(From 2nd edition).
This attempt to giveMenanderto the english stage is based Upon his ‘Heautontimorumenos’ as we know it throughTerence. That play, though marked by roman taste, is a work of high excellence; but as it stands would be unpresentable to a christian audience, chiefly on account of the story ofAntiphila’sexposure, which must depriveChremesof sympathy. And, since the liberties whichTerencetook withMenandercannot be determined, it was but mannerly to extend the necessary alteration, and suppress the slaves with their tedious and difficult intrigue. Thus altered, only about one-sixth of the latin original remains; and the play is perhaps not so sound in plot asTerencemade it, and is still weighted with the badness of hisBacchis[Gorgo]; but it has the advantage of being more easily followed. The construction of the modern stage required the opening change. All that is beautiful inTerence, and therefore possibly most of what wasMenander’s, has beencarefully preserved; and some extant fragments of his have also found a lodging.
The metre is a line of six stresses, written according to rules of english rhythm; and its correspondence with the latin comic trimeter iambic is an accident. Whatever a stress may carry, it should never be made to carry more than one long syllable with it,—the comic vein allowing some license as to what is reckoned as long;—but as there are no conventional, or merely metric stresses (except sometimes in the sixth place; and in the third, when the midverse break usual in english six-stressed verse is observed, or that place is occupied by a proper name), the accompanying long and short syllables may have very varied relation of position with regard to their carrying stress. Where more than four short unstressed syllables come together, a stress is distributed or lost; and in some conditions of rhythm this may occur when only four short syllables come together; and this distributed stress occurs very readily in the second, fourth, and fifth places. Such at least seem some of the rhythmic laws, any infringement of which must be regarded as a fault or liberty of writing: and the best has not been made of the metre. A natural emphasizing of the sense gives all the rhythm that is intended.
The author thinks that so much explanation is due to the reader, because the verse is new. He has been told that it will be said by the critics to be prose; but that if it were printed as prose, they might pronounce it to be verse: and this is the effect aimed at; since a comic metre which will admit colloquial speech without torturing it must have such a loose varying rhythm.
(From Montaigne’s essays, II. 8.)
‘Feu M. le Mareschal de Monluc, ayant perdu son filz qui mourut en l’Isle de Maderes, brave Gentilhomme à la verité, et de grande esperance, me faisoit fort valoir entre ses autres regrets, le desplaisir et creve-cœur qu’il sentoit de ne s’estre jamais communiqué à luy: et sur cette humeur d’une gravité et grimace paternelle, avoir perdu la commodité de gouster et bien cognoistre son filz; et aussi de luy declarer l’extreme amitié qu’il luy portoit, et le digne jugement qu’il faisoit de sa vertu.“Et ce pauvre garçon, disoit-il, n’a rien veu de moy qu’une contenance refroignée et pleine de mespris; et a emporté cette creance, que je n’ay sceu ny l’aimer ny l’estimer selon son merite. A qui guardoy-je à descouvrir cette singuliere affection que je luy portoy dans mon ame? Estoit-ce pas luy qui en devoit avoir tout le plaisir et toute l’obligation? Je me suis contraint et gehenné pour maintenir ce vain masque: et y ay perdu le plaisir de sa conversation, et sa volonté quant et quant, qu’il ne me peut avoir portée autre que bien froide, n’ayant jamais receu de moy que rudesse, ny senti qu’une façon tyrannique.” Je trouve cette plainte estoit bien prise et raisonable.’ It surprises me that Montaigne does not in this place refer to Menedemus. In the tenth essay, Des Livres, he writes thus of Terence: ‘Quant an bon Terence, la mignardise, et les graces du langage latin, je le trouve admirable à representer au vif les mouvemens de l’ame, et la condition de nos mœurs: à toute heure nos actions me rejettent à luy: Je ne le puis lire si souvent que je n’y treuve quelque beauté et grace nouvelle.... Sa gentilesse et sa mignardise nous retiennent par tout. Il est partout si plaisant,Liquidus, puroque simillimus amni, et nous remplit tant l’ame de ses graces, que nous en oublions celles de sa fable.’