etically to the audience, to know whether any of them have picked it up, and will restore it, and so save her from a whipping, may remind a modern reader of Molière's Harpagon looking among the audience for the thief of his money. The despairing taunt with which she turns away, after pausing for some reply—
"'Tis no use asking—there's not one among ye
Does aught but laugh at a poor woman's troubles"—
is strong presumptive evidence that the spectators at a Roman comedy were almost exclusively men.
V.—THE CAPTIVES.
This pretty little drama is quite of a different complexion from the rest. The author tells us, in his prologue, that we are not to expect to find here any of the old stock characters of comedy, who, as he is free to confess, are not always of the most reputable kind. The interest is, in fact, rather pathetic than comic, and the plot is of the simplest kind. Almost the only comic element is supplied by the speaker of the prologue, who has a joke or two for the audience, of a very mild and harmless kind. The principal characters in the play appear to have been grouped in a kind of tableau on the stage while the prologue was delivered, in this as in some other plays. The prologist informs the audience that the two captives who stand in chains on his right and left, are Philocrates, a young noble of Elis, and his slave Tyndarus. There is war between Elis and the Ætolians; and these two prisoners, recently taken in battle, have been purchased amongst others by Hegio, a wealthy citizen of Ætolia, whose
