"whom the hopes, the lives, of all men depend; Grant, I implore thee, that this day may be prosperous to my affairs." In the same play*, Hanno having addressed the tutelary deities of the country of Calydon in Ætolia, (where he is represented to arrive as a stranger,) entreating them to favour the recovery of his two daughters, who had been taken away by pirates, afterwards +, in an ejaculation, invokes the great Lord of heaven and earth by the name of Baal (Balsamen or Beelsamen). The Carthaginians were descended from the Phonicians, who worshipped Baal, and many of their distinguished men assumed the title of Baal, in addition to their names, as Hannibal the greatest lord, Asdrubal the mighty lord, and others. It is remarkable, that the sixteen first verses of the fifth act of the Pænulus, containing the prayer addressed by Hanno to the tutelary deities, are written in the Punic language; or as Bochart & maintains, the ten first are written in Punic, and the six last * Pœn. Act 5. scene 1. † Act 5. scene 2. Selden, Titles of Honour. Vol. iii. p. 933-950. 66 in Lybian; both of which dialects the Carthaginians used, and were thereby called Bilingues" and "Bisulcilinguæ." Bochart has expressed the first ten lines in Hebrew characters, (being as he conceives, in meaning the same as the six last) with a view to ascertain how far the Hebrew and Punic dialects corresponded with, or differed from, each other; and by this means he extracts the sense of the Punic, from the corresponding Hebrew words, sufficiently in agreement with that which Plautus himself has given of the same words. It should be observed, that the Punic words in Plautus were originally written, according to the Commentators, without vowels, which afterwards were inserted by some officious copyists. If the ruins of Carthage should ever be explored, as they well deserve to be *, it is not impossible that some important memorials of the Punic language may be discovered. Bochart Chanaan, lib. ii. c. 6. CHAP. XLI. Publius Terentius. TERENCE was born at Carthage, ten years after the conclusion of the second Punic war, 192 years before the birth of Christ, when the Romans enjoyed some leisure and repose. He was brought as a slave to Rome, but was soon liberated, and so distinguished himself as to be admitted to the friendship of Scipio and Lælius, in whose houses he acquired that pure and po. lite style of familiar dialogue, for which he is justly admired. Five of the six plays of Terence which remain, are borrowed, as to their subject, from the Grecian stage. It will not be expected that they afford much which bears any reference to the design of the present work. It has already been remarked, that the law which directed the nearest of kin to marry the widow of a deceased person, and which is represented by Terence to have prevailed at Athens, was probably derived from the Mosaic precept* upon this subject, though the motive for the original appointment of the law, had an exclusive relation to the Jewish people, as intended to keep up the distinction of their tribes, with a view to the fulfilment of prophecy. There are passages in Terence, with respect to the superior efficacy of the prayers of good men, and the futility of babbling repetitions in the expression of gratitude towards the gods, which indicate right apprehensions of the attributes of the Divine nature, and in which the author derides a practice that is a subject of censure to the Sacred Writers. The Plays of Terence, composed with elaborate skill, on the designs of Menander, exhibit the characters of human life, and delineate the passions of men, with the most lively and pleasing expressions of nature. Deut. xxv. 3. 5. and the book of Ruth. + Psalm lxvi. 18. Ibid. xxxiv. 16. Isaiah i. 15. See also Grotius on John ix. 31. Heaut. Act 5. scene i. line 6. Grotius on Matt, vi. 7. They contain sentiments of great beauty, and often interest the feelings by an amiable and benevolent turn of thought, they are written also with a native and playful pleasantry, expressed with a peculiar terseness and purity of language. But however calculated to excite a correct taste, they have a dangerous tendency as to their moral effect; free in general from indelicacy of expression, they are not free from impurity of subject, and veil great profligacy of conduct under ingenious palliation and secular excuses, and it requires all the rectitude and probity of the Christian principle, to correct the influence of those representations which have a tendency to injure the mind, and to which it ought not to be familiarized, especially before the judgment is matured. Luther is related, indeed, to have read them twice in two months*, but as Grotius has observed, "alia legimus in "his pueri, alia viri †." A conviction that much prejudice would result from the use of them in the early periods of youth, led Hieronymus Freyerus B. Faber. ad Synonym Terent. + Morhosii Polyhist. 1. iii. c. 9. § 29. p. 665. |