_Pœnulus_, (the Carthaginian,) is one of the longest, and, I think, on the whole, the dullest of Plautus’ performances. It turns on the discovery of a lost child, who had been stolen from her Carthaginian parents in infancy, and had been carried to Greece. In none of those numerous plays which turn on the recognition of lost children, has Plautus ever exhibited an affecting interview, or even hit on an expression of natural tenderness. The characters are either not brought on the stage at the conclusion, and we are merely told by some slave or parasite that the discovery had taken place: or, as in the instance of Hanno and his daughter in the present drama, the parties most interested teaze and torment each other with absurd questions, instead of giving way to any species of emotion. It is a high example, however, of the noble and generous spirit of the Romans, that Hanno, the Carthaginian introduced in this play, which was represented in the course of the Punic wars, is more amiable than almost any other character in Plautus. It is evident, from his quibbles and obscene jests, that the Latin dramatist adapted his plays to the taste of the vulgar; and if the picture of a villainous or contemptible Carthaginian could have pleased the Roman public, as the Jew of Malta gratified the prejudices of an English mob, Plautus would not have hesitated to accommodate himself to such feelings, and his Hanno would doubtless have appeared in those hateful colours in which the Jews, or in that ridiculous light in which the French, have usually been exhibited on the British stage. The employment of different dialects, or idioms, which has been so great a resource of the modern comic muse, particularly on the Italian stage, had been early resorted to in Greece. Aristophanes, in one of his comedies, introduced the jargon of a woman of Lacedæmon, where the Doric dialect was spoken in its rudest form. Plautus, in a scene of the _Pœnulus_, has made his Carthaginian speak in his native language; and as the Carthaginian tongue was but little known in Greece, it may be presumed that this scene was invented by Plautus himself.