transported with joy and kisses his treasure: all this is very natural, but the result is very unexpected. He cries out suddenly, "to whom shall I return thanks? to the gods who took pity upon an honest man, or to my friends who have behaved so fairly? to both." He then puts the treasure into the hands of his son-in-law, and consents that he and his wife shall live with him: a slave then addresses the audience: "Euclio has changed his niggard nature on a sudden-he's become liberal.' This conclusion cannot be approved; because it violates one of the primary laws of the drama, which requires an unity of character to the last. A miser is not transformed so instantaneously; especially at the very moment when his treasure being just restored, it should be supposed to be dearer to him than ever. Great talent is displayed in the rest of the piece, but the catastrophe and some other faults which it displays, convince one that Plautus had not advanced far in the dramatic art. Those who are in search of subjects for comic operas, may find one in the Casina of our author, which has more gayety than any other of his comedies. There is an old man who is smitten with a slave that had been brought up in his house, and who is desirous of marrying her to one of his dependents, in order that he may still have her within his power. This is precisely the plan which the count de Almaviva proposes to Susanna in the Wedding of Figaro, excepting that the slave is more accommodating than the accomplice. The wife of the old man having discovered the plot, protects another slave, whom she directs to demand the girl in marriage. After various debates on the subject between the husband and his wife, they agree to decide the fate of the girl by drawing lots. The husband's candidate succeeds, but he enters into a league with the wife to deceive his master, who upon going to bed, instead of finding the person whom he expected, is encountered by a robust slave, by whom he is treated very roughly. This catastrophe partakes very much of the character of farce: but we have many imitations of it on the modern stage. NOTES OF A DESULTORY READER.-FOR THE PORT FOLIO. THE HENRIADE. VOLTAIRE, in his essay on epic poetry, furnishes a flattering apology for imitation, if not for plagiarism, in his preference of Virgil to Homer. Homere a fait Virgile, dit on. Sí cela est, c'est sans doute, son plus bel ouvrage. Homer, they say, has made Virgil; but if so, it is unquestionably the best work he ever made. But whether correct or not in this opinion, the wit has amply availed himself of its sanction, in the hope perhaps, that he might attain the superlative degree of excellence, and eclipse the copy as far as it has eclipsed the original; a point which he has achieved in the opinion of lord Chesterfield, (see his letters.) At any rate, the French epic makes very free with the Roman one, as well in the conduct as in the sentiment and language of the poem. In the Eneiad, the godlike man relates the disasters of Troy to the queen of Carthage: in like manner the hero of the Henriad, is made to recite the misfortunes of France to the queen of England, not forgetting the introductory, Infandum regina jubes renovare dolorem. Helas! reprit Bourbon faut il que ma mémoire The French poet does not indeed present us with a Troytown burnt, but he uses very little ceremony in borrowing sentiments and images from the masterpiece of Homer. Laocoon says, "quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes;" and Bourbon has the same idea when he says, Quelques uns soupconnoint ces perfides presents, Les dons d'un ennemi leur sembloint trop à craindre, Who can doubt that this simile of Virgil, Purpureus veluti cum fios succissus aratro Demisere caput pluvia cum forte gravantur, was in the eye of the French poet when he wrote the following, in describing the death of Joyeuse! Telle une tendre fleur qu'un matin voit éclore De baisirs de Zephire et de pleurs de l'Aurore, Brille un moment aux yeux et tombe avec le temps Sous le tranchent du fer, ou sous les efforts des vents. The imitation however is not so exact as to warrant the charge of plagiarism. St. Louis's transportation of Henry to heaven, and hell, and presenting him in the palace of the destinies with his posterity, and the great men whom France was to produce, is a pretty faithful copy of Eneas's descent into the lower regions and Elysian fields, and the picture given him of the future glories and misfortunes of his country. The narration in Virgil is as closely imitated in the Henriade as the difference of subject will admit, and the same ideas are introduced where feasible, of which the following is an instance: Ostendent terris hunc tentum fata, neque ultra Esse sinent. Grand dieu! ne faites, vous que montrer aux humains Ovid also has been copied, though, in respect to the sense, improved upon in the following line: Henri