The _Adelphi_ is also the origin of Shadwell’s comedy, the _Squire of Alsatia_. Spence, in his _Anecdotes_(314), says, on the authority of Dennis the critic, that the story on which the _Squire of Alsatia_ was built, was a true fact. That the whole plot is founded on fact, I think very improbable, as it coincides most closely with that of the _Adelphi_. Sir William and Sir Edward Belfond are the two brothers, while Belfond senior and junior correspond to Æschinus and Ctesipho. The chief alteration, and that to which Dennis probably alluded, is the importance of the part assigned to Belfond senior; who, having come to London, is beset and cozened by all sorts of bankrupts and cheats, inhabitants of Alsatia, (Whitefriars,) and by their stratagems is nearly inveigled into a marriage with Mrs Termagant, a woman of infamous character, and furious temper. The part of Belfond junior is much less agreeable than that of Æschinus. His treatment of Lucia evinces, in the conclusion, a hard-hearted infidelity, which we are little disposed to pardon, especially as we feel no interest in his new mistress, Isabella. On the whole, though the plots be nearly the same, the tone of feeling and sentiment are very different, and the English comedy is as remote from the Latin original, as the grossest vulgarity can be from the most simple and courtly elegance. The _Squire of Alsatia_, however, took exceedingly at first as an occasional play. It discovered the cant terms, that were before not generally known, except to cheats themselves; and was a good deal instrumental towards causing the great nest of villains in the metropolis to be regulated by public authority(315). In Cumberland’s _Choleric Man_, the chief characters, though he seems to deny it in his dedicatory epistle to Detraction, have also been traced after those of the _Adelphi_. The love intrigues, indeed, are different; but the parts of the half-brothers, Manlove and Nightshade, (the choleric-man,) are evidently formed on those of Micio and Demea; while the contrasted education, yet similar conduct, of the two sons of Nightshade, one of whom had been adopted by Manlove, and the father’s rage on detecting his favourite son in an amorous intrigue, have been obviously suggested by the behaviour of Æschinus and Ctesipho. The philanthropic speeches of Micio have been a constant resource both to the French dramatists and our own, and it would be endless to specify the various imitations of his sentiments. Those of Kno’well, in Ben Jonson’s _Every Man in his Humour_, have a particular resemblance to them. His speech, beginning— “There is a way of winning more by love(316),” is evidently formed on the celebrated passage in Terence,— “Pudore et liberalitate liberos,” &c.