ty; nay more, he might insist on the marriage of Micio at the close
of the drama, as Neufchateau does upon the drunkenness of Guyomar, as
alluding to some anecdote of the day, and at any rate as the admitted
invention of Terence himself. He might challenge the advocates of
Menander to produce the Greek original from which the play was borrowed;
he might reject the Greek idioms which abound in that masterpiece of the
Roman stage with contempt, as beneath his notice; and disregard the
names which betray a Grecian origin, the allusions to the habits of
Grecian women, to the state of popular feeling at Athens, and the
administration of Athenian law, with supercilious indifference. All this
such a reasoner might do, and all this M. Neufchateau has done. But
would such a tissue of cobweb fallacies disguise the truth from any man
of ordinary taste and understanding? Such a man would appeal to the
whole history of Terence; he would show that he was a diligent
translator of the Greek writers of the middle comedy, that his language
in every other line betrayed a Grecian origin, that the plot was not
Roman, that the scene was not Roman, that the customs were not Roman; he
would say, if he had patience to reason with his antagonist, that a
fashionable rake, a grasping father, an indulgent uncle, a knavish
servant, an impudent ruffian, and a timid clown, were the same at Rome,
at Thebes, and at Athens, in London, Paris, or Madrid. He would ask, of
what value were such broad and general features common to a species,
when the fidelity of an individual likeness was in question? He would
say, that the incident quoted as a proof of originality, served only, by
its repugnance to Grecian manners, and its inferiority to the work in
which it was inserted, to prove that the rest was the production of
another writer. He would quote the translations from fragments still
extant, which the work, exquisite as it is, contains, as proofs of a
still more beautiful original. Lastly, he would cite the "Dimidiate
Menander" of Caesar, as a proof of the opinion entertained of his genius
by the great writers of his own country; and when he had done this, he
might enquire with confidence whether any one existed capable of forming
a judgment upon style, or of distinguishing one author from another, who
would dispute the position for which he contended.

The sum and substance of all M. Neufchateau's argument is the slight
assumption, that every allusion to a m