to prepare a marriage-feast, but the miser turns them out, and keeps what they had brought. At length his alarm for discovery rises to such a height, that he hides his treasure in a grove, consecrated to Sylvanus, which lay beyond the walls of the city. While thus employed, he is observed by the slave of Lyconides, the young man who had violated the miser’s daughter. Euclio coming to recreate himself with the sight of his gold, finds that it is gone. Returning home in despair, he is met by Lyconides, who, hearing of the projected nuptials between his uncle and the miser’s daughter, now apologizes for his conduct; but the miser applies all that he says concerning his daughter to his lost treasure. This play is unfortunately mutilated, and ends with the slave of Lyconides confessing to his master that he has found the miser’s hoard, and offering to give it up as the price of his freedom. It may be presumed, however, that, in the original, Lyconides got possession of the treasure, and by its restoration to Euclio, so far conciliated his favour, that he obtained his daughter in marriage. This conclusion, accordingly, has been adopted by those who have attempted to finish the comedy in the spirit of the Latin dramatist. It is completed on this plan by Thornton, the English translator of Plautus, and by Antonius Codrus Urceus, a professor in the University of Bologna, who died in the year 1500. Urceus has also made the miser suddenly change his nature, and liberally present his new son-in-law with the restored treasure.

The restless inquietude of Euclio, in concealing his gold in many different places—his terror on seeing the preparations for the feast, lest the wine brought in was meant to intoxicate him, that he might be robbed with greater facility—his dilemma at being obliged to miss the distribution to the poor—are all admirable traits of extreme and habitual avarice. Even his recollection of the expense of a rope, when, in despair at the loss of his treasure, he resolves to hang himself, though a little [pg 112]overdone, is sufficiently characteristic. But while the part of a confirmed miser has been comically and strikingly represented in these touches, it is stretched in others beyond all bounds of probability. When Euclio entreats his female servant to spare the cobwebs—when it is said, that he complains of being pillaged if the smoke issue from his house—and that he preserves the parings of his nails—we feel this to be a species of hoarding which no miser could think of or enjoy234.

One of the earliest imitations of the Aulularia was, La Sporta, a prose Italian comedy, printed at Florence in 1543, under the name of Giovam-Battista Gelli, but attributed by some to Machiavel. It is said, that the great Florentine historian left this piece, in an imperfect state, in the hands of his friend Bernardino di Giordano of Florence, in whose house his comedies were sometimes represented, whence it passed into the possession of Gelli, a writer of considerable humour, who prepared it for the press; and, according to a practice not unfrequent in Italy at different periods, published it as his own production235. The play is called Sporta, from the basket in which the treasure was contained. The plot and incidents in Plautus have been closely followed, in so far as was consistent with modern Italian manners; and where they varied, the circumstances, as well as names, have been adapted by the author to the customs and ideas of his country. Euclio is called Ghirorgoro, and Megadorus, Lapo; the former being set up as a satire on avarice, the latter as a pattern of proper economy.

The principal plot of The case is altered, a comedy attributed to Ben Jonson, has been taken, as shall be afterwards shown from the Captivi of Plautus; but the character of Jaques is [pg 113]more closely formed on that of Euclio, than any miser on the modern stage. Jaques having purloined the treasure of a French Lord Chamont, whose steward he had been, and having also stolen his infant daughter, fled with them to Italy. The girl, when she grew up, being very beautiful, had many suitors; whence her reputed father suspects it is discovered that he possesses hidden wealth, in the same manner as Euclio does in the scene with Megadorus. We have a representation of his excessive anxiety lest he lose this treasure—his concealment of it—and his examination of Juniper, the cobbler, whom he suspects to have stolen it; which corresponds to Euclio’s examination of Strobilus. Most other modern dramatists have made their miser in love; but in the breast of Jaques all passions are absorbed in avarice, which is exhibited to us not so much in ridiculous instances of minute domestic economy, as in absolute adoration of his gold: