made laughably extravagant; in many cases it is sufficiently obvious
that he expected his actors to indulge in grotesqueries, well or ill
timed, no matter, provided they brought guffaws. It is probable,
therefore, that in many other cases, where the tone and “stage business”
are not as obvious, where an actor’s high seriousness might elicit
catcalls, and burlesque certainly would elicit chuckles, Plautus
wished his players to avoid the catcalls.

This is by no means the universal rule. In the writer of the _Captivi_,
for instance, we are dealing with a dramatist whose aims are different
and higher. Though Lessing’s encomium of the play is one to which not
all of us can assent, and though even the _Captivi_ shows some technical
flaws, it is a work which must be rated according to the standards we
apply to a _Minna von Barnhelm_ rather than according to those applied
to a _Pinafore_: here, certainly, we have comedy, not farce.

But whatever standards be applied to his plays their outstanding
characters, their amusing situations, their vigour and comicality
of dialogue remain. Euclio and Pyrgopolynices, the straits of the
brothers Menaechmus and the postponement of Argyrippus’s desires, the
verbal encounter of Tranio and Grumio, of Trachalio and the fishermen--
characters, situations, and dialogues such as these should survive
because of their own excellence, not because of modern imitations and
parallels such as Harpagon and Parolles, the misadventures of the
brothers Antipholus and Juliet’s difficulties with her nurse, the
remarks of Petruchio to the tailor, of Touchstone to William.

Though his best drawn characters can and should stand by themselves,
it is interesting to note how many favourite personages in the modern
drama and in modern fiction Plautus at least prefigures. Long though