ould rank Menander at the highest. In what
degree of faithfulness Terence copied Menander, whether, as he states of
the passage in the Adelphi taken from Diphilus, verbum de verbo in the
lovelier scenes--the description of the last words of the dying Andrian,
and of her funeral, for instance--remains conjectural. For us Terence
shares with his master the praise of an amenity that is like Elysian
speech, equable and ever gracious; like the face of the Andrian's young
sister:

'Adeo modesto, adeo venusto, ut nihil supra.'

The celebrated 'flens quam familiariter,' of which the closest rendering
grounds hopelessly on harsh prose, to express the sorrowful confidingness
of a young girl who has lost her sister and dearest friend, and has but
her lover left to her; 'she turned and flung herself on his bosom,
weeping as though at home there': this our instinct tells us must be
Greek, though hardly finer in Greek. Certain lines of Terence, compared
with the original fragments, show that he embellished them; but his taste
was too exquisite for him to do other than devote his genius to the
honest translation of such pieces as the above. Menander, then; with him,
through the affinity of sympathy, Terence; and Shakespeare and Moliere
have this beautiful translucency of language: and the study of the comic
poets might be recommended, if for that only.

A singular ill fate befell the writings of Menander. What we have of him
in Terence was chosen probably to please the cultivated Romans; {8} and
is a romantic play with a comic intrigue, obtained in two instances, the
Andria and the Eunuchus, by rolling a couple of his originals into one.
The titles of certain of the lost plays indicate the comic illumining
character; a Self-pitier, a Self-chastiser, an Ill-tempered man, a
Superstitious, an Incredulous, etc., point to suggestive domestic themes.

Terence forwarded manuscript translations from Greece, that suffered
shipwreck; he, who could have restored the treasure, died on the way
home. The zealots of Byzantium completed the work of destruction. So we
have the four comedies of Terence, numbering six of Menander, with a few
sketches of plots--one of them, the Thesaurus, introduces a miser, whom
we should have liked to contrast with Harpagon--and a multitude of small
fragments of a sententious cast, fitted for quotation. Enough remains to
make his greatness felt.

Without undervaluing other writers of Comedy, I think it may be said