With regard to the characters, the one which gives title to the play is, as already mentioned, quite extravagant; and no modern reader can enjoy the rodomontade of the Miles Gloriosus, or his credulity in listening with satisfaction to such monstrous tales of his military renown and amorous success. Flattery for potential qualities may be swallowed to any extent, and a vain man may wish that others should be persuaded that he had performed actions of which he is incapable; but no man can himself hearken with pleasure to falsehoods which he knows to be such, and which in the recital are not intended to impose upon others. Pleusides, the lover in this drama, is totally insipid and uninteresting, and we are not impressed with a very favourable opinion of his mistress from the account which is given of her near the beginning of the play:— “Os habet, linguam, perfidiam, malitiam, atque audaciam, Confidentiam, confirmitatem, fraudolentiam: Qui arguet se, eum contra vincat jurejurando suo. Domi habet animum falsiloquum, falsificum, falsijurium.” The principal character, the one which is best supported, and which is indeed sustained with considerable humour, is that of Periplectomenes, who is an agreeable old man, distinguished by his frankness, jovial disposition, and abhorrence of matrimony. There is one part of his conduct, however, which I wish had been omitted, as it savours too much of cunning, and reminds us too strongly of Ben Jonson’s Volpone. Talking of his friends and relations, he says— —— “Me ad se, ad prandium, ad cœnam vocant. Ille miserrimum se retur, minimum qui misit mihi. Illi inter se certant donis; ego hæc mecum mussito: Bona mea inhiant: certatim dona mittunt et munera.” I have often thought that the character of Durazzo, in Massinger’s _Guardian_, was formed on that of Periplectomenes. Like him, Durazzo is a jovial old bachelor, who aids his nephew Caldoro in his amour with Calista. When the lover in Plautus apologizes to his friend for having engaged him in an enterprize so unsuitable to his years, he replies— “Quid ais tu? itane tibi ego videor oppido Acheronticus, Tam capularis; tamne tibi diu vita vivere? Nam equidem haud sum annos natus præter quinquaginta et quatuor, Clare oculis video, pernix sum manibus, sum pedes mobilis.” In like manner Durazzo exclaims— “My age! do not use That word again; if you do, I shall grow young, And swinge you soundly. I would have you know, Though I write fifty odd, I do not carry An almanack in my bones to predeclare What weather we shall have; nor do I kneel In adoration at the spring, and fall Before my doctor.” —— Periplectomenes boasts of his convivial talents, as also of his amorous disposition, and his excellence at various exercises— “Et ego amoris aliquantum habeo, humorisque meo etiam in corpore: Nequedum exarui ex amœnis rebus et voluptariis. * * * * Tum ad saltandum non Cinædus magis usquam saltat quam ego.”