The works of Richard Hurd, volume 2 (of 8)

by Richard Hurd

CRITICAL DISSERTATIONS.

I.	[ON THE IDEA OF UNIVERSAL POETRY.]
II.	[ON THE PROVINCES OF DRAMATIC POETRY.]
III.	[ON POETICAL IMITATION.]
IV.	[ON THE MARKS OF IMITATION.]

VATIBVS ADDERE CALCAR,
VT STVDIO MAIORE PETANT HELICONA VIRENTEM.
Hor.

A
DISSERTATION
ON THE
IDEA OF UNIVERSAL POETRY.

DISSERTATION I.
ON THE
IDEA OF UNIVERSAL POETRY.

When we speak of poetry, as an art, we mean such a way or method of treating a subject, as is found most pleasing and delightful to us. In all other kinds of literary composition, pleasure is subordinate to USE: in poetry only, PLEASURE is the end, to which use itself (however it be, for certain reasons, always pretended) must submit.

This idea of the end of poetry is no novel one, but indeed the very same which our great philosopher entertained of it; who gives it as the essential note of this part of learning—THAT IT SUBMITS THE SHEWS OF THINGS TO THE DESIRES OF THE MIND: WHEREAS REASON DOTH BUCKLE AND BOW THE MIND UNTO THE NATURE OF THINGS. For to gratify the desires of the mind, is to PLEASE: Pleasure then, in the idea of Lord Bacon, is the ultimate and appropriate end of poetry; for the sake of which it accommodates itself to the desires of the mind, and doth not (as other kinds of writing, which are under the controul of reason) buckle and bow the mind to the nature of things.

But they, who like a principle the better for seeing it in Greek, may take it in the words of an old philosopher, Eratosthenes, who affirmed—ποιητὴν πάντα στοχάζεσθαι ψυχαγωγίας, οὐ διδασκαλίας—of which words, the definition given above, is the translation.

This notion of the end of poetry, if kept steadily in view, will unfold to us all the mysteries of the poetic art. There needs but to evolve the philosopher’s idea, and to apply it, as occasion serves. The art of poetry will be, universally, THE ART OF PLEASING; and all its rules, but so many MEANS, which experience finds most conducive to that end;

Sic ANIMIS natum inventumque poema JUVANDIS.

Aristotle has delivered and explained these rules, so far as they respect one species of poetry, the dramatic, or, more properly speaking, the tragic: And when such a writer, as he, shall do as much by the other species, then, and not till then, a complete ART OF POETRY will be formed.

I have not the presumption to think myself, in any degree, equal to this arduous task: But from the idea of this art, as given above, an ordinary writer may undertake to deduce some general conclusions, concerning Universal Poetry, which seem preparatory to those nicer disquisitions, concerning its several sorts or species.

I. It follows from that IDEA, that it should neglect no advantage, that fairly offers itself, of appearing in such a dress or mode of language, as is most taking and agreeable to us. We may expect then, in the language or style of poetry, a choice of such words as are most sonorous and expressive, and such an arrangement of them as throws the discourse out of the ordinary and common phrase of conversation. Novelty and variety are certain sources of pleasure: a construction of words, which is not vulgar, is therefore more suited to the ends of poetry, than one which we are every day accustomed to in familiar discourse. Some manners of placing them are, also, more agreeable to the ear, than others: Poetry, then, is studious of these, as it would by all means, not manifestly absurd, give pleasure: And hence a certain musical cadence, or what we call Rhythm, will be affected by the poet.

But, of all the means of adorning and enlivening a discourse by words, which are infinite, and perpetually grow upon us, as our knowledge of the tongue, in which we write, and our skill in adapting it to the ends of poetry, increases, there is none that pleases more, than figurative expression.

By figurative expression, I would be understood to mean, here, that which respects the pictures or images of things. And this sort of figurative expression is universally pleasing to us, because it tends to impress on the mind the most distinct and vivid conceptions; and truth of representation being of less account in this way of composition, than the liveliness of it, poetry, as such, will delight in tropes and figures, and those the most strongly and forceably expressed. And though the application of figures will admit of great variety, according to the nature of the subject, and the management of them must be suited to the taste and apprehension of the people, to whom they are addressed, yet, in some way or other, they will find a place in all works of poetry; and they who object to the use of them, only shew that they are not capable of being pleased by this sort of composition, or do, in effect, interdict the thing itself.

The ancients looked for so much of this force and spirit of expression in whatever they dignified with the name of poem, that Horace tells us it was made a question by some, whether comedy were rightly referred to this class, because it differed only, in point of measure, from mere prose.

Idcirco quidam, comoedia necne poema
Esset, quaesivere: quod acer spiritus, ac vis,
Nec verbis, nec rebus inest: nisi quod pede certo
Differt sermoni, sermo merus—
Sat. l. I. iv.

But they might have spared their doubt, or at least have resolved it, if they had considered that comedy adopts as much of this force and spirit of words, as is consistent with the nature and degree of that pleasure, which it pretends to give. For the name of poem will belong to every composition, whose primary end is to please, provided it be so constructed as to afford all the pleasure, which its kind or sort will permit.

II. From the idea of the end of poetry, it follows, that not only figurative and tropical terms will be employed in it, as these, by the images they convey, and by the air of novelty which such indirect ways of speaking carry with them, are found most delightful to us, but also that FICTION, in the largest sense of the word, is essential to poetry. For its purpose is, not to delineate truth simply, but to present it in the most taking forms; not to reflect the real face of things, but to illustrate and adorn it; not to represent the fairest objects only, but to represent them in the fairest lights, and to heighten all their beauties up to the possibility of their natures; nay, to outstrip nature, and to address itself to our wildest fancy, rather than to our judgment and cooler sense.

Οὔτ’ ἐπιδερκτὰ τάδ’ ἀνδράσιν, οὔτ’ ἐπακουστὰ,
Οὔτε νόῳ περίληπτα—

As sings one of the profession[1], who seems to have understood his privileges very well.

For there is something in the mind of man, sublime and elevated, which prompts it to overlook obvious and familiar appearances, and to feign to itself other and more extraordinary; such as correspond to the extent of its own powers, and fill out all the faculties and capacities of our souls. This restless and aspiring disposition, poetry, first and principally, would indulge and flatter; and thence takes its name of divine, as if some power, above human, conspired to lift the mind to these exalted conceptions.

Hence it comes to pass, that it deals in apostrophes and invocations; that it impersonates the virtues and vices; peoples all creation with new and living forms; calls up infernal spectres to terrify, or brings down celestial natures to astonish, the imagination; assembles, combines, or connects its ideas, at pleasure; in short, prefers not only the agreeable, and the graceful, but, as occasion calls upon her, the vast, the incredible, I had almost said, the impossible, to the obvious truth and nature of things. For all this is but a feeble expression of that magic virtue of poetry, which our Shakespear has so forcibly described in those well-known lines—

The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rowling,
Doth glance from heav’n to earth, from earth to heav’n;
And, as Imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shape, and gives to aery nothing
A focal habitation and a name.

When the received system of manners or religion in any country, happens to be so constituted as to suit itself in some degree to this extravagant turn of the human mind, we may expect that poetry will seize it with avidity, will dilate upon it with pleasure, and take a pride to erect its specious wonders on so proper and convenient a ground. Whence it cannot seem strange that, of all the forms in which poetry has appeared, that of pagan fable, and gothic romance, should, in their turns, be found the most alluring to the true poet. For, in defect of these advantages, he will ever adventure, in some sort, to supply their place with others of his own invention; that is, he will mould every system, and convert every subject, into the most amazing and miraculous form.

And this is that I would say, at present, of these two requisites of universal poetry, namely, that licence of expression, which we call the style of poetry, and that licence of representation, which we call fiction. The style is, as it were, the body of poetry; fiction, is its soul. Having, thus, taken the privilege of a poet to create a Muse, we have only now to give her a voice, or more properly to tune it, and then she will be in a condition, as one of her favourites speaks, to ravish all the Gods. For

III. It follows from the same idea of the end, which poetry would accomplish, that not only Rhythm, but NUMBERS, properly so called, is essential to it. For this Art undertaking to gratify all those desires and expectations of pleasure, that can be reasonably entertained by us, and there being a capacity in language, the instrument it works by, of pleasing us very highly, not only by the sense and imagery it conveys, but by the structure of words, and still more by the harmonious arrangement of them in metrical sounds or numbers, and lastly there being no reason in the nature of the thing itself why these pleasures should not be united, it follows that poetry will not be that which it professes to be, that is, not accomplish its own purpose, unless it delight the ear with numbers, or, in other words, unless it be cloathed in VERSE.

The reader, I dare say, has hitherto gone along with me, in this deduction: but here, I suspect, we shall separate. Yet he will startle the less at this conclusion, if he reflect on the origin and first application of poetry among all nations.

It is every where of the most early growth, preceding every other sort of composition; and being destined for the ear, that is, to be either sung, or at least recited, it adapts itself, even in its first rude essays, to that sense of measure and proportion in sounds, which is so natural to us. The hearer’s attention is the sooner gained by this means, his entertainment quickened, and his admiration of the performer’s art excited. Men are ambitious of pleasing, and ingenious in refining upon what they observe will please. So that musical cadences and harmonious sounds, which nature dictated, are farther softened and improved by art, till poetry become as ravishing to the ear, as the images, it presents, are to the imagination. In process of time, what was at first the extemporaneous production of genius or passion, under the conduct of a natural ear, becomes the labour of the closet, and is conducted by artificial rules; yet still, with a secret reference to the sense of hearing, and to that acceptation which melodious sounds meet with in the recital of expressive words.

Even the prose-writer (when the art is enough advanced to produce prose) having been accustomed to have his ear consulted and gratified by the poet, catches insensibly the same harmonious affection, tunes his sentences and periods to some agreement with song, and transfers into his coolest narrative, or gravest instruction, something of that music, with which his ear vibrates from poetic impressions.

