“J’abandonne les Brus, les Enfans, et le Frere; Je ne saurois deja les souffrir sans horreur, Et je les donne tous au diable de bon cœur.”
Diderot had evidently his eye on the characters of Micio and Demea in drawing those of M. d’Orbesson and Le Commandeur, in his _Comedie Larmoyante_, entitled _Le Pere de Famille_. The scenes between the Pere de Famille and his son, St Albin, who had long secretly visited Sophie, an unknown girl in indigent circumstances, seem formed on the beautiful dialogue, already mentioned, which passes between Micio and his adopted child.
The _Adelphi_ is also the origin of Shadwell’s comedy, the _Squire of Alsatia_. Spence, in his _Anecdotes_(314), says, on the authority of Dennis the critic, that the story on which the _Squire of Alsatia_ was built, was a true fact. That the whole plot is founded on fact, I think very improbable, as it coincides most closely with that of the _Adelphi_. Sir William and Sir Edward Belfond are the two brothers, while Belfond senior and junior correspond to Æschinus and Ctesipho. The chief alteration, and that to which Dennis probably alluded, is the importance of the part assigned to Belfond senior; who, having come to London, is beset and cozened by all sorts of bankrupts and cheats, inhabitants of Alsatia, (Whitefriars,) and by their stratagems is nearly inveigled into a marriage with Mrs Termagant, a woman of infamous character, and furious temper. The part of Belfond junior is much less agreeable than that of Æschinus. His treatment of Lucia evinces, in the conclusion, a hard-hearted infidelity, which we are little disposed to pardon, especially as we feel no interest in his new mistress, Isabella. On the whole, though the plots be nearly the same, the tone of feeling and sentiment are very different, and the English comedy is as remote from the Latin original, as the grossest vulgarity can be from the most simple and courtly elegance. The _Squire of Alsatia_, however, took exceedingly at first as an occasional play. It discovered the cant terms, that were before not generally known, except to cheats themselves; and was a good deal instrumental towards causing the great nest of villains in the metropolis to be regulated by public authority(315).