The Sun.
London, England, 1851-12-16 00:00:00

THE WESTMINSTER PLAY.

Last night the great event of the year in West-
minster
School came off by the performance of the
Eunuchus of Terence. To it the students look for-
ward with the greatest interest and anxiety, and
no inconsiderable amount of training has to be
gone through in order that " the actors" may acquit
themselves creditably of the parts assigned to them.
There are not wanting many persons—rationalists
in education—who object that too much of the
student's time is lost in the endeavour to master a
single author ; but, on the other hand, there have
been most successful teachers, who maintain that the
very best means of acquiring a precise and ready
knowledge of a language is to become perfectly fa-
miliar with some one of its best authors. A more
serious objection is, perhaps, the selection of Terence
for such a purpose, who, though acknowledged on all
hands to be a writer of the purest Latin, abounds in
situations and passages of which modern taste does
not approve. However, if in obedience to a time-
honoured custom the Westminster alumni must wear
the sock and buskin for a few nights previous to
the Christmas holidays, the limited range of the
Greco-Roman drama leaves the authorities very
little choice in the matter. The language of Plautus
is too antiquated and impure, and his raillery is too
coarse, to be made the object of modern representa-
tion, although his rough, rude, Roman style is
unquestionably more true to the character of the
people before whom his plays were to be acted than
than that of his successor. Terence, on the other
hand, lived on terms of easy familiarity with some of
the first patrician families of Rome, and his pieces are
adapted from the period of the new comedy, in which
the domestic life of the Athenians was represented with
less exaggeration and less personality than in that
of the middle comedy, which Plautius for the most
past imitated. It should always be remembered, in
witnessing a play of Terence, that, althouga we hear
the Roman tongue, we are never brought face to face
with Roman ideas, Roman manners, or Roman cha-
racter. Everything—the inner spirit and the out-
ward form, even to costume and lccality—is
Grecian, and for the most part Athenian ; and it i s
undeniable that not a single new character wa,
added by the Roman playwrights to thoss
they found already existing. The Ennuchu
for instance, is a mere copy of Monander''
play of the same name, the two principal characters
Guatho and Thraso, being dovetailed in from the
Kolax of the same author. The characters were dis-
tributed last night as follows :—Phcedria, Mr. G. de
L. Lacy; Parmeno, Mr. G. B. Macilwain ; Thais,
Mr. F. H. Dodgson ; Guatho, Mr. S. Joyce ; Chcerea,
Mr. W. G. Armitstead (captain of the school);
Pythias, Mr. Q. W. F. Twiss ; Chremes, Mr. V. T.
Green ; Dories, Mr. H. Linscomb ; Dorus, Mr. C.
W. Fendall ; Sanga, Mr. A. F. A. Slade; Sophrona,
Mr. F. H. R. Hewett ; Laches, Mr. E. Somerville.
Mutw Personae : Pamphila, Mr. E. Wodehouse ; Sima-
lio, Mr. J. G. Edwards; Dorox, Mr. H. Salwey ;
Syriscus, Mr. A. L. Onslow ; Ancilla Ahhiops, Mr.
R. T. Waters; Ancilla, Mr. H. W.,Harrison. We
can only add that the acting was in the usual
style of excellence manifested by the " Westminster
Boys," although the play does not afford so many
salient points as the Andria, which was the play of the
preceding year. The Guatho of Mr. Joyce was a
rich and unctuous personation, and the Chcerea of
Ir. Armistead had all the order and vehemence re-
quired in the delineation of that character. The
Pythias of Mr. Twiss excited much laughter, and the
whole performance amply merited the plaudite with
which the play concludes.

SEABORNE MAILS.
[N signifies that the mails are sent front the General Post-office
by the night—and M by the morning—dispatch.)