SOURCE: "On the Idea of Comedy and of the Uses of the Comic Spirit," in An Essay on Comedy and the Uses of the Comic Spirit, edited by Lane Cooper, 1897. Reprint by Charles Scribner's Sons, 1918, pp. 73-155.

Meredith was a respected nineteenth-century British poet, novelist, and critic. His creative works, though they are considered to lack a philosophical framework, reflect the ideas of his age: they embody a profound belief in evolution and in the essential goodness of humanity. In the following excerpt, he briefly comments on Terence, focusing especially on his "beautiful translucency of language."

Of the six comedies of Terence, four are derived from Menander; two, the Hecyra and the Phormio, from Apollodorus. These two are inferior, in comic action and the peculiar sweetness of Menander, to the Andria, the Adelphi, the Heauton Timorumenos, and the Eunuchus; but Phormio is a more dashing and amusing convivial...