In short, he leaves measured and determinate numbers, that is, Metre, to the poet, who is to please up to the height of his faculties, and the nature of his work; and only reserves to himself, whose purpose of giving pleasure is subordinate to another end, the looser musical measure, or what we call Rhythmical Prose.

The reason appears, from this deduction, why all poetry aspires to please by melodious numbers. To some species, it is thought more essential, than to others, because those species continue to be sung, that is, are more immediately addressed to the ear; and because they continue to be sung in concert with musical instruments, by which the ear is still more indulged. It happened in antient Greece, that even tragedy retained this accompaniment of musical instruments, through all its stages, and even in its most improved state. Whence Aristotle includes Music, properly so called, as well as Rhythm and Metre, in his idea of the tragic poem. He did this, because he found the drama of his country, OMNIBUS NUMERIS ABSOLUTUM, I mean in possession of all the advantages which could result from the union of rhythmical, metrical, and musical sounds. Modern tragedy has relinquished part of these: yet still, if it be true that this poem be more pleasing by the addition of the musical art, and there be nothing in the nature of the composition which forbids the use of it, I know not why Aristotle’s idea should not be adopted, and his precept become a standing law of the tragic stage. For this, as every other poem, being calculated and designed properly and ultimately to please, whatever contributes to produce that end most perfectly, all circumstances taken into the account, must be thought of the nature or essence of the kind.

But without carrying matters so far, let us confine our attention to metre, or what we call verse. This must be essential to every work bearing the name of poem, not, because we are only accustomed to call works written in verse, poems, but because a work, which professes to please us by every possible and proper method, and yet does not give us this pleasure, which it is in its power, and is no way improper for it, to give, must so far fall short of fulfilling its own engagements to us; that is, it has not all those qualities which we have a right to expect in a work of literary art, of which pleasure is the ultimate end.

To explain myself by an obvious instance. History undertakes to INSTRUCT us in the transactions of past times. If it answer this purpose, it does all that is of its nature; and, if it find means to please us, besides, by the harmony of its style, and vivacity of its narration, all this is to be accounted as pure gain: if it instructed ONLY, by the truth of its reports, and the perspicuity of its method, it would fully attain its end. Poetry, on the other hand, undertakes to PLEASE. If it employ all its powers to this purpose, it effects all that is of its nature: if it serve, besides, to inform or instruct us, by the truths it conveys, and by the precepts or examples it inculcates, this service may rather be accepted, than required by us: if it pleased ONLY, by its ingenious fictions, and harmonious structure, it would discharge its office, and answer its end.

In this sense, the famous saying of Eratosthenes, quoted above—that the poet’s aim is to please, not to instruct—is to be understood: nor does it appear, what reason Strabo could have to take offence at it; however it might be misapplied, as he tells us it was, by that writer. For, though the poets, no doubt (and especially THE POET, whose honour the great Geographer would assert, in his criticism on Eratosthenes) frequently instruct us by a true and faithful representation of things; yet even this instructive air is only assumed for the sake of pleasing; which, as the human mind is constituted, they could not so well do, if they did not instruct at all, that is, if truth were wholly neglected by them. So that pleasure is still the ultimate end and scope of the poet’s art; and instruction itself is, in his hands, only one of the means, by which he would effect it[2].

I am the larger on this head to shew that it is not a mere verbal dispute, as it is commonly thought, whether poems should be written in verse, or no. Men may include, or not include, the idea of metre in their complex idea of what they call a Poem. What I contend for, is, that metre, as an instrument of pleasing, is essential to every work of poetic art, and would therefore enter into such idea, if men judged of poetry according to its confessed nature and end.

Whence it may seem a little strange, that my Lord Bacon should speak of poesy as a part of learning in measure of words FOR THE MOST PART restrained; when his own notion, as we have seen above, was, that the essence of poetry consisted in submitting the shews of things to the desires of the mind. For these shews of things could only be exhibited to the mind through the medium of words: and it is just as natural for the mind to desire that these words should be harmonious, as that the images, conveyed in them, should, be illustrious; there being a capacity in the mind of being delighted through its organ, the ear, as well as through its power, or faculty of imagination. And the wonder is the greater, because the great philosopher himself was aware of the agreement and consort which poetry hath with music, as well as with man’s nature and pleasure, that is, with the pleasure which naturally results from gratifying the imagination. So that, to be consistent with himself, he should, methinks, have said—that poesy was a part of learning in measure of words ALWAYS restrained; such poesy, as, through the idleness or negligence of writers, is not so restrained, not agreeing to his own idea of this part of learning[3].

These reflexions will afford a proper solution of that question, which has been agitated by the critics, “Whether a work of fiction and imagination (such as that of the archbishop of Cambray, for instance) conducted, in other respects, according to the rules of the epic poem, but written in prose, may deserve the name of Poem, or not.” For, though it be frivolous indeed to dispute about names, yet from what has been said it appears, that if metre be not incongruous to the nature of an epic composition, and it afford a pleasure which is not to be found in mere prose, metre is, for that reason, essential to this mode of writing; which is only saying in other words, that an epic composition, to give all the pleasure which it is capable of giving, must be written in verse.

But, secondly, this conclusion, I think, extends farther than to such works as aspire to the name of epic. For instance, what are we to think of those novels or romances, as they are called, that is, fables constructed on some private and familiar subject, which have been so current, of late, through all Europe? As they propose pleasure for their end, and prosecute it, besides, in the way of fiction, though without metrical numbers, and generally, indeed, in harsh and rugged prose, one easily sees what their pretensions are, and under what idea they are ambitious to be received. Yet, as they are wholly destitute of measured sounds (to say nothing of their other numberless defects) they can, at most, be considered but as hasty, imperfect, and abortive poems; whether spawned from the dramatic, or narrative species, it may be hard to say—

Unfinish’d things, one knows not what to call,
Their generation’s so equivocal.

However, such as they are, these novelties have been generally well received: Some, for the real merit of their execution; Others, for their amusing subjects; All of them, for the gratification they afford, or promise at least, to a vitiated, palled, and sickly imagination—that last disease of learned minds, and sure prognostic of expiring Letters. But whatever may be the temporary success of these things (for they vanish as fast as they are produced, and are produced as soon as they are conceived) good sense will acknowledge no work of art but such as is composed according to the laws of its kind. These KINDS, as arbitrary things as we account them (for I neither forget nor dispute what our best philosophy teaches concerning kinds and sorts), have yet so far their foundation in nature and the reason of things, that it will not be allowed us to multiply, or vary them, at pleasure. We may, indeed, mix and confound them, if we will (for there is a sort of literary luxury, which would engross all pleasures at once, even such as are contradictory to each other), or, in our rage for incessant gratification, we may take up with half-formed pleasures, such as come first to hand, and may be administered by any body: But true taste requires chaste, severe, and simple pleasures; and true genius will only be concerned in administering such.

Lastly, on the same principle on which we have decided on these questions concerning the absolute merits of poems in prose, in all languages, we may, also, determine another, which has been put concerning the comparative merits of RHYMED, and what is called BLANK verse, in our own, and the other modern languages.

Critics and antiquaries have been sollicitous to find out who were the inventors of rhyme, which some fetch from the Monks, some from the Goths, and others from the Arabians: whereas, the truth seems to be, that rhyme, or the consonance of final syllables, occurring at stated intervals, is the dictate of nature, or, as we may say, an appeal to the ear, in all languages, and in some degree pleasing in all. The difference is, that, in some languages, these consonances are apt of themselves to occur so often that they rather nauseate, than please, and so, instead of being affected, are studiously avoided by good writers; while in others, as in all the modern ones, where these consonances are less frequent, and where the quantity of syllables is not so distinctly marked as, of itself, to afford an harmonious measure and musical variety, there it is of necessity that poets have had recourse to Rhyme; or to some other expedient of the like nature, such as the Alliteration, for instance; which is only another way of delighting the ear by iterated sound, and may be defined, the consonance of initial letters, as rhyme is, the consonance of final syllables. All this, I say, is of necessity, because what we call verses in such languages will be otherwise untuneful, and will not strike the ear with that vivacity, which is requisite to put a sensible difference between poetic numbers and measured prose.

In short, no method of gratifying the ear by measured sound, which experience has found pleasing, is to be neglected by the poet: and although, from the different structure and genius of languages, these methods will be different, the studious application of such methods, as each particular language allows, becomes a necessary part of his office. He will only cultivate those methods most, which tend to produce, in a given language, the most harmonious structure or measure, of which it is capable.

Hence it comes to pass, that the poetry of some modern languages cannot so much as subsist, without rhyme: In others, it is only embellished by it. Of the former sort is the French, which therefore adopts, and with good reason, rhymed verse, not in tragedy only, but in comedy: And though foreigners, who have a language differently constructed, are apt to treat this observance of rhyme as an idle affectation, yet it is but just to allow that the French themselves are the most competent judges of the natural defect of their own tongue, and the likeliest to perceive by what management such defect is best remedied or concealed.

