The Sun.
London, England, 1821-04-26 00:00:00

FOREIGN LITERATURE.

• (No. XXII.)
• Ts:: COSIPLETE LATIN THEATRE, translated into
FRENCH by J. B. LEVEE, and the late Abbe LE MON-
NZETt, with Dissertations by M. AMAERY DLTVAL, Man-
he: cf the Academy of Inscriptions, and M. ALEXANDER.
- "tIVAL, Member of the French Academy.
in our former articles (see the SUN of Saturday
. and Monday last) we endeavoured to exhibit in
. their true light the real merits of the master-
piece of the ancient comic writers, and to account
for those inconsistencies which are so frequent in
the comedies of Plautus and Terence. We now
proceed to examine the French translation of the
works of these celebrated writers.—M. Levee
has published the text of Plautus and Terence ;
he has translated all the plays of• the . first
of these authors, and for those of the latter
he has made. use of the translation of • the Abbe
Lemonnier ; he has added a great number of
philological and archTological notes, either to ex-
plain the difficulties of the original, to relate
those customs to which certain passages allude,
or to justify his translation of Plautus; he has
also published the notes of the Abbe Lenionnier
on Terence, and has given some of his own, where
. he has found it necessary, in order to rectify
errors of the version, or to elucidate the most
difficult passages. The whole is ;;receded by a
good. dissertation on Plautus and his writings, by
• M. Levee, and by a preface of the Abbe. Le-
- . monnier on Terence; and at the conclusion of

eaci: volurueare some very curious observations

on the comedies it contains, by M. M. Amaury
and Alexander Duval, observations which have
been improperly termed dissertations in the title
page. Of these two Latin authors, Terence is the
one most frequently quoted, and who is present-
ed to• us as an excellent 'model of the Latin lan-
guage; • he displays more knowledge of the hu-
man heart, is the most consistent, and above all
the most decent. Although his comedies bearlhe
impression of the times and of Roman manners,
they resemble most of our modern comedic's. The
inconsistencies- of • which we spoke in Our first ar-
ticle, are not.so numerous as in Plautus, and they
are always less offensive. liis dialogue, elegant
and pure throughout, • is still more to be admired
for its
.depth of reasoning; the scenes •are arrang-
ed with much .skill, and sentences' and words
thrown in as: .by chance prepare the way for the
subsequent scenes and situations. These come-
dies ;prove to
,us, in:short. that the art was Men
no-ionger in its infancy,;as Is sometimes too light.-
ly ',asSerted and `although Jhese pieces are not
exact
.representati-otis, of modern -marindrs,. yet
there- is not ore from - which a comic • author
m
• ight. not obtain both good ..ep. . •mples and• usefni
lessbr.s. • ... 2 • • - • •
•

. .
But if the author of 'the • ..rindria, of -tJae4da,hi,
and above all of.Phornzio,seerns to excel his.pre-
dlcessor, it is not So in every respect, ,since he
raust.yield"to him even in the most essential part
of the art, in the comic. There is-rto dniibt but
Plautus has more vivacity,
,more humour and
=ore variety. If 'a comedy ought to excite laugh-
ter, and if it ought' rather' to be an object of
amusement than of study to the spectators, the
pieces of Plautus are certainly better comedies
than those of Terence;' biltmonbas.vve admire him,
ve are not blind to his defects. Jests, vulgar and
gross, quibbles Whicb have not even the merit of
being puns, obscenities the most clisgusting,charac-
ters highly, often ridiculously, exaggerated, either
too vulgar or too 'vicious, some incidents so re-
volting, that they inspire us with the most pro-
found contempt for the republican virtues of the
Great People, all these defects-mu-st be allowed ;
but let us not forget what was then' •the design
of the Patin comedy, and we may be certain that
if we had had the same Tkeatres, if the same
snob had filled them, and if the performanceS had
been given gratis, Cumberland would never have
thought of writing the Wheel if Fortune, or I'f:to-
r:ere the It-figardhropc ; and we should have had
as much of the intriguing Valet as there is of Syrus,
of Oa v us , and of Geta,in the Latin comedies. Let
usbesides. consider by how inauy poignant and
agreeable traits, by how many relations full of-wit,

'by what truth of dialogue, an.l by Vt t er.crgy of
expret'sioti Plautus bas. atotled for defects which
were those v: his*t.itne and "centernporp..ries, and let
us net I tz,stonihed if the ancestors of Horace
Plaz2tinos sales. Irl the, present day
Terence ungzubtedl-p the most admired ; but
every Reader who t:pealts candidly own that
Plautus is the most amusing,. .

