his, came to be termed _Fabulæ Plautinæ_, in the same way as we still speak of Æsopian fable, and Homeric verse. “Plautus quidem,” says Macrobius, “ea re clarus fuit, ut post mortem ejus, comœdiæ, quæ incertæ ferebantur, Plautinæ tamen esse, de jocorum copia, agnoscerentur(271).” It is thus evident, that a sufficient number of jests stamped a dramatic piece as the production of Plautus in the opinion of the multitude. But Gellius farther mentions, that there was a certain writer of comedies, whose name was Plautius, and whose plays having the inscription “Plauti,” were considered as by Plautus, and were named Plautinæ from Plautus, though in fact they ought to have been called Plautianæ from Plautius. All this sufficiently accounts for the vast number of plays ascribed to Plautus, and which the most learned and intelligent critics have greatly restricted. They have differed, however, very widely, as to the number which they have admitted to be genuine. Some, says Servius, maintain, that Plautus wrote twenty-one comedies, others forty, others a hundred(272). Gellius informs us, that Lucius Ælius, a most learned man, was of opinion that not more than twenty-five were of his composition(273). Varro wrote a work, entitled _Quæstiones Plautinæ_, a considerable portion of which was devoted to a discussion concerning the authenticity of the plays commonly assigned to Plautus, and the result of his investigation was, that twenty-one were unquestionably to be admitted as genuine. These were subsequently termed Varronian, in consequence of having been separated by Varro from the remainder, as no way doubtful, and universally allowed to be by Plautus. The twenty-one Varronian plays are the twenty still extant, and the _Vidularia_. This comedy appears to have been originally subjoined to the Palatine MS. of the still existing plays of Plautus, but to have been torn off, since, at the conclusion of the _Truculentus_, we find the words “Vidularia incipit(274):” And Mai has recently published some fragments of it, which he found in an Ambrosian MS. Such, it would appear, had been the high authority of Varro, that only those plays, which had received his indubitable sanction, were transcribed in the MSS. as the genuine works of Plautus; yet it would seem that Varro himself had, on some occasion, assented to the authenticity of several others, induced by their style of humour corresponding to that of Plautus. He had somewhere mentioned, that the _Saturio_ (the Glutton,) and the _Addictus_, (the Adjudged,) were written by Plautus during the period in which he laboured as a slave at the hand-mill. He was also of opinion, that the _Bœotia_ was by Plautus; and Aulus Gellius concurs with him in this(275), citing certain verses delivered by a hungry parasite, which, he says, are perfectly Plautinian, and must satisfy every person to whom Plautus is familiar, of the authenticity of that drama. From this very passage,