It is curious that this immoral comedy should have been so frequently acted in the Italian convents. In particular, a translation in _terza rima_ was represented in the monastery of St Stefano at Venice, in 1514(232). It was not of a nature to be often imitated by modern writers, but Moliere, who has borrowed so many of the plots of other plays of Plautus, has extracted from this drama several situations and ideas. Cleæreta, in the third scene of the first Act of the _Asinaria_, gives, as her advice, to a gallant— “Neque ille scit quid det, quid damni faciat: illi rei studet; Vult placere sese amicæ, vult mihi, vult pedissequæ, Vult famulis, vult etiam ancillis; et quoque catulo meo Sublanditur novus amator.” In like manner, in the _Femmes Savantes_, Henriette, while counselling Clitandre to be complaisant, says— “Un amant fait sa cour ou s’attache son cœur, Il veut de tout le monde y gagner la faveur; Et pour n’avoir personne a sa flamme contraire, Jusqu’au chien du logis il s’efforce de plaire.” _Aulularia_.—It is not known from what Greek author this play has been taken; but there can be no doubt that it had its archetype in the Greek drama. The festivals of Ceres and Bacchus, which in their origin were innocent institutions, intended to celebrate the blessings of harvest and vintage, having degenerated by means of priestcraft, became schools of superstition and debauchery. From the adventures and intrigues which occurred at the celebration of religious mysteries, the comic poets of Greece frequently drew the incidents of their dramas(233), which often turned on damsels having been rendered, on such occasions, the mothers of children, without knowing who were the fathers. In like manner, the intrigue of the _Aulularia_ has its commencement in the daughter of Euclio being violated during the celebration of the mysteries of Ceres, without being aware from whom she had received the injury. The _Aulularia_, however, is principally occupied with the display of the character of a Miser. No vice has been so often pelted with the good sentences of moralists, or so often ridiculed on the stage, as avarice; and of all the characters that have been there represented, that of the miser in the _Aulularia_ of Plautus, is perhaps the most entertaining and best supported. Comic dramas have been divided into those of intrigue and character, and the _Aulularia_ is chiefly of the latter description. It is so termed from _Aula_, or _Olla_, the diminutive of which is _Aulula_, signifying the little earthen pot that contained a treasure which had been concealed by his grandfather, but had been discovered by Euclio the miser, who is the principal character of the play. The prologue is spoken by the _Lar Familiaris_ of the house; and as the play has its origin in the discovery of a treasure deposited under a hearth, the introduction of this imaginary Being, if we duly consider the superstitions of the Romans, was happy and appropriate.