The translators of Plautus and Terence,differ
as much as the two Latin writers. M. Levee
'has kept closer to his original ; he hal not attempt,
ed to give a Roman of the age of Scipio the man-
ners of _a Frenchman ; he only avoids the ex,
pression cf Plautus when: the Latin idiom is in=
cornpatitile' with the ' siseniu of the French lan-
guage,Und he .gives.the Spirit of the text, When
a literal translation would he indecent, as in some
.
scenes of the .4i inaria, and particularly of , the
Gasina. iI. Levee has consequently given us
Plautus himself as much as is possible in French.
' The Abbe.Lernoiiier has pursued another method
in his translation cf TerenCe : he seems desirous
of giving a modern dress to the characters of the
ancient comedy, and translates the Egmachus, the
Hec,yra, and the Adelphi as if these pieces werg
to he represented on our Theatres. For proverbs,
idionis; and allusibns peculiar to the ancient man-
ners and customs, he has substituted some -which
are not appropriate, and 'which relate to the :pre,'
sent'time. If 'he finds in the original Fallaciani
portare, he translates it
.dreSser batterie.—
The word_ expiscari.might be criven.,by- amorcer,
which would be it metaphor takenfroin the art of
fishing with baits but he has preferred saying
Tirer ler.vers ckue:4- which certainly does not
preSent a verys'agreeable' idea. 'ln the debate
about paying the sum of a great. talent to the pa-
rasite Phormio, the -old 'man Chromes exclaims,
in a passion, Immo maim hercle sThe Abbe
Lemonnier- has rendered -it thus-," Un. grd an
diable qui l'emporte." Again,. :Antipho says in
Latin, Di suet propitii and in French,
Est ce qu'il ale diable au corps ? It is true-Jhat
in imitating thiS scene. Moliere makes -Argante
say, Qu'il aille au diable' avec son mulct'; but
Moliere wrote- Tor a French theatre and au-
dience, whilst the Abbe should have pre-
served the spirit and character of a Latin
piece written for
,a Roman Theatre, When
Terence says, Quid, si dnimam debet ?
S'il dolt jusqu' a - son- time the translator
observes, that this expression would not suit' the
French, because their laws do not g7.ve the cre
ditor any power over the person of the insolvent
debtor. Now this is precisely the reason why
the expression is excellent, since it is character-
istic; and relates to. the- customs of the people re-
presented in the drama. If in- a play, the scene
being laid in Turkey, there should be any ques
tion about impaling.a criminal, Lemonnier would
no doubt have said, this punishment is not to be.
found in the Penal Code of France. What have
the French laws to do-with a play of Terence ?
The translator ought surely to have seen that
this conformity of the translation with French
usages Was absolutely impossible. The Latin
Theatre, where all the servants are slaves, where
they talk of Ediles and ?'rotors, where women,
like provisions, are looligAlt in the market, where
every thing represents the customs of the-ancients,
and the depraved manners of the republicans of
Rome, cannot pOssess the character of French
comedy, and on that very account the translator
should have preserved its .ariginal, character, and
not have shocked us by the inconsistency of at-
tempting to unite things sc., entirely opposite. It
would be just as well to give Geta and Syrus a
livery, and for Antipho and Amphitus to appear
in Court dresses, or in English frocks. This
rage for employing the common French idioms
has much diminished the force of the translation
of Terence. The phrase, for example, "
escroqu de ,'argent aux viellards ;" has it the
energy of the latin " CM?VaI argento seizes ?"
We could mention many similar faults. Let us
observe, however, that these are only faults of
the Abbe's system, that he has, notwithstanding,
well understood the merit of Terence, that his
translation is very elegant, and that if he is some-
times inaccurate, it is when he has thought it
right to depart from, instead of following his
author.