In the latter class of languages, whose poetry is only embellished by the use of rhyme, we may reckon the Italian and the English: which being naturally more tuneful and harmonious than the French, may afford all the melody of sound which is expected in some sorts of poetry, by its varied pause, and quantity only; while in other sorts, which are more sollicitous to please the ear, and where such solicitude, if taken notice of by the reader or hearer, is not resented, it may be proper, or rather it becomes a law of the English and Italian poetry, to adopt rhyme. Thus, our tragedies are usually composed in blank verse: but our epic and Lyric compositions are found most pleasing, when cloathed in rhyme. Milton, I know, it will be said, is an exception: But, if we set aside some learned persons, who have suffered themselves to be too easily prejudiced by their admiration of the Greek and Latin languages, and still more, perhaps, by the prevailing notion of the monkish or gothic original of rhymed verse, all other readers, if left to themselves, would, I dare say, be more delighted with this poet, if, besides his various pause, and measured quantity, he had enriched his numbers, with rhyme. So that his love of liberty, the ruling passion of his heart, perhaps transported him too far, when he chose to follow the example set him by one or two writers of prime note (to use his own eulogium), rather than comply with the regular and prevailing practice of his favoured Italy, which first and principally, as our best rhymist sings,

With pauses, cadence, and well-vowell’d words,
And all the graces a good ear affords,
Made rhyme an art—

Our comedy, indeed, is generally written in prose; but through the idleness, or ill taste, of our writers, rather than from any other just cause. For, though rhyme be not necessary, or rather would be improper, in the comedy of our language, which can support itself in poetic numbers, without the diligence of rhyme; yet some sort of metre is requisite in this humbler species of poem; otherwise, it will not contribute all that is within its power and province, to please. And the particular metre, proper for this species, is not far to seek. For it can plainly be no other than a careless and looser Iambic, such as our language naturally runs into, even in conversation, and of which we are not without examples, in our old and best writers for the comic stage. But it is not wonderful that those critics, who take offence at English epic poems in rhyme, because the Greek and Latin only observed quantity, should require English comedies to be written in prose, though the Greek and Latin comedies were composed in verse. For the ill application of examples, and the neglect of them, may be well enough expected from the same men, since it does not appear that their judgment was employed, or the reason of the thing attended to, in either instance.

And THUS much for the idea of Universal Poetry. It is the art of treating any subject in such a way as is found most delightful to us; that is, IN AN ORNAMENTED AND NUMEROUS STYLE—IN THE WAY OF FICTION—AND IN VERSE. Whatever deserves the name of POEM must unite these three properties; only in different degrees of each, according to its nature. For the art of every kind of poetry is only this general art so modified as the nature of each, that is, its more immediate and subordinate end, may respectively require.

We are now, then, at the well-head of the poetic art; and they who drink deeply of this spring, will be best qualified to perform the rest. But all heads are not equal to these copious draughts; and, besides, I hear the sober reader admonishing me long since—

Lusisti satis atque BIBISTI;
Tempus abire tibi est, ne POTUM LARGIUS AEQUO
Rideat, et pulset lasciva decentius AETAS.

Thurcaston,
MDCCLXV.

A
DISSERTATION
ON THE
PROVINCES OF THE DRAMA.

DISSERTATION II.
ON THE
PROVINCES OF THE DRAMA.

In the former Essay, I gave an idea, or slight sketch, of Universal Poetry. In this, I attempt to deduce the laws of one of its kinds, the Dramatic, under all its forms. And I engage in this task, the rather, because, though much has been said on the subject of the drama, writers seem not to have taken sufficient pains to distinguish, with exactness, its several species.

I deduce the laws of this poem, as I did those of poetry at large, from the consideration of its end: not the general end of poetry, which alone was proper to be considered the former case, but the proximate end of this kind. For from these ends, in subordination to that, which governs the genus, or which all poetry, as such, designs and prosecutes, are the peculiar rules and maxims of each species to be derived.

The purpose of the Drama is, universally, “to represent human life in the way of action.” But as such representation it made for separate and distinct ENDS, it is, further, distinguished into different species, which we know by the names of Tragedy, Comedy, and Farce.

By Tragedy, then, I mean that species of dramatic representation, whose end is “to excite the passions of PITY and TERROR, and perhaps some others, nearly allied to them.”

By Comedy that, which proposeth, for the ends of its representation, “the sensation of pleasure arising from a view of the truth of CHARACTERS, more especially their specific differences.”

By Farce I understand, that species of the drama, “whose sole aim and tendency is to excite LAUGHTER.”

The idea of these three species being then proposed, let us now see, what conclusions may be drawn from it. And chiefly in respect of Tragedy and Comedy, which are most important. For as to what concerns the province of Farce, this will be easily understood, when the character of the other two is once settled.

CHAP. I.
ON THE PROVINCES OF TRAGEDY AND COMEDY.

From the idea of these two species, as given above, the following conclusions, about the natures of each, are immediately deducible.

1. If the proper end of TRAGEDY be to affect, it follows, “that actions, not characters, are the chief object of its representations.” For that which affects us most in the view of human life is the observation of those signal circumstances of felicity or distress, which occur in the fortunes of men. But felicity and distress, as the great critic takes notice, depend on action; κατὰ τὰς πράξεις, εὐδαίμονες, ἢ τουναντίον. They are then the calamitous events, or fortunate Issues in human action, which stir up the stronger affections, and agitate the heart with Passion. The manners are not, indeed, to be neglected. But they become an inferior consideration in the views of the tragic poet, and are exhibited only for the sake of making the action more proper to interest us. Thus our joy, on the happy catastrophe of the fable, depends, in a good degree, on the virtuous character of the agent; as on the other hand, we sympathize more strongly with him, on a distressful issue. The manners of the several persons in the drama must, also, be signified, that the action, which in many cases will be determined by them, may appear to be carried on with truth and probability. Hence every thing passing before us, as we are accustomed to see it in real life, we enter more warmly into their interests, as forgetting, that we are attentive to a fictitious scene. And, besides, from knowing the personal good, or ill, qualities of the agents, we learn to anticipate their future felicity or misery, which gives increase to the passion in either case. Our acquaintance with Iago’s close villainy makes us tremble for Othello and Desdemona beforehand: and Hamlet’s filial piety and intrepid daring occasion the audience secretly to exult in the expectation of some successful vengeance to be inflicted on the incestuous murderers.

2. For the same reason as tragedy takes for its object the actions of men, it, also, prefers, or rather confines itself to, such actions, as are most important. Which is only saying, that as it intends to interest, it, of course, chuses the representation of those events, which are most interesting.

And this shews the defect of modern tragedy, in turning so constantly as it does, on love subjects; the effect of this practice is, that, excepting only the rank of the actors (which indeed, as will be seen presently, is of considerable importance), the rest is below the dignity of this drama. For the action, when stripped of its accidental ornaments and reduced to the essential fact, is nothing more than what might as well have passed in a cottage, as a king’s palace. The Greek poets should be our guides here, who take the very grandest events in their story to ennoble their tragedy. Whence it comes to pass that the action, having an essential dignity, is always interesting, and by the simplest management of the poet becomes in a supreme degree, pathetic.

3. On the same account, the persons, whose actions Tragedy would exhibit to us, must be of principal rank and dignity. For the actions of these are, both in themselves and in their consequences, most fitted to excite passion. The distresses of private and inferior persons will, no doubt, affect us greatly; and we may give the name of tragedies, if we please, to dramatic representations of them: as, in fact, we have several applauded pieces of this kind. Nay, it may seem, that the fortunes of private men, as more nearly resembling those of the generality, should be most affecting. But this circumstance, in no degree, makes amends for the loss of other and much greater advantages. For, whatever be the unhappy incidents in the story of private men, it is certain, they must take faster hold of the imagination, and, of course, impress the heart more forcibly, when related of the higher characters in life.

Τῶν γὰρ μεγάλων ἀξιοπενθεῖς
Φῆμαι μᾶλλον κατέχουσιν.
Eurip. Hipp. v. 1484.

Kings, Heroes, Statesmen, and other persons of great and public authority, influence by their ill-fortune the whole community, to which they belong. The attention is rouzed, and all our faculties take an alarm, at the apprehension of such extensive and important wretchedness. And, besides, if we regard the event itself, without an eye to its effects, there is still the widest difference between the two cases. Those ideas of awe and veneration, which opinion throws round the persons of princes, make us esteem the very same event in their fortunes, as more august and emphatical, than in the fortunes of private men. In the one, it is ordinary and familiar to our conceptions; it is singular and surprizing, in the other. The fall of a cottage, by the accidents of time and weather, is almost unheeded; while the ruin of a tower, which the neighbourhood hath gazed at for ages with admiration, strikes all observers with concern. So that if we chuse to continue the absurdity, taken notice of in the last article of planning unimportant action in our tragedy, we should, at least, take care to give it this foreign and extrinsic importance of great actors: Yet our passion for the familiar goes so far, that we have tragedies, not only of private action, but of private persons; and so have well nigh annihilated the noblest of the two dramas amongst us. On the whole it appears, that as the proper object or tragedy is action, so it is important action, and therefore more especially the action of great and illustrious men. Each of these conclusions is the direct consequence of our idea of its end.

The reverse of all this holds true of COMEDY. For,

1. Comedy, by the very terms of the definition, is conversant about characters. And if we observe, that which creates the pleasure we find in contemplating the lives of men, considered as distinct from the interest we take in their fortunes, is the contemplation of their manners and humours. Their actions, when they are not of that sort, which seizes our admiration, or catches the affections, are not otherwise considered by us, than as they are sensible indications of the internal sentiment and disposition. Our intimate consciousness of the several turns and windings of our nature, makes us attend to these pictures of human life with an incredible curiosity. And herein the proper entertainment, which comic representation, as such, administers to the mind, consists. By turning the thought on event and action, this entertainment is proportionably lessened; that is, the end of comedy is less perfectly attained[4].

But here, again, though action be not the main object of comedy, yet it is not to be neglected, any more than character in tragedy, but comes in as an useful accessary, or assistant to it. For the manners of men only shew themselves, or shew themselves most usually, in action. It is this, which fetches out the latent strokes of character, and renders the inward temper and disposition the object of sense. Probable circumstances are then imagined, and a certain train of action contrived, to evidence the internal qualities. There is no other, or no probable way, but this, of bringing us acquainted with them. Again; by engaging his characters in a course of action and the pursuit of some end, the comic poet leaves them to express themselves undisguisedly, and without design; in which the essence of humour consists.

Add to this, that when the fable is so contrived as to attach the mind, we very naturally fancy ourselves present at a course of living action. And this illusion quickens our attention to the characters, which no longer appear to us creatures of the poet’s fiction, but actors in real life.

