The _Fantasmi_ of Ercole Bentivoglio, an Italian comedy of the sixteenth century, is formed on the same original as the _Retour Imprevu_. The _Mostellaria_ has likewise suggested the plot of an old tragi-comedy by Heywood, printed in 1633, and entitled _The English Traveller_. Fielding’s _Intriguing Chambermaid_ is also derived from the _Mostellaria_, but through the medium of Regnard’s comedy. Indeed, it may be considered as almost a translation from the French; except that the author has most absurdly assigned the part of the Latin Tranio, and French Merlin, to a chambermaid, whom he calls Mrs Lettice, and has added a great number of songs and _double entendres_. It has been said, that the last act of Ben Johnson’s _Alchemist_, where Face, in order to conceal the iniquities committed in his master’s house during his absence, tries to persuade him, that it was shut up on account of being visited by an apparition, has been suggested by the _Mostellaria_(255); but, as there is no resemblance between the two plays in other incidents, we cannot be assured that the _Mostellaria_ was at all in the view of the great English dramatist. _Persa_.—In this play, which belongs to the lowest order of comedy, the characters are two slaves, a foot-boy of one of these slaves, a parasite, a pander, and a courtezan, with her waiting-maid. The manners represented are such as might be expected from this respectable group. The incidents are few and slight, hinging almost entirely on a deceit practised against the pander, who is persuaded to give a large sum for a free woman, whom the slaves had dressed up as an Arabian captive, and whom he was obliged to relinquish after having paid the money. The fable is chiefly defective from the trick of the slaves being intended to serve their own purposes. But such devices are interesting only when undertaken for the advantage of higher characters; a comedy otherwise must degenerate into farce.