ere_)--Ver. 72. Vollbehr
thinks that his meaning is, that he is quite vexed to see so
little progress made, in spite of his neighbor's continual
vexation and turmoil, and that, as he says in the next line, he is
of opinion that if he were to cease working himself, and were to
overlook his servants, he would get far more done. It is more
generally thought to be an objection which Chremes suggests that
Menedemus may possibly make.]

[Footnote 23: _I am a man_)--Ver. 77. "Homo sum: humani nihil a me
alienum puto." St. Augustine says, that at the delivery of this
sentiment, the Theatre resounded with applause; and deservedly,
indeed, for it is replete with the very essence of benevolence and
disregard of self. Cicero quotes the passage in his work De
Officiis, B. i., c. 9. The remarks of Sir Richard Steele upon this
passage, in the Spectator, No. 502, are worthy to be transcribed
at length. "The Play was the Self-Tormentor. It is from the
beginning to the end a perfect picture of human life, but I did
not observe in the whole one passage that could raise a laugh. How
well-disposed must that people be, who could be entertained with
satisfaction by so sober and polite mirth! In the first Scene of
the Comedy, when one of the old men accuses the other of
impertinence for interposing in his affairs, he answers, 'I am a
man, and can not help feeling any sorrow that can arrive at man.'
It is said this sentence was received with an universal applause.
There can not be a greater argument of the general good
understanding of a people, than their sudden consent to give their
approbation of a sentiment which has no emotion in it. If it were
spoken with ever so great skill in the actor, the manner of
uttering that sentence could have nothing in it which could strike
any but people of the greatest humanity-- nay, people elegant and
skillful in observation upon it. It is possible that he may have
laid his hand on his heart, and with a winning insinuation in his
countenance, expressed to his neighbor that he was a man who made
his case his own; yet I will engage, a player in Covent Garden
might hit such an attitude a thousand times before he would have
been regarded."]

[Footnote 24: _Take off my shoes_)--Ver. 124. As to the "socci,"
or low shoes of the ancients, see the Notes to the Trinummus of
Plautus, l. 720, in Bohn's Translation. It was the especial duty