These observations concerning the moderated use of action in comedy, instruct us what to think “of those intricate Spanish plots, which have been in use, and have taken both with us and some French writers for the stage. The truth is, they have hindered very much the main end of comedy. For when these unnatural plots are used, the mind is not only entirely drawn off from the characters by those surprizing turns and revolutions; but characters have no opportunity even of being called out and displaying themselves. For the actors of all characters succeed and are embarrassed alike, when the instruments for carrying on designs are only perplexed apartments, dark entries, disguised habits, and ladders of ropes. The comic plot is, and must, indeed, be carried on by deceipt. The Spanish scene does it by deceiving the man through his senses: Terence and Moliere, by deceiving him through his passions and affections. This is the right method: for the character is not called out under the first species of deceipt: under the second, the character does all.”

2. As character, not action, is the object of comedy; so the characters it paints must not be of singular and illustrious note, either for their virtues or vices. The reason is, that such characters take too fast hold of the affections, and so call off the mind from adverting to the truth of the manners; that is, from receiving the pleasure, which this poem intends. Our sense of imitation is that to which the comic poet addresses himself; but such pictures of eminent worth or villainy seize upon the moral sense; and by raising the strong correspondent passions of admiration and abhorrence, turn us aside from contemplating the imitation itself. And,

3. For a like cause, comedy confines its views to the characters of private and inferior persons. For the truth of character, which is the spring of humour, being necessarily, as was observed, to be shewn through the medium of action, and the actions of the great being usually such as excite the pathos, it follows of course, that these cannot, with propriety, be made the actors in comedy. Persons of high and public life, if they are drawn agreeably to our accustomed ideas of them, must be employed in such a course of action, as arrests the attention, or interests the passions; and either way it diverts the mind from observing the truth of manners, that is, it prevents the attainment of the specific end, which comedy designs.

And if the reason, here given, be sufficient to exclude the higher characters in life from this drama, even where the representation is intended to be serious, we shall find it still more improper to expose them in any pleasant or ridiculous light. ’Tis true, the follies and foibles of the great will apparently take an easier ridicule by representation, than those of their inferiors. And this it was, which misled the celebrated P. Corneille into the opinion, that the actions of the great, and even of kings themselves, provided they be of the ridiculous kind, are as fit objects of comedy, as any other. But he did not reflect, that the actions of the great being usually such, as interest the intire community, at least scarcely any other falling beneath vulgar notice; and the higher characters being rarely seen or contemplated by the people but with reverence, hence it is, that in fact, the representation of high life cannot, without offence to probability, be made ridiculous, or consequently be admitted into comedy under this view. And therefore Plautus, when he thought fit to introduce these reverend personages on the comic stage in his Amphitruo, though he employed them in no very serious matters, was yet obliged to apologize for this impropriety in calling his play a Tragicomedy. What he says upon the occasion, though delivered with an air of pleasantry, is according to the laws of just criticism.

Faciam ut commista sit Tragicocomoedia.
Nam me perpetuo facere, ut sit Comoedia
Reges quo veniant et Dii, non par arbitror.
Quid igitur? Quoniam hic SERVOS QUOQUE PARTES HABET,
Faciam sit, proinde ut dixi, Tragicocomoedia.
Prol. in Amphit.

And now, taking the idea of the two dramas, as here opened, along with us, we shall be able to give an account of several attributes, common to both, or which further characterize each of them. And,

1. A plot will be required in both. For the end of tragedy being to excite the affections by action, and the end of comedy, to manifest the truth of character through it, an artful constitution of the Fable is required to do justice both to the one and the other. It serves to bring out the pathos, and to produce humour. And thus the general form or structure of the two dramas will be one and the same.

2. More particularly, an unity and even simplicity in the conduct of the fable[5] is a perfection in each. For the course of the affections is diverted and weakened by the intervention of what we call a double plot; and even by a multiplicity of subordinate events, though tending to a common end; and, of persons, though all of them, some way, concerned in promoting it. The like consideration shews the observance of this rule to be essential to just comedy. For when the attention is split on so many interfering objects, we are not at leisure to observe, nor do we so fully enter into, the truth of representation in any of them; the sense of humour, as of the pathos, depending very much on the continued and undiverted operation of its object upon us.

3. The two dramas agree, also, in this circumstance; that the manners of the persons exhibited should be imperfect. An absolutely good, or an absolutely bad, character is foreign to the purpose of each. And the reason is, 1, That such a representation is improbable. And probability constitutes, as we have seen, the very essence of comedy; and is the medium, through which tragedy is enabled most powerfully to affect us. 2. Such characters are improper to comedy, because, as was hinted above, they turn the attention aside from contemplating the expression of them, which we call humour. And they are not less unsuited to tragedy, because though they make a forcible impression on the mind, yet, as Aristotle well observes, they do not produce the passions of pity and terror; that is, their impressions are not of the nature of that pathos, by which tragedy works its purpose. [κ. ίγ.]

There are, likewise, some peculiarities, which distinguish the two dramas. And

1. Though a plot be necessary to produce humour, as well as the pathos, yet a good plot is not so essential to comedy, as tragedy. For the pathos is the result of the entire action; that is, of all the circumstances of the story taken together, and conspiring by a probable tendency, to a completion in the event. A failure in the just arrangement and disposition of the parts may, then, affect what is of the essence of this drama. On the contrary, humour, though brought out by action, is not the effect of the whole, but may be distinctly evidenced in a single scene; as may be eminently illustrated in the two comedies of Fletcher, called The Little French Lawyer, and The Spanish Curate. The nice contexture of the fable therefore, though it may give pleasure of another kind, is not so immediately required to the production of that pleasure, which the nature of comedy demands. Much less is there occasion for that labour and ingenuity of contrivance, which is seen in the intricacy of the Spanish fable. Yet this is the taste of our comedy. Our writers are all for plot and intrigue; and never appear so well satisfied with themselves as when, to speak in their own phrase, they contrive to have a great deal of business on their hands. Indeed they have reason. For it hides their inability to colour manners, which is the proper but much harder province of true comedy.

2. Tragedy succeeds best, when the subject is real; comedy, when it is feigned. What would this say, but that tragedy, turning our attention principally on the action represented, finds means to interest us more strongly on the persuasion of its being taken from actual life? While comedy, on the other hand, can neglect these scrupulous measures of probability, as intent only on exhibiting characters; for which purpose an invented story will serve much better. The reason is, real action does not ordinarily afford variety of incidents enough to shew the character fully: feigned action may.

And this difference, we may observe, explains the reason why tragedies are often formed on the most trite and vulgar subjects, whereas a new subject is generally demanded in comedy. The reality of the story being of so much consequence to interest the affections, the more known it is, the fitter for the poet’s purpose. But a feigned story having been found more convenient for the display of characters, it grew into a rule that the story should be always new. This disadvantage on the side of the comic poet is taken notice of in those verses of Antiphanes, or rather, as Casaubon conjectures, of Aristophanes, in a play of his intitled, Ποίησις. The reason of this difference now appears.

—Μακάριόν ἐστιν ἡ τραγῳδία
Ποίημα κατὰ πάντ’. εἴγε πρῶτον οἱ λόγοι
Ὑπὸ τῶν θεατῶν εἰσὶν ἐγνωρισμένοι,
Πρὶν καί τιν’ εἰπεῖν, ὡς ὑπομνῆσαι μόνον
Δεῖ τὸν ποιητήν. Οἰδίπουν γάρ ἄν γε φῶ,
Τὰ δ’ ἄλλα πάντ’ ἴσασιν· Ὁ πατὴρ Λάïος,
Μήτηρ Ἰοκάστη, θυγατέρες, παῖδες τίνες·
Τὶ πείσεθ’ οὗτος, τί πεποίηκεν····
Ἡμῖν δὲ ταῦτ’ οὐκ ἔστιν· ἀλλὰ πάντα δεῖ
Εὑρεῖν ὀνόματα καινὰ, τὰ διῳκημένα
Πρότερον, τὰ νῦν παρόντα, τὴν καταστροφὴν,
Τὴν ἐσβολήν. ἀν ἕν τι τούτων παραλίπῃ,
Χρέμης τις, ἢ Φείδων τις ἐκσυρίττεται,
Πηλεῖ δὲ ταῦτ’ ἔξεστι καὶ Τεύκρῳ ποιεῖν.

One sees, then, the reason why Tragedy prefers real subjects, and even old ones; and, on the contrary, why comedy delights in feigned subjects, and new.

The same genius in the two dramas is observable, in their draught of characters. Comedy makes all its Characters general; Tragedy, particular. The Avare of Moliere is not so properly the picture of a covetous man, as of covetousness itself. Racine’s Nero, on the other hand, is not a picture of cruelty, but of a cruel man.

Yet here it will be proper to guard against two mistakes, which the principles now delivered may be thought to countenance.

The first is with regard to tragic characters, which I say are particular. My meaning is, they are more particular than those of comedy. That is, the end of tragedy does not require or permit the poet to draw together so many of those characteristic circumstances which shew the manners, as Comedy. For, in the former of these dramas, no more of character is shewn, than what the course of the action necessarily calls forth. Whereas, all or most of the features, by which it is usually distinguished, are sought out and industriously displayed in the latter.

The case is much the same as in portrait painting; where, if a great master be required to draw a particular face, he gives the very lineaments he finds in it; yet so far resembling to what he observes of the same turn in other faces, as not to affect any minute circumstance of peculiarity. But if the same artist were to design a head in general, he would assemble together all the customary traits and features, any where observable through the species, which should best express the idea, whatever it was, he had conceived in his own mind and wanted to exhibit in the picture.

There is much the same difference between the two sorts of dramatic portraits. Whence it appears that in calling the tragic character particular, I suppose it only less representative of the kind than the comic; not that the draught of so much character as it is concerned to represent should not be general: the contrary of which I have asserted and explained at large elsewhere [Notes on the A. P. v. 317.]

Next, I have said, the characters of just comedy are general. And this I explain by the instance of the Avare of Moliere, which conforms more to the idea of avarice, than to that of the real avaricious man. But here again, the reader will not understand me, as saying this in the strict sense of the words. I even think Moliere faulty in the instance given; though, with some necessary explanation, it may well enough serve to express my meaning.

