The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

[Born at Carthage, B.C. 195. Died (place uncertain), B.C. 159. Aged 36.] The second and last of the Latin comic poets--Plautus being the first--whose plays have descended to our time. He was the slave of a Roman senator, who, having regard to his talents and handsome person, gave him his liberty: on which occasion the freedman assumed his patron’s name--Terentius. In person, he was thin and of the middle height, with an olive complexion. Terence is the one Latin writer in whom the stateliness and the lofty strength, seemingly inherent in the language of Rome, at once ceases: and the tongue which we had deemed fit only to be spoken by the Kings of the world,---by the Fathers convened in the temple of Capitoline Jove,--gently condescends to the hearts and the hearths of men. In the six preserved comedies of his--both by the delineation of the characters, and by the strain of their speaking--we feel ourselves in the familiar presence of known humanity. Not but that the manner implies delicate choice and thoughtful art; but its easy, natural air deceives the belief in the actual study. The words rise up from the heart, to drop from the lip. In the dialogue of Terence, the barrier that hitherto has stood inflexibly between the modern and the antique world has fallen. We are at home in the Roman theatre. To great purity, grace, tenderness, the style adds, even in description, or narrative, or continuous argument, that utter simplicity and obviousness of the sense, which is found in the most trivial uses of speech. [From the marble in the Stanza dei Filosofi of the Capitol, at Rome. On the right shoulder is sculptured the histrionic mask, a curious fancy of the artist, which may have been suggested by the custom in Egyptian portraiture, of carving the name in a small “cartouche” on the shoulder, a practice alluded to in the scriptures.]