employed for this purpose, and is carried, as had been previously arranged, to the purchaser’s house. The friend’s wife, however, being jealous of this inmate, her husband is obliged to explain matters for her satisfaction, and the old debauchee, in consequence, incurs, before the conclusion of the comedy, merited shame and reproach. An old libertine may be a very fit subject for satire and ridicule, but in this play there is certainly too much latitude allowed to the debaucheries of youth. The whole moral of the drama is contained in three lines near the conclusion:— “Neu quisquam posthac prohibeto adolescentem filium Quin amet, et scortum ducat; quod bono fiat modo: Si quis prohibuerit, plus perdet clam, quam si præhibuerit palam.” Nothing can be more ridiculous than the delays and trifling of the persons in this piece, under circumstances which must naturally have excited their utmost impatience. Examples of this occur in the scene which occupies nearly the whole of the first act, between Charinus and his slave Acanthio, and the equally tedious dialogue in the fifth act between Eutychus and Charinus. The _Mercator_ of Plautus is the origin of _La Stiava_, an Italian comedy by Cecchi; and in the second scene of the second act, there are two lines which have a remarkable resemblance to the conclusion of the celebrated speech of Jaques, “All the world’s a stage,” in _As you Like it_. “Senex cum extemplo est jam nec sentit, nec sapit. Aiunt solere eum rursum repuerascere.”