If we consider the form, substance, and spirit of these six plays, we find that their merit consists in the art with which the situation is unfolded and the plot developed, the consistency and moderation with which a conventional view of life and various types of character are set before us, and in the large part played in them by the tender and sympathetic emotions. But their great attraction, both to ancient and modern readers, has been their charm of style. The diction of Terence, while it wants the creativeness and exuberance of Plautus, is free from the mannerisms which accompanied these large endowments of the older poet. He does not attempt to emulate his 'numeri innumeri,' but limits himself almost entirely to those metres which suit the natural flow of placid or more animated conversation, viz. the iambic (senarian or septenarian) and the trochaic septenarian. The effect of his metre is to introduce measure, propriety, grace, and point into ordinary speech without impairing its ease and spontaneousness. The natural vivacity and urbanity of his style is equally apparent in dialogue, or in rapid and picturesque narrative of incidents and pathetic situations[279]. He is full of happy often-quoted sayings, such as Hinc illae lacrimae. Amantium irae amoris integratiost. Quot homines, tot sententiae. Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto. Tacent: satis laudant. Nosse omnia haec salus est adulescentulis. Cantilenam eandem canis--laterem lavem,--etc. etc. Many of these--such as 'ne quid nimis,' 'ad restim res redit mihi,' 'auribus teneo lupum,' etc.--are obviously translations from Greek proverbial sayings; and in all his use of language we may trace the influence of a close observation and sympathetic enjoyment of Greek subtlety, reserve, delicate allusiveness, curious felicity in union with direct simplicity. These qualities of style, reproduced in the purest Latin idiom, had a great influence on the familiar style of Horace. Expressions in his Satires and Epistles, and even in his Odes, show how closely he studied the language of Terence[280]. It is from a scene in Terence that Horace takes his example of the weakness of passion[281]; and the mode in which he tells how his father trained him to correct his own faults by observing other men must have been suggested by the conversation between Demea and Syrus in the Adelphi[282]: _De._ Denique Inspicere tamquam in speculum in vitas omnium Iubeo atque ex aliis sumere exemplum sibi. 'Hoc facito.' _Sy._ Recte sane. _De._ 'Hoc fugito.' _Sy._ Callide. _De._ 'Hoc laudist.' _Sy._ Istaec res est. _De._ 'Hoc vitio datur.'[283] Again, the remonstrance of Micio to Demea, Si esses homo, Sineres nunc facere, dum per aetatem licet,