But the gift for which Plautus is pre-eminent above all the earlier, and in which he is not surpassed by any of the later poets, is the exuberant vigour and spontaneous flow of his diction. No Roman poet shows more rapidity of conception, or greater variety of illustration: and words and phrases are never wanting to body forth and convey with immediate force and freshness the intuitive discernment of his common sense, the quick play of his wit, the riotous exaggerations of his fancy, his vivid observation of facts and of the outward peculiarities of men, his inexhaustible resources of genial vituperation and execration, or bantering endearment. The mannerisms of his style, already mentioned as indicative of the originality with which he deviates from his Greek models, are not laboured efforts, but the spontaneous products of a rich and comparatively neglected soil. His burlesque invention of proper names, even in its wildest exaggeration, as in the high-sounding title assumed by Sagaristio in the Persa-- Vaniloquidorus, Virginisvendonides, Nugipalamloquides, Argentumexterebronides, Tedigniloquides, Nummosexpalponides, Quodsemelarripides, Nunquampostreddonides-- is a Rabelaisian ebullition, stimulated by the novel contact with the Greek language, of the formative energy which he displays more legitimately in the creation of new Latin words and phrases. In the freedom with which he uses, without vulgarising, popular modes of speech, in the idiomatic verve of his Latin, employed in an age when inflexions still retained their original virtue, and had not been limited by the labours of grammarians to a fixed standard, he has no equal among Latin writers. It is one of the great charms of the Letters to Atticus, and of the shorter poems of Catullus, that they give us back the flavour of this homely native idiom. Where there is difficulty in interpreting Plautus, this arises either from the uncertainty of the reading, or from the wealth of his vocabulary. He saw clearly and realised strongly what he meant to say, and his words and phrases appeared in rapid, close, and orderly movement to his summons. He describes his personages,--Pseudolus for instance, Rufus quidam, ventriosus, crassis suris, subniger, Magno capite, acutis oculis, ore rubicundo, admodum Magnis pedibus[90]; Ballio, Cum hirquina barba; Plesidippus, in the Rudens, Adulescentem strenua facie, rubicundum, fortem; Harpax, in the same play, Recalvom ac silonem senem, statutum, ventriosum Tortis superciliis, contracta fronte, etc.-- in such a way as to show how real they were to his imagination in their outward semblance as well as in the inward springs of their actions. Or he brings before us some peculiarity in the dress or manner of his personages by some graphic touch, as that of the disguised sycophant of the Trinummus,-- Pol hic quidem fungino generest: capite se totum tegit. Illurica facies videtur hominis: eo ornatu advenit; and later--