The view of the comic scene being to delineate characters, this end, I suppose, will be attained most perfectly, by making those characters as universal as possible. For thus the person shewn in the drama being the representative of all characters of the same kind, furnishes in the highest degree the entertainment of humour. But then this universality must be such as agrees not to our idea of the possible effects of the character as conceived in the abstract, but to the actual exertion of its powers; which experience justifies, and common life allows. Moliere, and before him Plautus, had offended in this; that for a picture of the avaricious man, they presented us with a fantastic unpleasing draught of the passion of avarice. I call this a fantastic draught, because it hath no archetype in nature. And it is, farther, an unpleasing one, for, being the delineation of a simple passion unmixed, it wanted all those

—Lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife
Gives all the strength and colour of our life.

These lights and shades (as the poet finely calls the intermixture of many passions, which, with the leading or principal one, form the human character) must be blended together in every picture of dramatic manners; because the avowed business of the drama is to image real life. Yet the draught of the leading passion must be as general as this strife in nature permits, in order to express the intended character more perfectly.

All which again is easily illustrated in the instance of painting. In portraits of character, as we may call those that give a picture of the manners, the artist, if he be of real ability, will not go to work on the possibility of an abstract idea. All he intends, is to shew that some one quality predominates: and this he images strongly, and by such signatures as are most conspicuous in the operation of the leading passion. And when he hath done this, we may, in common speech or in compliment, if we please, to his art, say of such a portrait that it images to us not the man but the passion; just as the ancients observed of the famous statue of Apollodorus by Silarion, that it expressed not the angry Apollodorus, but his passion of anger[6]. But by this must be understood only that he has well expressed the leading parts of the designed character. For the rest he treats his subject as he would any other; that is, he represents the concomitant affections, or considers merely that general symmetry and proportion which are expected in a human figure. And this is to copy nature, which affords no specimen of a man turned all into a single passion. No metamorphosis could be more strange or incredible. Yet portraits of this vicious taste are the admiration of common starers, who, if they find a picture of a miser for instance (as there is no commoner subject of moral portraits) in a collection, where every muscle is strained, and feature hardened into the expression of this idea, never fail to profess their wonder and approbation of it.—On this idea of excellence Le Brun’s book of the Passions must be said to contain a set of the justest moral portraits: And the Characters of Theophrastus might be recommended, in a dramatic view, as preferable to those of Terence.

The virtuosi in the fine arts would certainly laugh at the former of these judgments. But the latter, I suspect, will not be thought so extraordinary. At least if one may guess from the practice of some of our best comic writers, and the success which such plays have commonly met with. It were easy to instance in almost all plays of character. But if the reader would see the extravagance of building dramatic manners on abstract ideas, in its full light, he needs only turn to B. Jonson’s Every man out of his humour; which under the name of a play of character is in fact, an unnatural, and, as the painters call it, hard delineation of a group of simply existing passions, wholly chimerical, and unlike to any thing we observe in the commerce of real life. Yet this comedy has always had its admirers. And Randolph, in particular, was so taken with the design, that he seems to have formed his muse’s looking-glass in express imitation of it.

Shakespeare, we may observe, is in this as in all the other more essential beauties of the drama, a perfect model. If the discerning reader peruse attentively his comedies with this view, he will find his best-marked characters discoursing through a great deal of their parts, just like any other, and only expressing their essential and leading qualities occasionally, and as circumstances concur to give an easy exposition to them. This singular excellence of his comedy, was the effect of his copying faithfully after nature, and of the force and vivacity of his genius, which made him attentive to what the progress of the scene successively presented to him: whilst imitation and inferior talents occasion little writers to wind themselves up into the habit of attending perpetually to their main view, and a solicitude to keep their favourite characters in constant play and agitation. Though in this illiberal exercise of their wit, they may be said to use the persons of the drama as a certain facetious sort do their acquaintance, whom they urge and teize with their civilities, not to give them a reasonable share in the conversation, but to force them to play tricks for the diversion of the company.

I have been the longer on this argument, to prevent the reader’s carrying what I say of the superiority of plays of character to plays of intrigue into an extreme; a mistake, into which some good writers have been unsuspectingly betrayed by the acknowledged truth of the general principle. It is so natural for men on all occasions, to fly out into extremes, that too much care cannot be had to retain them in a due medium. But to return from the digression to the consideration of the difference of the two dramas.

3. A sameness of character is not usually objected to in tragedy: in comedy, it would not be endured. The passion of avarice, to resume the instance given above, being the main object, we find nothing but a disgustful repetition in a second attempt to delineate that character. A particular cruel man only engrossing our regard in Nero, when the train of events evidencing such cruelty is changed, we have all the novelty we look for, and can contemplate, with pleasure, the very same character, set forth by a different course of action, or displayed in some other person.

4. Comedy succeeds best when the scene is laid at home, tragedy for the most part when abroad. “This appears at first sight whimsical and capricious, but has its foundation in nature. What we chiefly seek in comedy is a true image of life and manners, but we are not easily brought to think we have it given us, when dressed in foreign modes and fashions. And yet a good writer must follow his scene, and observe decorum. On the contrary, ’tis the action in tragedy which most engages our attention. But to fit a domestic occurrence for the stage, we must take greater liberties with the action than a well-known story will allow.” [Pope’s Works, vol. iv. p. 185.]

Other characters of the two dramas, as well peculiar, as common, which might be accounted for from the just notion of them, delivered above, I leave to the observation of the reader. For my intention is not to write a complete treatise on the drama, but briefly to lay down such principles, from whence its laws may be derived.

CHAP. II.
OF THE GENIUS OF COMEDY.

But it may not be amiss to express myself a little more fully as to the genius of comedy; which for want of passing through the hands of such a critic as Aristotle, has been less perfectly understood.

Its end is the production of humour: or which comes to the same thing, “of that pleasure, which the truth of representation affords, in the exhibition of the private characters of life, more particularly their specific differences.” I add this latter clause, because the principal pleasure we take in contemplating characters consists in noting those differences. The general attributes of humanity, if represented ever so truly, give us but a slender entertainment. They, of course, make a part of the drama; but we chiefly delight in a picture of those peculiar traits, which distinguish the species. Now these discriminating marks in the characters of men are not necessarily the causes of ridicule, or pleasantry of any kind; but accidentally, and according to the nature or quality of them. The vanity, and impertinent boasting of Thraso is the natural object of contempt, and, when truly and forcibly expressed in his own character, provokes ridicule. The easy humanity of Mitio, which is the leading part of his character, is the object of approbation; and, when shewn in his own conduct, excites a pleasure, in common with all just expression of the manners, but of a serious nature, as being joined with the sentiment of esteem.

But now as most men find a greater pleasure in gratifying the passion of contempt, than the calm instinct of approbation, and since perhaps the constitution of human life is such, as affords more exercise for the one, than the other, hence it hath come to pass, that the comic poet, who paints for the generality, and follows nature, chuses more commonly to select and describe those peculiarities in the human character, which, by their nature, excite pleasantry, than such as create a serious regard and esteem. Hence some persons have appropriated the name of comedies to those dramas, which chiefly aim at producing humour, in the more proper sense of the word; under which view it means such an expression or picture of what is odd, or inordinate in each character, as gives us the fullest and strongest image of the original, and by the truth of the representation exposes the ridicule of it.” And it is certain, that comedy receives great advantage from representations of this kind. Nay, it cannot well subsist without them. Yet it doth not exclude the other and more serious entertainment, which, as it stands on the same foundation of truth of representation, I venture to include under the common term.

Further, there are two ways of evidencing the characteristic and predominant qualities of men, or, of producing humour, which require to be observed. The one is, when they are shewn in the perpetual course and tenor of the representation; that is, when the humour results from the general conduct of the person in the drama, and the discourse, which he holds in it. The other is, when by an happy and lively stroke, the characteristic quality is laid open and exposed at once.

The first sort of humour is that which we find in the ancients, and especially Terence. The latter is almost peculiar to the moderns; who, in uniting these two species of humour, have brought a vast improvement to the comic scene. The reason of this difference may perhaps have been the singular simplicity of the old writers, who were contented to take up with such sentiments or circumstances, as most naturally and readily occurred in the course of the drama: whereas the moderns have been ambitious to shew a more exquisite and studied investigation into the workings of human nature, and have sought out for those peculiarly striking lineaments, in which the essence of character consists. On the same account, I suppose, it was that the ancients had fewer characters in their plays, than the moderns, and those more general; that is, their dramatic writers were well satisfied with picturing the most usual personages, and in their most obvious lights. They did not, as the moderns (who, if they would aspire to the praise of novelty, were obliged to this route), cast about for less familiar characters; and the nicer and less observed peculiarities which distinguish each. Be it as it will, the observation is certain. Later dramatists have apparently shewn a more accurate knowledge of human life: and, by opening these new and untryed veins of humour, have exceedingly enriched the comedy of our times.

But, though we are not to look for the two species of humour, before-mentioned, in the same perfection on the simpler stages of Greece and Rome, as in our improved Theatres, yet the first of them was clearly seen and successfully practised by the ancient comic masters; and there are not wanting in them some few examples even of the last. “The old man in the Mother-in-Law says to his Son,

Tum tu igitur nihil adtulisti huc plus unâ sententiâ.

This, as an excellent person observed to me, is true humour. For his character, which was that of a lover of money, drew the observation naturally and forcibly from him. His disappointment of a rich succession made him speak contemptibly of a moral lesson, which rich and covetous men, in their best humours, have no high reverence for. And this too without design; which is important, and shews the distinction of what, in the more restrained sense of the word, we call humour, from other modes of pleasantry. For had a young friend of the son, an unconcerned spectator of the scene, made the observation, it had then, in another’s mouth, been wit, or a designed banter on the father’s disappointment. As, on the other hand, when such characteristic qualities are exaggerated, and the expression of them stretched beyond truth, they become buffoonry, even in the person’s own.”

