manner still kept before us. Pleusidippus, the lover of the piece, inquires of these after Labrax, the leno, who has invited him to the temple of Venus in the vicinity. The youth has paid a sum in advance towards the purchase of Palostra, a damsel belonging to the leno, of whom he is enamoured; but the leno defrauding him, has carried her off in a vessel bound for Sicily, at the suggestion of a friend, who promises him a better market there. He learns to his despair, that no one has been to the temple of Venus, and thus finds he has been deceived. He has no sooner departed, than the servant sees a boat in the distance. It is upset, but the two females who are in it succeed in reaching the shore, the whole scene being vividly described by the servant who beholds it. These women are Palæstra, and her fellow-servant, who are at first parted, but afterwards meet on the shore and take refuge in the Temple of Venus, where they are kindly received by the old priestess. Unluckily the leno and his friend are also saved from the wreck, and appear mutually reproaching each other for the calamity that has befallen them. Labrax, who in this piece adds impiety to the other vices of a leno, discovering his women in the temple, attempts to drag them from it; but this wickedness creates a general indignation, and Dæmones and his servants rush to the defence of the sanctuary. The leno is at length removed by Pleusidippus, who, having a fair title to Paloestra, carries him off to justice. Palostra, who like many others has been lost in her infancy, has kept by her a casket containing the testimonials of her birth, in the hope of being at some future period restored to her family: and she is much grieved at the loss of this during the tempest. It is dragged from the water by Gripus, a servant of Dæmones, who is out on a fishing expedition, and Trachalio, the servant of Pleusidippus, perceiving the acquisition, disputes with him concerning the possession of the prize. Dæmones is referred to as umpire, and by the casket discovers that Palostra is his own daughter. She is of course married to Pleusidippus. The play takes its name from the cable (rudens) to which the casket is attached.

The STICHUS is a very meager piece, and rather seems a hint for a comedy than a comedy itself. Two sisters are married to men of ruined fortunes, who have been absent on a mercantile expedition for some years. Their father wishes them to seek other husbands; but they remain constant. At last, to their great joy, their husbands return loaded with wealth. Stichus, the servant who gives the name to the piece, has nothing to do with the plot, but merely appears at the end, where he makes merry with a friend, and their common mistress (!). The only character of interest is

The 'Stichus,' the Trinumus,' and the Truculentus.' 229

Gelasimus, a very excellent parasite, whom we have had occasion to quote in illustrating his class.

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The TRINUMUS, as we have already mentioned, was esteemed by Lessing in his youth, as being after the Captivi,' the best play of Plautus. A high honourable feeling prevails throughout, which must make it particularly acceptable to those who prefer the moral domestic comedy, to the comedy of honour and intrigue. Lesbonicus is a wild young man, who in the absence of his father has dissipated his property. Both he and his sister have been left in the charge of an honest old man, named Callicles, together with a sum of money, concealed in the house by the father before his departure. The reckless career of Lesbonicus obliging him to sell the house, Callicles buys it, that the treasure may not be lost; for he is afraid to reveal its existence to the reckless youth, lest his extravagance should lead to the dissipation of that also. Lysiteles, a moral young man-quite unique in the dramas of Plautus-but a friend of Lesbonicus, kindly offers marriage to his sister without a dowery; while the proud spirit of Lesbonicus, who with all his faults is a noble fellow, rises at the thought of his sister being disposed of in a manner so dishonourable to the family, and is willing to part with the one small field which is left. Callicles wishing to prevent this, but not to discover the treasure, hires an actor to wait upon Lesbonicus, pretending that he is a messenger from his absent father, and that a dowery for the sister is in his (Callicles's) hands. This dowery he really intends to provide out of the hidden treasure, and it is from the hire of the actor (tres nummi) that the piece is named. The father himself returns, and a comic scene is obtained by his meeting with the actor, who does not know him, and who tells his falsehood to a bad purpose. With the forgiveness of the dissolute son, and the marriage of Lysiteles to the daughter, the piece terminates. By the honest old friend; the benevolent good young man;' and the reckless youth, with that very popular attribute, a good heart;' we are constantly reminded of one of the sentimental comedies of the last century.

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The TRUCULENTUS, the last play in this long list, is, as Lessing properly observes, the most defective of all the dramas of Plautus; and if it be true that he esteemed it one of the best of his works, it is but a proof, among many others, that authors are not the most sagacious judges of their own productions. We shall not bestow many lines on this disagreeable and uninteresting play. A courtesan of the vilest description preserves her influence over three lovers, acting on one of them by means of a sup

posititious child, of whom she pretends he is the father. The plot is not in the slightest degree ingenious, and wearies by its dull monotony of vice. From a rugged slave, who is first a womanhater, and is afterwards captivated by a harlot, it takes its name.