Our limits will, only allow us to make a few
observations on the translation of.Plantus, and
on the archmological notes of M. Levee. In the
version of Hecyra, we find this line at the bot-
tom of page 122 :

" Peril ! pudet Philornalm, sequimini me hue intro ambm."
It is the courtesan Bacchis who speaks: now,
how.can she say sequimini. =bre, .when three per-
sons fare present,. the nurse and two men ? One
of these,men is Phidippus, father of Philomena,
who can, therefore, with propriety Say; Suivez
rzoi &odes deztx chez ma fille." The line ought
to be written thus •
BACH'S. Perii !. pct Philomence.
Segrammt me hue intro ambx..l.'

;la the translation.:of the Captives, Hegio says,
page `229.:!" • Ce-rhtlercrat'e vtent-d'agir camera
un hannete homme." M. Levee did not observe,
that. in the original Vhilocrates is followed by a
comma, and that it is consequently in' the voca-
tive, since Ifegio thinks he is speaking to Philo
crates himself. It should therefore be read
thus- —" Philocrates,
.ce • Tyndare vient d'agir
cornme honnete haintne." There is another
passage, the original and translation of which
equally .embarrass us: In the fialularia, the
miser Euclio hides his gold in a pot; the inces-
sant trouble he giver himself to bury and dig up
this pot, and the, importance he attaches to this
gold, which forms his whole fortune, would make
us believe the sum to be very considerable, and
the servant Strohilus, •who discovers the pot, ex-
claims---" I am now. the richest man in the
world." The Latin is " Quadrilibrenz aulatn,'
aura onustam." M. Levee has translated it by
" tine, rnarndte pleine War dry poids de quatre
'livres." Thus it seems to contain only four
pounds of gold ; and surely a sum of 6000 francs
could not have been, even in those days, a great
fortune, since; in the- very same piece, a crOwn.
of Old was the common pay to a cook far his
day's work. It must, therefore, be the pot which.
weighs four poutrds, and being perhaps made of
very light metal, might be large, and capable-of
containing much more than fotty' pounds'of gotd.

The Latin, " QuaJrilibrein gut ion, aura onus-
tam," favours this .conjecture.
M. Levee in his dissertation on Plautus affirms
that the Latin and Greek Poets were not allowed
to represent on the stage the characters of women
of free condition. Yet Alcmene in 4mphytrion,
Artemone in the .Asinaria, Cleo.-,.trata ..4nd
Murrhina in the Catina, Phanostrata in tire
.are the wives of either Greek or Pt
Citizens; for they are in reality Romans whom
Plautus represents under Grecian names. In
Terence, three Sostratas, one Myrrhina, and one
Nansistrata are all women of free condition : this
inclines us to imagine that there haS been some mis-
take in the sense of the expression, and that al-
though the laivs did not allow free women ,to
appeal': on the stage; yet authors were not for-
biddn-to represent thern as characters in their
plays.

In that scene in Amphytriun, where Sosia
complains of the night being longer than usual,
M. Levee has rendered the name of the God
Nocturnal by that of Vesper. This is wrong;
for Vesper presides over the evening, Nocturnus
over the nigh!, and Lucifer over the morning. If
the slave Sosia said Vesper was asleep, he would
make a blunder, for the indolence of Vesper
would proleng•the day rather than 'the night, as
'the evening would be delayed, but Nocturuus
seeping, Lucifer could'not rise and ti .e night be-
came longer.
The frailsetatpr ,sam in a note, that the usual
height of the Roman. soldier was six feet Roman
measure, or five feet eightof the atieint French
measure. He is not correct, for six Roman feet
are equal to five feet five of the present French
Measure, and five feet eight French measure
(about &A fed English) were never the ordinary
stature of any people, and still less so amongst
the Romans, who were not by any means tall,
though their women Were generally so.
M. Levee was wrong in giving "credit to the
ancient translator Limiers, on the signification of
the word basilick ; thig was not a square, but an
edifice sufficiently spacious to deserve this fine
Dame. At the first establishment of Christianity,
the Pagan temples not being large enough to be
converted into churches, Constantine consecrated
to the new religion four superb basilicks, on the
foundation of' which now stand the churches of
St. Peter of the Vatican, St. John of the Lateran,
Santa Maria Maggiore, and St. Paul, which still
retain the name of basilicks. These little inac-
curacies and some others, which the want of room
obliges us to omit, do not prevent this translation
and the notes, of which the greater part are ex-
cellent, from being a very valuable and useful
work to those readers even who consider them-
selves as good Latin scholars. A man may have
passed through all the schools, and have obtained
many prizes, and still not perfectly • understand
the Latin of Plautus, which is often more Greek
than his Greek comedies.

