for amusement alone, and more extensively so to those who make it a subject of study.

Still there are many excellent dramas comparatively little known; much valuable matter bearing on the drama, remaining to be developed; and many dramatic questions, which continue to be subjects of controversy, and offer topics of interesting discussion.

It is our purpose to present our views. of some of these subjects, in the form of analyses or criticisms; not following any order of chronology or classification, but only that in which our readings or reminiscences may suggest them.

QUEROLUS; OR, THE BURIED TREASURE.

A ROMAN COMEDY OF THE THIRD CENTURY.

This comedy, which, from internal evidence, is assignable to the age of Diocletian and Maximian, is the only only Roman comedy which, in addition to the remains of Plautus and Terence, has escaped the ravages of time. It is not only on this account a great literary curiosity, but it is in itself a very amusing and original drama. It is little known in this country.

The first editors of this comedy had access to several manuscript copies of it. The last editor had access to two: the Codex

Vossianus, now in the library at Leyden, in the margin of which Vossius had written the various readings of another, the Codex Pithaus; and the Codex Parisinus, now in the library at Paris, a manuscript apparently of the eleventh century.

The first printed edition was edited by P. Danielis, in 1564. The second edition was edited by Rittershusius, and printed by Commelinus, in 1595. The third edition was published by Pareus, at the end of his edition of Plautus, in 1619. The fourth and last edition is that of Klinkhämer, published at Amsterdam in 1829. Of these editions,

the first, third, and fourth are in the British Museum; the second and fourth are in our possession.

We have thus had the opportunity of consulting all the editions of the work. The first edition was inaccessible to Klinkhämer. The second edition contains all that is important in the first, with much that is not in any other; including a long poem by Vitalis Blesensis, a writer of the middle ages, in which the story is narrated in elegiac verse: the author professing, that he now does for a second comedy of Plautus what he had previously done for his Amphitryon. The author of the comedy is, however, as we shall subsequently notice, innocent of its ascription to Plautus.

In the three first editions, the text was printed as prose. Klinkhämer recognised the traces of metre, and arranged the whole into verse, printing the prose text on the left-hand pages, and the metrical arrangement on the right. The task is executed with much skill, and little arbitrary change. In this portion of his work, as indeed in the whole of it, he derived great advantage from having been the pupil of D. J. Van Lennep, at whose instigation he undertook the edition. The result is, a most agreeable reading, of which we regretted to come to the close.

*

This play is called Querolus, sive Aulularia "Querolus, or the Comedy of the Aula, or Olla," a large covered pot or vessel of any kind, which is in this case the depository of a treasure. The dramatis personæ

are

LAR FAMILIARIS.
QUEROLUS.
MANDROGERUS.

SARDANAPALUS.

SYCOPHANTA.

PANTOLABUS.†

ARBITER.

*The learned and accomplished editor of Terentianus Maurus. He completed the edition which Santenius had begun.

†The MSS. and editions have all " Pantomalus," a barbarous composite, suitable, no doubt, to the age, but not to so correct and elegant a writer as the author of this comedy. "Pantolabus " is classical (see Hor. Sat. i. 8, 11); and Take-all suits the character in question better than All-bad.

Plautus's comedy of Aulularia (the basis of Molière's L'Avare) takes its name from a similar subject; but there is nothing in common between the comedies, excepting the buried treasure, the title, and the circumstance of the prologue being spoken by the household deity, the Lar Familiaris.

In Plautus's prologue, the Lar tells the audience, that the heads of the family had been a succession of misers, one of whom had buried a treasure, the secret of which he had not the heart, even when dying, to reveal to his son; that the son had lived and died poor and parsimonious, and had shown no honour to him, the Lar; in consequence of which he had done nothing towards aiding him to discover the buried treasure; that the grandson, the present pater familias, was no better than his predecessors; but that he had a daughter who was very pious towards her household deity; on which account he had led the father to the discovery of the treasure, in order that the daughter might have a dowry.

The comedy of Querolus has no female character, and the hero does not appear to have a family. The Lar tells the audience, that Euclio, the father of Querolus, going abroad on business, had buried a treasure before the domestic altar; that, dying abroad, he had entrusted the secret to

Mandrogerus, and had given him a letter to Querolus, enjoining his son to divide the treasure with his friend Mandrogerus, as a reward for faithfully delivering the message; that Mandrogerus had made a scheme for getting surreptitious possession of the whole; that he, the Lar, would frustrate this scheme, and take care that the treasure should go to its right owner, whom he describes as not bad, but ungrateful.

The first scene consists of a dialogue between Querolus and the Lar. Querolus enters, complaining of Fortune, when the Lar presents himself before him.

QUER.

Oh, Fortune !-oh, blind Fortune! impious Fate!

Hail, Querolus !

LAR.

QUER.

What wouldst thou with me, friend? I owe thee nothing, nor have stolen goods Of thine in my possession.

Stay, for thou must. 'Tis I, whom thou hast called

In terms of accusation.