We have gone through the range of characters which appear in the Drama of Plautus, and the list of comedies he has left. To those who, having finished what is ordinarily deemed a course of education, make the study of the classics the recreation and delight of their leisure hours, we may appear to have performed a useless task in describing so minutely a series of plays which possess not the charms of novelty, and are so completely accessible to all who have been liberally brought up. But to a larger class, we firmly believe, this slight indication of the treasures which are contained in the works of one of the greatest comic writers who ever existed, will be found acceptable, and may prompt them to visit the old fount of Latinity, which they have as yet left untasted. If we have entered into no learned disquisition on the works of Marcus Accius Plautus, we have done enough to show the fund of invention and of humour which is exhibited in his writings; and that in them may be sought most of those combinations, which elicit the roar' at the modern farce. Few dramatic authors, who have left so many plays, have left so large a proportion that will amply repay perusal, from their intrinsic dramatic merits: and however we may admire the elegance and delicacy of Terence, we not only subscribe to the opinion that he is far inferior to Plautus in the 'vis comica,' but add our conviction, that in vivid pictures of life, in ingenious combination, in striking situation,-in short, in almost every feature that distinguishes the dramatist from the mere elegant writer, he must succumb to his ruder predecessor. M. Nisard, in his work on the decline of Roman literature, mentions, as one of the features of that decline, the preference which the later Romans showed to Plautus above Terence. But M. Nisard looks upon the works of Racine and Corneille as the height of human perfection; and it is therefore no marvel that the few bad puns and low jests of Plautus should blunt his sense for the strong irresistible humour. We, who have the excellences of Plautus fast in our minds, fully feel the force of the epitaph composed by old Varro:

Postquam morte captus est Plautus,
Comædia lugit, scene est deserta;
Deinde risus, lusus, jocusque et numeri
Innumeri simul omnes collachrymârunt.

( 231 )

ART. XV.-Les Mystères de Paris. (The Mysteries of Paris.) Par EUGÈNE SUE. 6 vols. Paris.

THE royal personages who figure in the Scott romances are among the most charming, if not real, of the characters which the delightful novelist has introduced to us. He was, if we mistake not, the first romantic author who dealt with kings and princes familiarly. Charles and Louis are made to laugh before us as unconcernedly as schoolboys; Richard takes his share of canary out of the cup of Friar Tuck; and the last words we hear from James are, that the cockaleeky is growing cold. What is it that pleases us in the contemplation of these royal people so employed? Why are we more amused with the notion of a king on the broad grin, than with the hilariousness of a commoner? That mingling of grandeur and simplicity, that ticklish conjunction of awe and frivolity, are wonderfully agreeable to the reader; and we are all charmed to know how heroes appear in the eyes of their valets de chambre.

The drama, of course, was not slow to seize upon the means of popularity which the introduction of royal characters ensures; and as tragedy delighted in former days to describe the crimes and sorrows of the owners of thrones and sceptres, comedy and farce have made free with their eccentricities and foibles; and we have had on our own stage Charles XII. inducing Mr. Liston to marry, Frederick the Great presiding over a love intrigue, and a score of other great potentates employed in no more dignified way.

The French have carried this style of romance almost as far as possible, and have, especially of late years, introduced us to a number of queens regnant, visionary empresses, and grand duchesses of German states, involved in a number of comic loveintrigues, and treated just as familiarly as the simplest soubrette. Last winter, for instance, you might see two pieces of a night at the 'Palais Royal' Theatre, in one of which the Empress Catherine was in love with a corporal of her guard, while in a second, a queen of Portugal was desperately amourachée of an humble captain of dragoons. At the Comic Opera' there was another queen of Portugal and another love-intrigue, in M. Scribe's piece of the Diamans de la Couronne.' At the Théâtre Français,' in the same indefatigable writer's comedy of the Verre d'Eau,' her late Majesty Queen Anne (as our readers may more fully have observed in a former part of this review) was laying bare the secrets of her heart in the same easy way; and at the Vaudeville,' Mons. Arnal was just married to a reigning princess of Baden, and the audience were convulsed with laughter at the jocular perplexities of their serene highnesses.

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Such a decided exhibition of the public taste was not likely to be lost upon a gentleman of M. Eugène Sue's extreme cleverness, and we owe to it, as we fancy, the chief character of the singular novel before us. The public likes princes en deshabille. Let us give them one,' says our novelist, who shall be as striking as Haroun Alraschid; who shall be as majestic as Apollo, and as vulgar as a commis-voyageur; who shall lead us, in his august company, from the sublime to the familiar, and from the ridiculous to the terrible. Let us mingle together the highest and the lowest of mankind in a confusion so amazing, and find such virtues in vice, such vices in virtue, as never novel-reader or writer has yet had the sense to discover. We know our simple public, what its rank is, and what its amount of intelligence; it loves to indulge its appetite for wonder; it is as far removed from the society of princes and grandees, as it is from that of murderers and convicts; let us bring high and low together in a tale, and keep our readers in a perpetual delight of breathless terror.

And as in the novels of our compeers, Soulié, Dumas, and the rest, the nation has been entertained with accounts of a particular vice, until really the descriptions of it interest no longer, and apologies for the infidelity of wives actually provoke yawns and ennui, in place of tears and sympathy; let us, in the intrigues which it may be necessary for our purpose to introduce into our narrative, take the virtuous side. Let all our heroines be modest, and only outraged so much as shall be necessary to provoke compassion for their fate. This at least has not been essayed in French romance since the new school was founded, and on this principle we may manage to excite the reader's feelings, even while we are preaching the sternest virtue; and, while writing sentiments that would do honour to a saint, we may make a book quite as wicked as any reasonable novel-reader can desire.'

In a word, we believe Mathilde,' and the romance before us, by the same ingenious author, to be quite as much works of calculation and trade, as any bale of French goods that is shipped for a foreign market, and has been prepared to suit the wants and catch the eyes of customers abroad: such for instance, as new fashions for the ladies, cases of claret and champagne for the planters, and a pretty assortment of glass beads, red cloth, and hatchets, for the savages with whom the merchant proposes to trade. Of all the literary merchants in France, M. Sue is unquestionably the most successful: he has kept the town with him for three years. While Soulié has been obliged to subside into the minor papers, while even Balzac has grown wearisome with his monotonous thrummings on the cracked old string, while Dumas has become common, and his fiftieth volume of Impressions de