n'aura jamais vainqueur que lui même Ne quisquam Ajacem possit superare nisi Ajax. But Voltaire is not only charged with imitating favourite authors, but even those that have been the objects of his sarcasms; and we are told by Mrs. Montague, that his ungrateful soil has been fertilized by the "enormous dunghill" of Shakspeare. I am far from lessening the merit of copying with ingenuity and incorporating a good passage without the awkward ceremonial of recognizing the soil from which it has been transplanted; and in this, without wishing to detract a tittle from his justly admired genius, be it said, that Monsieur de Voltaire was exceedingly adroit. Should further evidence be required, turn to the third chapter of his essay on Epic poetry, where he treats of Virgil and the fable of his poem, and particularly of the harpies, and vessels of Eneas transformed into nymphs. Precisely the same remarks will be found in the 5th vol. of the Spectator, No. 351 But returning to the Henriade-If Voltaire has borrowed beauties, he has also many original ones, to which his title is unquestionable; and which may justify lord Chesterfield in saying, that "the poem is adorned with the justest and liveliest reflections, the most beautiful descriptions, the noblest images and sublimest sentiments." As respects the last, I will select a single example. Un Juge incorruptible y rassemble à ses pieds, MARMONTEL. In what degree of literary eminence this writer stands among his countrymen, I pretend not to know, but probably it is not in the first. His plays I have been told, if not forgotten, are neglected, and seldom if ever brought upon the stage. As to his Belisarius, by which it would appear he acquired much fame, I could never read it through; whether it be owing to my utter inability to relish fables reared upon history, or to be interested with abstract speculations on government, which presuppose a better nature and more exalted sentiments of generosity and justice in man in the aggregate, than I, in my most philanthropic moods, have yet been able to discover in him. But his memoirs are delightful; and he appears to be distinguished by a simplicity and unaffectedness of manner, admirably adapted to works of that kind. I have never met with a better told, and more fascinating episode than that of the romantic Mademoiselle Navarre: nor a man more agreeably characterized than the opera-singer Geliotte, "gentle, good-humoured, amistoux, &c." He gives us also some pleasing traits of "the good, the wise, the virtuous Vauvenargue," as well as of most of the personages he introduces. Taste and amenity in monsieur Marmontel, seem to predominate over energy of genius. The name of Vauvenargue suggests the very eloquent oration of Voltaire upon the officers who lost their lives in the war of 1743. I think it is in a peculiar manner dedicated to the memory of this gentleman, who belonged to the king's regiment of guards, and who, according to his panegyrist, had soared to the sublimest heights of virtue and wisdom, in an age of frivolity and folly. WALTER SCOTT. In literature, as in other things, when one finds himself obliged to dissent from established opinions, it becomes him to do it with diffidence. This remark, however, does not apply to the general merit of Mr. Scott, who certainly exercises over my mind the power of a poet, in as great a degree perhaps as the nature of his subjects, and his antiquated ballad-manner of treating them, will admit. But I am compelled to say, that I do not discover the ascending series discerned by others in the order of his poems; nor am I disposed to grant, that his Lady of the Lake is superior to his two preceding productions, or either of them. I have not, it is true, examined the works with a critical eye, and rather speak here from a first impression, which, with due allowance for the mental mood of the reader, is not perhaps the worst mode of estimating the comparative value of poetical compositions. In the Lady of the Lake then, not a single passage is recollected which filled me with rapture, which arrested my progress and induced me to read it over. In Marmion, on the contrary, I often fed with a truly epicurean relish. The opening of the poem with Norham's battlements gilded with the last rays of the sun; the introduction of Marmion approaching on his charger, as well as the description of the smoke which enveloped the castle-walls on firing the guns at his departure, appeared to me traits charmans; nor less so, the lively picture of the vessel bearing through "the green sea-foam" the abbess of St. Hilda and her nuns; the midnight tilting on Gifford moor, with an imagined spectre and Marmion's relation of it to Douglass; his timely escape from Tantallon, by dashing through the opening before the fall of the portcullis, and thundering over the drawbridge already trembling under the efforts to raise it. These |