This is an instance of the second species of humour, under its idea of exciting ridicule. But it may, also, be employed with the utmost seriousness; as being only a method of expressing the truth of character in the most striking manner. This same old man in the Hecyra will furnish an example. Though a lover of money, he appears, in the main, of an honest and worthy nature, and to have born the truest affection to an amiable and favourite son. In the perplexity of the scene, which had arisen from the supposed misunderstanding between his son’s wife and his own, he proposes, as an expedient to end all differences, to retire with his wife into the country. And to enforce this proposal to the young man, who had his reasons for being against it, he adds,

odiosa est haec aetas adolescentulis:
E medio aequum excedere est: postremò nos jam fabula
Sumus, Pamphile, senex atque anus.

There is nothing, I suppose in these words, which provokes a smile. Yet the humour is strong, as before. In his solicitude to promote his son’s satisfaction, he lets fall a sentiment truly characteristic, and which old men usually take great pains to conceal; I mean, his acknowledgment of that suspicious fear of contempt, which is natural to old age. So true a picture of life, in the representation of this weakness, might, in other circumstances, have created some pleasantry; but the occasion, which forced it from him, discovering, at the same time, the amiable disposition of the speaker, covers the ridicule of it, or more properly converts it into an object of our esteem.

We have here, then, a kind of intermediate species of humour betwixt the ridiculous and the grave; and may perceive how insensibly the one becomes the other, by the accidental mixture of a virtuous quality, attracting esteem. Which may serve to reconcile the reader to the application of this term even to such expression of the manners, as is perfectly serious; that is, where the quality represented is entirely, and without the least touch of attending ridicule, the object of moral approbation to the mind. As in that famous asseveration of Chremes in the Self-tormentor:

Homo sum: humani nihil à me alienum puto.

This is a strong expression of character; and, coming unaffectedly from him in answer to the cutting reproof of his friend,

Chreme, tantumne ab re tuâ’st otî tibi
Aliena ut cures; ea quae nihil ad te adtinent?

hath the essence of true humour, that is, is a lively picture of the manners without design.

Yet in this instance, which hath not been observed, the humour, though of a serious cast, is heightened by a mixture of satire. For we are not to take this, as hath constantly been done, for a sentiment of pure humanity and the natural ebullition of benevolence. We may observe in it a designed stroke of satirical resentment. The Self-tormentor, as we saw, had ridiculed Chremes’ curiosity by a severe reproof. Chremes, to be even with him, reflects upon the inhumanity of his temper. “You, says he, seem such a foe to humanity, that you spare it not in yourself; I, on the other hand, am affected, when I see it suffer in another.”

Whence we learn, that, though all which is requisite to constitute comic humour, be a just expression of character without design, yet such expression is felt more sensibly, when it is further enlivened by ridicule, or quickened by the poignancy of satire.

From the account of comedy, here given, it may appear, that the idea of this drama is much enlarged beyond what it was in Aristotle’s time; who defines it to be, an imitation of light and trivial actions, provoking ridicule. His notion was taken from the state and practice of the Athenian stage; that is, from the old or middle comedy, which answers to this description. The great revolution, which the introduction of the new comedy made in the drama, did not happen till afterwards. This proposed for its object, in general, the actions and characters of ordinary life; which are not, of necessity, ridiculous, but, as appears to every observer, of a mixt kind, serious as well as ludicrous, and within their proper sphere of influence, not unfrequently, even important. This kind of imitation therefore, now admits the serious; and its scenes, even without the least mixture of pleasantry, are entirely comic. Though the common run of laughers in our theatre are so little aware of the extension of this province, that I should scarcely have hazarded the observation, but for the authority of Terence; who hath confessedly very little of the pleasant in his drama. Nay, one of the most admired of his comedies hath the gravity, and, in some places, almost the solemnity of tragedy itself. But this idea of comedy is not peculiar to the more polite and liberal ancients. Some of the best modern comedies are fashioned in agreement to it. And an instance or two, which I am going to produce from the stage of simple nature, may seem to shew it the plain suggestion of common sense.

“The Amautas (says the author of the Royal Commentaries of Peru), who were men of the best ingenuity amongst them, invented Comedies and Tragedies; which, on their solemn festivals, they represented before the King and the Lords of his court. The plot or argument of their tragedies was to represent their military exploits, and the triumphs, victories, and heroic actions of their renowned men. And the subject or design of their comedies was, to demonstrate the manner of good husbandry in cultivating and manuring their fields, and to shew the management of domestic affairs, with other familiar matters. These plays, continues he, were not made up of obscene and dishonest farces, but such as were of serious entertainment, composed of grave and acute sentences, &c.”

Two things are observable in this brief account of the Peruvian drama. First, that its species had respect to the very different objects of the higher or lower stations. For the great and powerful were occupied in war: and agriculture was the chief employment of private and ordinary life. And, in this distinction, these Indian, perfectly agreed with the old Roman poets; whose PRAETEXTATA and TOGATA shew, that they had precisely the same ideas of the drama. Secondly, we do not learn only, what difference there was betwixt their tragedy and comedy, but we are also told, what difference there was not. It was not, that one was serious, and the other pleasant. For we find it expressly asserted of both, that they were of grave and serious entertainment.

And this last will explain a similar observation on the Chinese, who, as P. de Premere acquaints us, make no distinction betwixt tragedies and comedies. That is, no distinction, but what the different subjects of each make necessary. They do not, as our European dramas, differ in this, that the one is intended to make us weep, and the other to make us laugh.

These are full and precise testimonies. For I lay no stress on what the Historian of Peru tells us, that there were no obscenities in their comedy, nor on what an encomiast of China pretends, that there is not so much as an obscene word in all their language[7]: as being sensible, that though indeed these must needs be considerable abatements to the humour of their comic scenes, yet, their ingenuity might possibly find means to remedy these defects by the invention and dextrous application of the double entendre, which, on our stage, is found to supply the place of rank obscenity, and, indeed, to do its office of exciting laughter almost as well.

But, as I said, there is no occasion for this argument. We may venture, without the help of it, to join these authorities to that of Terence; which, together, enable us to conclude very fully, in opposition to the general sentiment, that ridicule is not of the essence of comedy[8].

But, because the general practice of the Greek and Roman theatres, which strongly countenance the other opinion, may still be thought to outweigh this single Latin poet, together with all the eastern and western barbarians, that can be thrown into the balance, let me go one step further, and, by explaining the rise and occasion of this practice, demonstrate, that, in the present case, their authority is, in fact, of no moment.

The form of the Greek, from whence the Roman and our drama is taken, though generally improved by reflexion and just criticism, yet, like so many other great inventions, was, in its original, the product of pure chance. Each of its species had sprung out of a chorus-song, which was afterwards incorporated into the legitimate drama, and found essential to its true form. But reason, which saw to establish what was right in this fortuitous conformation of the drama, did not equally succeed in detecting and separating what was wrong. For the occasion of this chorus-song, in their religious festivities, was widely different: the business at one time, being to express their gratitude, in celebrating the praises of their gods and heroes; at another, to indulge their mirth, in jesting and sporting among themselves. The character of their drama, which had its rise from hence,[9] conformed exactly to the difference of these occasions. Tragedy, through all its several successive stages of improvement, was serious and even solemn. And a gay or rather buffoon spirit was the characteristic of comedy.

We see, then, the genius of these two poems was accidentally fixed in agreement to their respective originals; consequent writers contenting themselves to embellish and perfect, not change, the primary form. The practice of the ancient stage is then of no further authority, than as it accords to just criticism. The solemn cast of their tragedy, indeed, bears the test, and is found to be suitable to its real nature. The same does not appear of the burlesque form of comedy; no reason having been given, why it must, of necessity, have the ridiculous for its object. Nay the effects of improved criticism on the later Greek comedy give a presumption of the direct contrary. For, in proportion to the gradual refinement of this species in the hands of its greatest masters, the buffoon cast of the comic drama was insensibly dropt and even grew into a severity, which departed at length very widely from the original idea. The admirable scholar of Theophrastus, who had been tutored in the exact study of human life, saw so much of the genuine character of true comedy, that he cleansed it, at once, from the greater part of those buffoonries, which had, till his time, defiled its nature. His great imitator, Terence, went still further; and, whether impelled by his native humour, or determined by his truer taste, mixed so little of the ridiculous in his comedy, as plainly shews, it might, in his opinion, subsist entirely without it. His practice indeed, and the theory, here delivered, nearly meet. And the conclusion is, that comedy, which is the image of private life, may take either character of pleasant or serious, as it chances, or even unite them into one piece; but that the former is, by no means, more essential to its constitution, than the latter.

I foresee but one objection, that can be made to this theory; which has, in effect, been obviated already. “It may be said, that, if this account of comedy be just, it would follow, that it might, with equal propriety, admit the gravest and most affecting events, which inferior life furnishes, as the lightest. Whereas it is notorious, that distresses of a deep and solemn nature, though faithfully copied from the fortunes of private men, would never be endured, under the name of comedy, on the stage. Nay, such representations would rather pass, in the public judgment, for legitimate tragedies; of which kind, we have, indeed, some examples in our language.”

Two things are mistaken in this objection. First, it supposes, that deep distresses of every kind are inconsistent with comedy; the contrary of which may be learnt from the Self-tormentor of Terence. Next, it insinuates, that, if deep distresses of any kind may be admitted into comedy, the deepest may. Which is equally erroneous. For the manners being the proper object of comedy, the distress must not exceed a certain degree of severity, lest it draw off the mind from them, and confine it to the action only: as would be the case of murder, adultery, and other atrocious crimes, infesting private, as well as public, life, were they to be represented, in all their horrors, on the stage. And though some of these, as adultery, have been brought, of late, into the comic scene, yet it was not till it had lost the atrocity of its nature, and was made the subject of mirth and pleasantry to the fashionable world. But for this happy disposition of the times, comedy, as managed by some of our writers, had lost its nature, and become tragic. And, yet, considered as tragic, such representations of low life had been improper. Because, where the intent is to affect, the subject is with more advantage taken from high life, all the circumstances being, there, more peculiarly adapted to answer that end.

