“Not Phœbus could with gentler words pursue His flying Daphne; not the morning dew Falls softer, than the words of amorous Jove, When melting, dying, for Alcmena’s love.” The character, however, of Alcmena is, I think, less interesting in the English than in the Latin play. She is painted by Plautus as delighted with the glory of her husband. In the second scene of the second act, after a beautiful complaint on account of his absence, she consoles herself with the thoughts of his military renown, and concludes with an eulogy on valour, which would doubtless be highly popular in a Roman theatre during the early ages of the Republic— —— “Virtus præmium est optimum, Virtus omnibus rebus anteit profecto. Libertas, salus, vita, res, parenteis, Patria, et prognati tutantur, servantur: Virtus omnia in se habet; omnia adsunt bona, quem pen’est virtus.” Dryden’s Alcmena is represented as quite different in her sentiments: She exclaims, on parting with Jupiter, “Curse on this honour, and this public fame! Would you had less of both, and more of love!” Lady M. W. Montague gives a curious account, in one of her letters, of a German play on the subject of Amphitryon, which she saw acted at Vienna.—“As that subject had been already handled by a Latin, French, and English poet, I was curious to see what an Austrian author could make of it. I understand enough of that language to comprehend the greatest part of it; and, besides, I took with me a lady that had the goodness to explain to me every word. I thought the house very low and dark; but the comedy admirably recompensed that defect. I never laughed so much in my life. It began with Jupiter falling in love out of a peep-hole in the clouds, and ended with the birth of Hercules. But what was most pleasant was, the use Jupiter made of his metamorphosis; for you no sooner saw him under the figure of Amphitryon, but, instead of flying to Alcmena with the raptures Dryden puts into his mouth, he sends for Amphitryon’s tailor, and cheats him of a laced coat, and his banker of a bag of money—a Jew of a diamond ring, and bespeaks a great supper in his name; and the greatest part of the comedy turns upon poor Amphitryon’s being tormented by these people for their debts. Mercury uses Sosia in the same manner; but I could not easily pardon the liberty the poet had taken of larding his play with not only indecent expressions, but such gross words as I do not think our mob would suffer from a mountebank.”