families. Of the other characters who are introduced, two of the most common, and therefore, we must suppose, the most popular, are the Braggadocio and the Parasite. The former is usually a soldier of fortune who has served in the partisan wars in Asia, under some of those who were disputing for the fragments of Alexander's empire; who has made money there, and come to Athens—as a modern successful adventurer might go to Paris—to spend it. He has long stories to tell of his remarkable exploits abroad, which no one is very well able to contradict, and to which those who accept his dinners are obliged to listen with such patience as they may. His bravery consists much more in words than deeds: he thinks that his reputation will win him great favour from the ladies, but on this point he commonly finds himself very much mistaken. How far such a character was common at Athens in Menander's time, we cannot say: he appears, with variations, in at least five of his comedies of which fragments have reached us, and in no less than eight out of the twenty which remain to us of Plautus. He would evidently present salient points for the farce-writer, and it is not surprising to find him reproduced, no doubt an adaptation from these earlier sketches, as the "Spanish Captain" of Italian comedy, or the "Derby Captain" of our own. He is the Don Gaspard of Scarron's 'Jodelet Duelliste,' Le Capitaine Matamore of Corneille's 'L'Illusion Comique,' and the Bobadil of Jonson's 'Every Man in his Humour.' In Spain or Italy he is perhaps more in his natural place—for these military adventurers were not uncommon in the Continental wars of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen-