The solution then of the difficulty is, in one word, this. All distresses are not improper in comedy; but such only as attach the mind to the fable, in neglect of the manners, which are its chief object. On the other hand, all distresses are not proper in tragedy; but such only as are of force to interest the mind in the action, preferably to the observation of the manners; which can only be done, or is done most effectually, when the distressful event, represented, is taken from public life. So that the distresses, spoken of, are equally unsuited to what the natures both of comedy and tragedy, respectively, demand.

CHAP. III.
OF M. DE FONTENELLE’S NOTION OF COMEDY.

Notwithstanding the pains I have taken, in the preceding chapters, to establish my theory of the comic drama, I find myself obliged to support it still further against the authority of a very eminent modern critic. M. de Fontenelle hath just now published two volumes of plays, among which are some comedies of a very singular character. They are not only, in a high degree, pathetic; but the scene of them is laid in antiquity; and great personages, such as Kings, Princesses, &c. are of the drama. He hath besides endeavoured to justify this extraordinary species of comedy by a very ingenious preface. It will therefore be necessary for me to examine this new system, and to obviate, as far as I can, the prejudices which the name of the author, and the intrinsic merit of the plays themselves, will occasion in favour of it.

His system, as explained in the preface to these comedies, is, briefly, this.

“The subject of dramatic representation, he observes, is some event or action of human life, which can be considered only in two views, as being either that of public, or of private, persons. The end of such representation, continues he, is to please, which it doth either by engaging the attention, or by moving the passions. The former is done by representing to us such events as are great, noble, or unexpected: The latter by such as are dreadful, pitiable, tender, or pleasant. Of these several sources of pleasure, he forms what he calls a dramatic scale, the extremes of which he admits to be altogether inconsistent; no art being sufficient to bring together the grand, the noble, or the terrible, into the same piece with the pleasant or ridiculous. The impressions of these objects, he allows, are perfectly opposed to each other. So that a tragedy, which takes for its subject a noble, or terrible event, can by no means admit the pleasant. And a comedy, which represents a pleasant action, can never admit the terrible or noble. But it is otherwise, he conceives, with the intermediate species of this scale. The singular, the pitiable, the tender, which fill up the interval betwixt the noble and ridiculous, are equally consistent with tragedy and comedy. An uncommon stroke of Fortune may as well befall a peasant as a prince. And two lovers of an inferior condition may have as lively a passion for each other, and, when some unlucky event separates them, may deserve our pity as much, as those of the highest fortune. These situations then are equally suited to both dramas. They will only be modified in each a little differently. From hence he concludes, that there may be dramatic representations, which are neither perfectly tragedies nor perfectly comedies, but yet partake of the nature of each, and that in different proportions. There might be a species of tragedy, for instance, which should unite the tender with the noble in any degree, or even subsist entirely by means of the tender: And of comedy, which should associate the tender with the pleasant, or even retain the tender throughout to a certain degree to the entire exclusion of the pleasant.

“As to his laying the scene of his comedy in Greece, he thinks this practice sufficiently justified by the practice of the French writers, who make no scruple to lay their scene abroad, as in Spain or England.

“Lastly, for what concerns the introduction of great personages into the comic drama, he observes that by ordinary life, which he supposes the proper subject of comedy, he understands as well that of Emperors and Princes, at times when they are only men, as of inferior persons. And he thinks it very evident that what passes in the ordinary life, so understood, of the greatest men, is truly comic[10].”

This is a simple exposition of M. de Fontenelle’s idea of comedy, which, however, he hath set off with great elegance and a plausibility of illustration, such as writers of his class are never at a loss to give to any subject they would recommend.

Now, tho’ the principal aim of what I have to offer in confutation of this system be to combat the ingenious writer’s notion of comedy, yet as the tenor of his preface leads him to deliver his sentiments also of tragedy, I shall not scruple intermixing, after his example, some reflexions on this latter drama.

M. de Fontenelle sets out with observing, that the end of dramatic representation is to please. This end is very general. But he explains himself more precisely, by saying, “this pleasure is of two kinds, and consists either in attaching the mind or affecting it.” And this is not much amiss. But his further explanation of these terms is suspicious. “The mind, says he, is ATTACHED by the representation of what is great, noble, singular, or unexpected: It is AFFECTED by what is terrible, pitiable, tender, or pleasant[11].” In this enumeration he forgets the merely natural draught of the manners. Yet this is surely one of the means by which the drama is enabled to attach the spectator. With me, I confess, this is the first excellence of comedy. Nor could he mean to include this source of pleasure under his second division. For tho’ a lively picture of the manners may in some sort be said to affect us, yet certainly not as coming under the consideration of what is terrible, pitiable, tender, or ridiculous, but simply of what is natural. The picture is pleasant or otherwise, as it chances; but is always the source of entertainment to the observer. When the pleasantry is high, it takes indeed the passion of ridicule. In other instances, it can scarcely be said to move, “emouvoir.” Now this I take to be a very considerable omission. For if the observation of character be a pleasure, which comedy is more particularly qualified to give, and which is not in any degree so compatible with tragedy, does not this bid fair for being the proper end of comedy? Human life, he says, which is the subject of the drama, can only be regarded in two views, as either that of the great and principally of kings, and that of private men. Now the attachments and emotions, he speaks of, are excited more powerfully and to more advantage in a representation of the former. That which is peculiar to a draught of ordinary life, or which is attained most perfectly by it, is the delight arising from a just exhibition of the manners. No, he will say. The pleasant belongs as peculiarly to a picture of common life, as the natural. Surely not. Common life distorted, or what we call farce, gives the entertainment of ridicule more perfectly than comedy. The only pleasure, which an exposition of ordinary life affords, distinct from that we receive from a view of high life on the one hand, and ordinary life disfigured on the other, is the satisfaction of contemplating the truth of character. However then this species of representation may be improved by incorporating other kinds of excellence with it, is not this, of pleasing by the truth of character, to be considered as the appropriate end of comedy?

I don’t dispute the propriety of serious or even affecting comedies. I have already explained myself as to this point, and have shewn under what restrictions the weeping comedy, la larmoyante comedie, as the French call it, may be admitted on my plan. The main question is, whether there be any foundation in nature for two distinct and separate species only of the drama; or whether, as he pretends, a certain scale, which connects by an insensible communication the several modifications of dramatic representation, unites and incorporates the two species into one.

It is true the laws of the drama, as formed by Aristotle out of the Greek poets, can of themselves be no rule to us in this matter; because these poets had given no example of such intermediate species. This, for aught appears to the contrary, may be an extension of the province of the drama. The question then must be tried by the success of this new practice, compared with the general dictates of common sense.

For I perfectly agree with this judicious critic, that we have a right to inquire if, in what concerns the stage, we are not sometimes governed by established customs instead of rules; for Rules they will not deserve to be esteemed, till they have undergone the rigid scrutiny of reason[12].

In respect of the Practice, then, it must be owned, there are many stories in private life capable of being worked up in such a manner as to move the passions strongly; and, on the contrary, many subjects taken from the great world capable of diverting the spectator by a pleasant picture of the manners. And lastly, it is also true, that both these ends may be affected together, in some degree, in either piece. But here is the point of enquiry. Whether if the end in view be to affect, this will not be accomplished BETTER by taking a subject from the public than private fortunes of men: Or, if the End be to please by the truth of character, whether we are not likely to perceive this pleasure more FULLY when the story is of private, rather than of public life? For, as Aristotle said finely on a like occasion, we are not to look for every sort of pleasure from tragedy [or comedy] but that which is peculiarly proper to each[13]. “Human life” this writer says, “can be considered but as high or low;” and “a representation of it can please only as it attaches, or affects.” I ask then, to which sort of life shall the dramatic poet confine himself, when he would endeavour to raise these affections or these attachments to the highest pitch. The answer is plain. For if the poet would excite the tender passions, they will rise higher of necessity, when awakened by noble subjects, than if called forth by such as are of ordinary and familiar notice. This is occasioned by what one may call a transition of the Passions: that affection of the mind which is produced by the impression of great objects, being more easily convertible into the stronger degrees of pity and commiseration, than such as arises from a view of the concerns of common life. The more important the interest, the greater part our minds take in it, and the more susceptible are we of passion.

On the other hand, when the intended pleasure is to result from strong pictures of human nature, this will be felt more entirely, and with more sincerity, when we are at leisure to attend to them in the representation of inferior persons, than when the rank of the speaker, or dignity of the subject, is constantly drawing some part of our observation to itself. In a word, though mixed dramas may give us pleasure, yet the pleasure, in either kind, will be LESS in proportion to the mixture. And the end of each will be then attained MOST PERFECTLY when its character, according to the ancient practice, is observed.

To consider then the writer’s favourite position, that le pitoyable and le tendre are “common both to tragedy and comedy.” The position, in general, is true. The difficulty is in fixing the degree, with which it ought to prevail in each. If passion predominates in a picture of private life, I call it a tragedy of private story, because it produces the end which tragedy designs. If humour predominates in a draught of public life, I call it a comedy of public story, because it gives the pleasure of pure comedy. Let these then be two new species of the drama, if you please, and let new names be invented for them. Yet, were I a poet, I should certainly adhere to the old practice. That is, if I wanted to produce passion, I should think myself able to raise it highest on a great subject. And if I aimed to attach by humour, I should depend on catching the whole attention of the spectator more successfully on a familiar subject.

