An eminent English poet, Sir Richard Steele, has endeavoured to adapt Terence’s Andrian to the taste of an English audience, and has succeeded in that attempt, in his play, called _The Conscious Lovers_, as well as circumstances would permit. A French poet of equal eminence, Monsieur Baron, has made a similar attempt in French verse, and has met with equal success in his Andrienne: he has kept much closer to the original than has Sir Richard Steele; indeed, many scenes of the Andrienne are a literal version of Terence. I purpose to point out the most material changes which the two modern poets have made in the incidents: the bent of the dramatic taste of the nation of each, may be discovered, in some measure, from a comparison between the _English_, the _French_, and the _Roman_ dramatist. M. Baron has not made any alteration in the scene at Chrysis’ funeral, where Simo discovers his son’s attachment to Glycera; but Sir R. Steele, has altered the mode of discovery to _a quarrel at a masquerade_; and his scene, though it may want the pathos of the original, yet displays the filial affection of Bevil, the English Pamphilus, in a very amiable light. Sir Richard has modernized the characters of Simo and Sosia in Sir John Bevil and Humphrey. “_Sir J._ You know I was, last Thursday, at the masquerade: my son, you may remember, soon found us out. He knew his grandfather’s habit, which I then wore, and though it was in the mode of the last age, yet the maskers followed us, as if we had been the most monstrous figures in the whole assembly. “_Humph._ I remember a young man of quality, in the habit of a clown, was particularly troublesome. “_Sir J._ Right: he was too much what he seemed to be: he followed us, till the gentleman, who led the lady in the Indian mantle, presented that gay creature to the rustic, and bid him (like Cymon in the fable) grow polite, by falling in love, and let that worthy gentleman alone, meaning me. The clown was not reformed, but rudely offered to force off my mask; with that the gentleman, throwing off his own, appeared to be my son; and, in his concern for me, tore off that of the nobleman. At this, they seized each other, the company called the guards, and, in the surprise, the lady swooned away; upon which my son quitted his adversary, and had now no care but of the lady; when, raising her in his arms, ‘Art thou gone,’ cried he, ‘for ever?――Forbid it, Heaven!’――She revives at his known voice, and, with the most familiar, though modest gesture, hangs in safety over his shoulders weeping; but wept as in the arms of one before whom she could give herself a loose, were she not under observation. While she hides her face in his neck, he carefully conveys her from the company.”――CONSCIOUS LOVERS.