This may in general be true, as there are certainly few unmingled passions; but I suspect that avarice so completely engrosses the soul, that a simple and unmixed delineation of it is not remote from nature. “The Euclio of Plautus,” says King, in his _Anecdotes_, “the Avare of Moliere, and Miser of Shadwell, have been all exceeded by persons who have existed within my own knowledge(236).” _Bacchides_:—is so called from two sisters of the name of Bacchis, who are the courtezans in this play. In a prologue, which is supposed to be spoken by Silenus, mounted on an ass, it is said to be taken from a Greek comedy by Philemon. This information, however, cannot be implicitly relied on, as the prologue was not written in the time of Plautus, and is evidently an addition of a comparatively recent date. Some indeed have supposed that it was prefixed by Petrarch; but at all events the following lines could not have been anterior to the conquest of Greece by the Romans:— “Samos quæ terra sit, nota est omnibus: Nam maria, terras, monteis, atque insulas Vostræ legiones reddidere pervias.” The leading incident in this play—a master’s folly and inadvertence counteracting the deep-laid scheme of a slave to forward his interest, has been employed by many modern dramatists for the groundwork of their plots; as we find from the _Inavertito_ of Nicolo Barbieri, sirnamed Beltramo, the _Amant Indiscret_ of Quinault, Moliere’s _Etourdi_, and Dryden’s _Sir Martin Mar-all_. The third scene of the third act of this comedy, where the father of Pistoclerus speaks with so much indulgence of the follies of youth, has been imitated in Moliere’s _Fourberies de Scapin_, and the fifth scene of the fourth act has suggested one in _Le Marriage Interrompu_(237), by Cailhava. If it could be supposed that Dante had read Plautus, the commencement of Lydus’ soliloquy before the door of Bacchis, might be plausibly conjectured to have suggested that thrilling inscription over the gate of hell, in the third Canto of the _Inferno_— “Pandite, atque aperite propere januam hanc Orci, obsecro! Nam equidem haud aliter esse duco; quippe cui nemo advenit, Nisi quem spes reliquere omnes —— Per me si va nella città dolente: Per me si va nell eterno dolore: Per me si va tra la perduta gente. * * * * * * Lasciate ogni speranza, voi, che entrate.” _Captivi_.—The subject and plot of the _Captivi_ are of a different description from those of Plautus’ other comedies. No female characters are introduced; and, as it is said in the epilogue, or concluding address to the spectators, —— “Ad pudicos mores facta hæc fabula est: Neque in hâc subagitationes sunt, ullave amatio, Nec pueri suppositio, nec argenti circumductio; Neque ubi amans adolescens scortum liberet, clam suum patrem.”