faulty in this respect. On the whole, however, the plots of Terence are, in most respects, judiciously laid: The incidents are selected with taste, connected with inimitable art, and painted with exquisite grace and beauty. Next to the management of the plot, the characters and manners represented are the most important points in a comedy; and in these Terence was considered by the ancients as surpassing all their comic poets.—“In argumentis,” says Varro, “Cæcilius palmam poscit, in ethesi Terentius.” In this department of his art he shows that comprehensive knowledge of the humours and inclinations of mankind, which enabled him to delineate characters as well as manners, with a genuine and apparently unstudied simplicity. All the inferior passions which form the range of comedy are so nicely observed, and accurately expressed, that we nowhere find a truer or more lively representation of human nature. He seems to have formed in his mind such a perfect idea both of his high and low characters, that they never for a moment forget their age or situation, whether they are to speak in the easy indifferent tone of polished society, or with the natural expression of passion. Nor do his paintings of character consist merely of a single happy stroke unexpectedly introduced: His delineations are always in the right place, and so harmonize with the whole, that every word is just what the person might be supposed to say under the circumstances in which he is placed:— “Contemplez de quel air un pere dans Terence, Vient d’un fils amoureux gourmander l’imprudence; De quel air cet amant ecoute ses leçons, Et court chez sa maitresse oublier ces chansons: Ce n’est pas un portrait, un image semblable; C’est un amant, un fils, un pere veritable(322).”