ENNIUS. [Born 239--Died 169, B. C.] THIS father of Roman song, as he has been called by the Latin writers, was born at Rudiæ, a town of Calabria, in the year of Rome 515. Like Eschylus, the great father of the Grecian stage, he was a soldier before he became an author, having followed Titus Manlius to the war waged in Sardinia against the allies of Carthage. There he continued to reside until the age of thirty-five, when he was brought to Rome by the elder Cato, and supported himself by instructing the patrician youth in Greek. In this humble, though honourable employment, he acquired for himself not only the freedom of the city, but the friendship of many of its most illustrious men, more particularly of that great ornament of his age and nation, the elder Africanus. Ennius died at the age of seventy, when a bust was erected to him in the tomb of the Scipios, who, until the time of Sylla, had continued the practice of burying, instead of burning, their dead. This bust,' together with the statues of Africanus and Asiaticus, was remaining in the days of Livy, and is supposed, by many, to be the same which now stands on the sarcophagus of Scipio Barbatus, in the Vatican. Of the numerous compositions of Ennius, translated or original,—of all his dramas, satires, and annals or metrical chronicles,-the scantiest fragments alone remain.* Hence time has hallow'd his immortal name, And, with increasing years, increas'd his fame. IV. A ROMAN TRIBUNE WITHSTANDING THE AT- FORTH on the tribune, like a shower, but vain the utmost might none can the tribune smite. And many a spear he shivers then, While with many a jet of reeking sweat No breathing time the tribune has no pause the winged iron, provoke him and environ And lance and sling destruction bring FOR no Marsian augur, (whom fools view with awe,) Nor diviner, nor star-gazer, care I a straw; our streets, Some hungry, some crazy, but all of them cheats. Impostors! who vaunt that to others they'll show A path, which themselves neither travel nor know. Since they promise us wealth if we pay for their pains, Let them take from that wealth, and bestow what remains. VI. ARE THERE GODS? YES! there are gods; but they no thought bestow VII. THE IDLE SOLDIER. WHO know not leisure to employ, Toil more than those whom toils employ; VIII. THE CALM OF EVENING. IX. THE SAME SUBJECT. SWEET smil'd the Olympian Father from above, And the hush'd storms return'd his smile of love! X. ON THE REVIVAL OF ILIUM IN ROME. SACK'D, but not captive,-burn'd, but not consum'd, Nor yet, on Dardan plains, to perish doom'd. XI. THE CHARACTER OF AN ADVISER AND FRIEND. [Supposed by many to be a portrait of the poet himself.] Whate'er concern'd his fortunes was disclos'd, A soul serene, contentment, eloquence; THE heaven's vast world stood silent; Neptune All things to speak in place and season due; PLAUTUS, so named from his splay feet, was play of Epicharmus, and imitated by Ludovico a native of Sarsina, a town in Umbria. From his father, a freedman, he is said to have received a good education, and, turning his attention early to the stage, soon realized a considerable fortune by the popularity of his dramas. This, however, he afterwards lost,-by ill success in trade, according to some, or by spending it, as others say, on theatrical ornaments and dresses, as an actor, at a time when, owing to the great famine then prevalent at Rome, theatrical amusements were little resorted to. To such necessity was he reduced, as to labour in a mill for his daily support. Many of his plays were written in these unfavourable circumstances, and may, therefore, claim from the critic an indulgence to which they could not otherwise pretend. Plautus has left nineteen comedies, almost all of them, more or less, borrowed from the ancients, and imitated by the moderns. Amongst these may be enumerated the Amphitryon, taken from a Dolce, Moliere, and Dryden; the Menæchmi, borrowed, it is supposed, from some lost play of Menander or Epicharmus, and known on the English stage, as the origin of Shakspeare's Comedy of Errors; the Aulularia, or little pot of money, supposed likewise to have been borrowed from the Greek, and freely drawn on by Moliere, Fielding, and Goldoni, in their respective comedies of L'Avare, Miser, and Vero Amico;-The Casina, translated from Diphilus, a Greek writer of the new comedy and a contemporary of Menander, and imitated by Machiaval in his Clitia, and Beaumarchais in his Marriage de Figaro.-Plautus, writing for his bread, and consulting rather the humours of the many, than the tastes of the few, has frequently exposed himself to the lash of censure; yet, with all his irregularities and defects, he is absolutely pure as compared with Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Dryden, Wycherly, and other of our dramatic writers in the days of the Stuarts. Now lend attention, whilst that I unfold ward A lantern in his hand-He makes for home, ACT I. SCENE I. SOSIA advances with a lantern. Sos. Is there a bolder fellow? Is there any one More stout of heart than I am? I, who know The humours of our wild young sparks, yet dare Walk by myself at this late hour of night. What shall I do now, if the watch should seize And thrust me in a prison?-Why, to-morrow I shall be serv'd up from that dainty larder, And well dress'd with a whipping:-not a word Allow'd me in my own defence;-no master Nay, thinks it just, and never counts the toil, Merc. (aside.) On this account I have more reason surely to complain Of servitude,-I, who before was free, Though now my father has me for his slave: This fellow, who was born a slave, complains! But hold-I only am a slave in name. Sos. Stay, now I think on't. I should thank the gods For my arrival. Would they recompense me, His deserts Merc. He knows then, which such fellows seldom do. Sos. Well, to come home in a whole skin!'twas what I never thought, or any of our people. The war extinguished, and the enemy slain, Merc. |