Terence, Carthaginian though he was, is distinguished for the exceptional purity of his Latin and the beauty of his style. His taste was cultivated; his sentiments were pure; and his plays put to shame many a licentious comedy of the English stage. In lively humor and comic effect, however, he falls short both of Plautus and his Greek originals. It was in allusion to the source whence he borrowed his plots that Julius Cæsar addressed him as “thou half-Menander.” The masterpiece of Terence is “the Self-Tormentor,” a copy of one of Menander’s lost plays. Its title is derived from the self-inflicted punishment of Menede’mus, an Athenian, who, having refused his consent to the nuptials of his son Clin’ia with a poor but virtuous Corinthian girl, Antiph’ila, and thus driven Clinia to enlist as a mercenary, is stricken with remorse, leaves the city, and imposes on himself the severe toil of farm-life. Chremes, a neighboring country gentleman, noticing how hard Menedemus works when there is apparently no necessity for it, inquires the reason. The first scene represents a conversation between the two, in which Menedemus, after asking his neighbor how he found time to pry into other people’s affairs, and receiving the memorable answer,—“I am a man, and I have an interest in everything that concerns humanity,”[42]—acquaints him with the state of affairs as told above. The love-sick Clinia now returns, and, reluctant to go to his father’s house, becomes the guest of Chremes’ son, Clit’ipho, the friend of his youth. At his entreaty, Clitipho sends a slave for Antiphila; but the cunning fellow brings at the same time the lady-love of Clitipho himself, the dashing beauty Bacchis, introducing her to the family as Clinia’s mistress, and passing off the modest Antiphila as one of her servants. The slave thus describes to Clinia, Antiphila and her employments when he came suddenly upon her, and announced her lover’s return:— “Busily plying the web we found her, Decently clad in mourning. She had on No gold or trinkets, but was plain and neat, And dressed like those who dress but for themselves. No female varnish to set off her beauty; Her hair dishevelled, long, and flowing loose About her shoulders.” Chremes finds Bacchis a very expensive guest, and, announcing to Menedemus the next morning the return of his son, tries to put him on his guard against the extravagant tastes of Clinia’s supposed mistress, but without producing any effect on the father thus relieved of his anxiety:— “CHREMES.—First, she’s brought with her half a score of maids, Tricked out, the jades, with gold and jewelry; Why, if her lover were an Eastern prince, He couldn’t stand it—how on earth can you? MENEDEMUS.—Oh! is she here, too?