There are thus, strictly speaking, three plots in the _Eunu__chus_, but they are blended with inimitable art. The quarrel and reconciliation of Thais and Phædria promote the marriage of Chærea with Pamphila, the girl presented by Thraso to Thais. This gift again produces the dispute between Phædria and Thais, and gives room for the imposture of Chærea. It is unfortunate that the regard in which the ancient dramatists held the unity of place, interposed between the spectators and the representation of what would have been highly comical—the father discovering his son in the eunuch’s habit in the house of Thais, the account of which has been thrown into narrative. At the conclusion Thraso is permitted, with consent of Phædria, to share the good graces of Thais; but, as has been remarked by La Harpe(303) and Colman(304), and as indeed must be felt by every one who reads the play, this termination is scarcely consistent with the manners of gentlemen, and it implies the utmost meanness in Phædria to admit him into his society, or to allow him a share in the favours of his mistress, merely that he may defray part of the expense of her establishment. The drama, however, is full of vivacity and intrigue. Through the whole piece the author amuses us with his pleasantries, and in no scene discovers that his fund of entertainment is exhausted. Most of the characters, too, are happily sketched. Under Thais, Menander is supposed to have given a representation of his own mistress Glycerium. On the general nature of the parts of the parasite and braggart captain, something has been said while treating of the dramas of Plautus; but Terence has greatly refined and improved on these favourite characters of his predecessor. Gnatho is master of a much more delicate and artful mode of adulation than former flatterers, and supports his consequence with his patron, at the same time that he laughs at him and lives on him. He boasts, in the second scene of the second act, that he is the founder of a new class of parasites, who ingratiated themselves with men of fortune and shallow understandings, solely by humouring their fancies and admiring what they said, instead of earning a livelihood by submitting to blows, the ridicule of the company, and all manner of indignities, like the antiquated race of parasites whom Plautus describes as beaten, kicked, and abused at pleasure:— “Et hîc quidem, hercle, nisi qui colaphos perpeti Potis parasitus, frangique aulas in caput, Vel ire extra portam trigeminam ad saccum libet.”