MISCELLANEOUS PASSAGES FROM PLAUTUS. PLAUTUS, in the last scene of the Trinummus, thus describes the connection between inward feeling and outward expression Si quid stulte fecit, ut ea missa faciat omnia. Quid quassas caput? CH. Conciatur cor mihi, et metuo. The practice of unction was adopted by the Greeks and Romans on a variety of occasions: at gymnastic exercises, after public or private bathing, medicinally, and at banquets and festivals as a luxury. This custom at the bath is mentioned in Pænulo: - Quid multa verba? faciam, ubi tu laveris, The literal meaning of latrocinantur is, those who serve in war for pay. I have already remarked on the Miser of Plautus at considerable length: but I cannot refrain from adding the following passage, in which Euclio suspects that even the cock had been suborned by the cooks to scratch for his pot of crowns, and executes summary justice on him accordingly: Condigne etiam meus me intus gallus gallinaceus, Capio fustem, obtrunco gallum, furem manifestarium. Quid opus est verbis? facta est pugna in gallo gallinaceo. Sed Megadorus meus affinis eccum incedit a foro. H H PASSAGE FROM TACITUS. WH HEN we are told lib. iii. Annal. that Agrippina, "postquam duobus cum liberis, feralem urnam tenens, egressa navi, defixit oculos," &c. it seems from the testimony of concurrent historians, that the two children of Germanicus were Caligula, who went with his father into the East; and Julia, who was born in the Isle of Lesbos. PASSAGE FROM QUINCTILIAN. THE great Roman authority, on the subject of education, was nearly as general in his system as those of the moderns who object to our public schools and universities, as being too confined and exclusive. He evidently wishes young students to revolve round all the sciences:" Hæc de Grammatica, quam brevissime potui, non ut omnia dicerem sectatus, quod infinitum erat; sed ut maxime necessaria: nunc de cæteris artibus, quibus instituendos prius, quam tradantur rhetori, pueros existimo, strictim subjungam, ut efficiatur orbis ille doctrinæ, quam Græci ¿yxúxλiov @aidelay vocant.” Quinct. lib. i. ch. 10. PASSAGE FROM ARISTOPHANES. ARISTOPHANES is the most artful of satirists. He slides almost imperceptibly from general sarcasm to personalities. Before he particularises Socrates and his disciples by name, he sets their doctrines in an invidious light, and describes what he represents as their sophistry, to consist in injury to the state, by the evasion of the laws, and fraud on individuals by bilking their creditors. Ψυχῶν σοφῶν τοῦτ ̓ ἐστὶ φροντιστήριον. The govTogo here mentioned is a school, or large establishment, of which many persons are inmates, living on a footing of common interests, without exclusive property, and for the purpose of cultivating literature and philosophy. We here see the germ of monastic institutions. THE END. LONDON: Printed by A. & R. Spottiswoode, New-Street-Square. |