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

SPANISH. PAPERS.

[RECEIVED THIS
.MORNING.]

MADRID, APRIL 9.—We have received ac-
counts from Barcelona, of which the following
appear to be- the most authentic :

" Considerahle commotions having appeared
among the people, a Junta assembled, composed
of all the Authorities and Commissioners from all
the Corporations, who resolved, to transport to
Majorca the following individuals :—The Bishop
of Barcelona, Abella, Vicar General, Lioze'r
Exinquinton, the Guardian of St. Francisco,
Generals Eroles, Sarsfield, and Tournas, Briga-
diers Andriani and Campbell, ifmrauch, com-
manding the Regiment of Barbastro, and brother
to the Bishop of Vish, Bustibumba.and March.—
The Captain General ordered, and the Junta
sanctioned it, that they should -be' embarked for
Mahon. The people also desired that the front
of the Citadel, which looks towards Barcelona;
should be demolished, but this was not ac-
ceded to.

''c The Captain General requested that the
Bishops of Vish, Tortosa, Leridas, and Urge,
and the Archbishop. elect of Tarragona should be
embarked, but nothing was decided.
"MADRID, APRIL 11.--By letters from Tangier
of 29th March, it was known at Ceuta that the
Emperor of Morocco, Muley Soliman; was en-
camped at the distance of two leagues and a half
from Tangier, commanding one of the passes
by which the rebels of Tetuan might escape.
The weather had prevented any thing further
being done, but preparations were made to' act
as soon as the weather would allow of it. igean-
time his Majesty had received by express the
agreeable news, that the people at Fez had en-
tirely repented of the conduct they had ob-
served, and that they acknowledged none but
his Majesty.' For this reason salutes of artillery
were fired at Tangier, and expresses sent to
Tetuaa, to .intimidate the rebel usurpers, who
were in want even of provisions.
" The soldiers who brought..these accounts to
Ceuta confirmed them verbally as to the present
situation of Soliman, who is at El Garbia, additig,
that, as he was returning yesterday to the camp,
some Moors of =the party of Zied met him, who
attempted., to kiil him, thinking, he was of the
uncle's panty.; ; they contented themselves
With disarming him, and Making him declare that
he was for the -nephew, who, as they informed
him, left Tetuan' with 1200 horse for tine rnoun
tains on the left, but that his route and designs
were not -ktrown.- . . •

•
" The Cortes-have been chiefly: occupied with
the debate on the law for the •,regulation of Pa-
triotic Sacieties,',which was,passecl. On the 10th
a project of taw. Was read, for abridging pro-
ceedingain the Courts of Justice, which is judged
to be- absolutely necessary for preventing or
punishing -the crimes of the ill-disposed, who at-
tempt to subvert the Constitution. • Considering
the urgent necessity of the case, it was proposed
by M. Martinez de la Rosa, that the law should
be read a third- time within four days, and that
the day should be fixed for the debate. Mean-
time it. might Pe printed and distributed ; and
when the discussion• wag once bekari it ought to
be continued without interruption till it uias

Concluded. The point being judged sufAcientlY
discussed, this was declared to be the second
reading. The third reading was fixed for Satur-
day, the 14th."-.—(Madrid Papers, April 1.2.)