But by a familiar subject, this critic will say, he means, as I do, a subject taken from ordinary life; and that the affairs of kings and princes may very properly come into comedy under this view. Besides the reason already produced against this innovation, I have this further exception to it. The business of comedy, he will allow, is in part at least to exhibit the manners. Now the princely or heroic comedy is singularly improper for this end. If persons of so distinguished a rank be the actors in comedy, propriety demands that they be shewn in conformity to their characters in real life. But now that very politeness, which reigns in the courts of princes and the houses of the great, prevents the manners from shewing themselves, at least with that distinctness and relief which we look for in dramatic characters. Inferior personages, acting with less reserve and caution, afford the fittest occasion to the poet of expressing their genuine tempers and dispositions. Or, if a picture of the manners be expected from the introduction of great persons, it can be only in tragedy, where the importance of the interests and the strong play of the passions strip them of their borrowed disguises, and lay open their true characters. So that the princely, or heroic, comedy is the least fitted, of any kind of drama, to furnish this pleasure.

The ancients appear to have had no doubt at all on the matter. The tragedy on low life, and comedy on high life, were refinements altogether unknown to them. What then hath occasioned this revolution of taste amongst us? Principally, I conceive, these three things.

1. The comedy on high life hath arisen from a different state of government. In the free towns of Greece there was no room for that distinction of high and low comedy, which the moderns have introduced. And the reason was, the members of those communities were so nearly on a level, that any one was a representative of the rest. There was no standing subordination of royalty, nobility, and commonalty, as with us. Their way of ennobling their characters was, by making them Generals, Ambassadors, Magistrates, &c. and then, in that public view, they were fit personages for tragedy. When stripped of these ensigns of authority, they became simple citizens.

Amongst us, persons of elevated rank make a separate order in the community, whose private lives however might, no doubt, be the subject of comic representation. Why then are not these fit personages for comedy? The reason has been given. They want dramatic manners. Or, if they did not, their elevated and separate estate makes the generality conceive with such reverence of them, that it would shock their notions of high life to see them employed in a course of comic adventures. And of this M. de Fontenelle himself was sufficiently sensible. For, speaking in another place of the importance which the tragic action receives from the dignity of its persons, he says, “When the actions are of such a kind as that, without losing any thing of their beauty, they might pass between inferior persons, the names of kings and princes are nothing but a foreign ornament, which the poet gives to his subject. Yet this ornament, foreign as it may be, is necessary: so fated are we to be always dazzled by titles[14].” Should he not have seen then, that this pageantry of titles, which is so requisite to raise the dignity of the tragic drama, must for the same reason prevent the familiarity of the comic? The great themselves are, no doubt, in this, as other instances, above vulgar prejudices. But the dramatic poet writes for the people.

2. The tragedy on low life, I suspect, has been chiefly owing to our modern romances: which have brought the tender passion into great repute. It is the constant and almost sole object of le pitoyable and le tendre in our drama. Now the prevalency of this passion in all degrees hath made it thought an indifferent matter, whether the story, that exemplifies it, be taken from low or high life. As it rages equally in both, the pathos, it was believed, would be just the same. And it is true, if tragedy confine itself to the display of this passion, the difference will be less sensible than in other instances. Because the concern terminates more directly in the tender pair themselves, and does not so necessarily extend itself to others. Yet to heighten this same pathos by the grand and important, would methinks be the means of affording a still higher pleasure.

3. After all, that effusion of softness which prevails to such a degree in all our dramas, comic as well as tragic, to the exclusion of every other interest, is, perhaps, best accounted for by this writer. As the matter is delicate, I chuse to give it in his own words: “On s’imagine naturellement, que les piéces Grecques & les nôtres ont été jugées au même tribunal, à celui d’un public assés egal dans les deux nations; mais cela n’est pas tout-a-fait vrai. Dans le tribunal d’Athenes, les femmes n’avoient pas de voix, ou n’en avoient que très peu. Dans le tribunal de Paris, c’est précisément le contraire; ici il est donc question de plaire aux femmes, qui assurément aimeront mieux le pitoyable & le tendre, que terrible et même le grand.” He adds, “Et je ne crois pas au fond qu’elles ayent grand tort.” And what gallant man but would subscribe to this opinion?

On the whole, this attempt of M. de Fontenelle, to innovate in the province of comedy, puts one in mind of that he made, many years ago, in pastoral poetry. It is exactly the same spirit which has governed this polite writer in both adventures. He was once for bringing courtiers in masquerade into Arcadia. And now he would set them unmasked on the comic stage. Here, at least, he thought they would be in place. But the simplicity of pastoral dialogue would not suffer the one; and the familiarity of comic action forbids the other. It must be confessed, however, he hath succeeded better in the example of his comedies, than his pastorals. And no wonder. For what we call the fashions and manners are confined to certain conditions of life, so that pastoral courtiers are an evident contradiction and absurdity. But, the appetites and passions extending through all ranks, hence low tricks and low amours are thought to suit the minister and sharper alike. However it be, the fact is, that M. de Fontenelle hath succeeded best in his comedies. And as his theory is likely to gain more credit from the success of his practice than the force of his reasoning, I think it proper to close these remarks with an observation or two upon it.

There are, I observed, three things to be considered in his comedies, his introduction of great personages, his practice of laying the scene in antiquity, and his pathos.

Now to see the impropriety of the first of these innovations, we need only observe with what art he endeavours to conceal it. His very dexterity in managing his comic heroes clearly shews the natural repugnance he felt in his own mind betwixt the representation of such characters, and even his own idea of the comic drama.

The Tyrant is a strange title of a comedy. It required singular address to familiarize this frightful personage to our conceptions. Which yet he hath tolerably well done, but by such expedients as confute his general theory. For, to bring him down to the level of a comic character, he gives us to understand, that the Tyrant was an usurper, who from a very mean birth had forced his way into the tyranny. And to lower him still more, we find him represented, not only as odious to his people, but of a very contemptible character. He further makes him the tyrant only of a small Greek town; so that he passes, with the modern reader, for little more than the Mayor of a corporation. There is also a plain illusion in making a simple citizen demand his daughter in marriage. For under the cover of this word, which conveys the idea of a person in lower life, we think very little of the dignity of a free citizen of Corinth. Whence it appears that the poet felt the necessity of unkinging this tyrant as far as possible, before he could make a comic character of him.

The case of his Abdolonime is still easier. ’Tis true, the structure of the fable requires us to have an eye to royalty, but all the pride and pomp of the regal character is studiously kept out of sight. Besides, the affair of royalty does not commence till the action draws to a conclusion, the persons of the drama being all simple particulars, and even of the lowest figure through the entire course of it.

The King of Sidon is, further, a paltry sovereign, and a creature of Alexander. And the characters of the persons, which are indeed admirably touched, are purposely contrived to lessen our ideas of sovereignty.

The Lysianasse is a tragedy in form, of that kind which hath a happy catastrophe. The persons, subject, every thing so important, and attaches the mind so intirely to the event, that nothing interests more.

As to his laying the scene in antiquity, and especially in the free towns of Greece, I would recommend it as an admirable expedient to all those who are disposed to follow him in this new province of heroic comedy. For amongst other advantages, it gives the writer an occasion to fill the courts of his princes with simple citizens, which, as was observed, by no means answer to our ideas of nobility. But in any other view I cannot say much for the practice. It is for obvious reasons highly inconvenient. Even this writer found it so, when in one of his plays, the Macate, he was obliged to break through the propriety of ancient manners in order to adapt himself to the modern taste. His duel, as he himself says, “a l’air bien françois et bien peu grec.” The reader, if he pleases, may see his apology for this transgression of decorum. Or, if there were no inconvenience of this sort, the representation of characters after the antique must, on many occasions, be cold and disgusting. At least none but professed scholars can be taken with it.

Nor is the usage of the Latin writers any precedent. For, besides that Horace, we know, condemned it as suitable only to the infancy of their comic poetry, the manners, laws, religion of the Greeks were in the main so similar to their own, that the difference was hardly discernible. Or if it were otherwise in some points, the neighbourhood of this famous people and the intercourse the Romans had with them, would bring them perfectly acquainted with such difference. And this last reflexion shews how insufficient it was for the author to excuse his own practice from the authority of his countrymen; who, says he, “never scruple laying their scene in Spain or England.” Are the manners of ancient Greece as familiar to a French pit, as those of these two countries?

Lastly, I have very little to object to the pathos of his comedy. When it is subservient to the manners, as in the Testament and Abdolonime, I think it admirable. When it exceeds this degree and takes the attention intirely, as in the Lysianasse, it gives a pleasure indeed, but not the pleasure appropriate to comedy. I regard it as a faint imperfect species of tragedy. After all, I fear the tender and pitiable in comedy, though it must afford the highest pleasure to sensible and elegant minds, is not perfectly suited to the apprehensions of the generality. Are they susceptible of the soft and delicate emotions which the fine distress in the Testament is intended to raise? Every one indeed is capable of being delighted through the passions; but they must be worked up, as in tragedy, to a greater height, before the generality can receive that delight from them. The same objection, it will be said, holds against the finer strokes of character. Not, I think, with the same force. I doubt our sense of imitation, especially of the ridiculous, is quicker than our humanity. But I determine nothing. Both these pleasures are perfectly consistent. And my idea of comedy requires only that the pathos be kept in subordination to the manners.

CHAP. IV.
OF THE PROVINCE OF FARCE.

Thus much then for the general idea of Comedy. If considered more accurately, it is, further, of two kinds. And in considering these we shall come at a just notion of the province of FARCE. For this mirror of private life either, 1. reflects such qualities and characters, as are common to human nature at large: or, 2. it represents the whims, extravagances, and caprices, which characterize the folly of particular persons or times.

Again, each of these is, further, to be subdivided into two species. For 1. the representations of common nature may either be taken accurately, so as to reflect a faithful and exact image of their original; which alone is that I would call COMEDY, as best agreeing to the description which Cicero gives of it, when he terms it IMAGINEM VERITATIS. Or, they may be forced and overcharged above the simple and just proportions of nature; as when the excesses of a few are given for standing characters, when not the man is described, but the passion, or when, in the draught of the man, the leading feature is extended beyond measure: And in these cases the representation holds of the lower province of Farce. In like manner, 2. the other species, consisting in the representation of partial nature, either transcribes such characters as are peculiar to certain countries or times, of which our comedy is, in great measure, made up; or it presents the image of some real individual person; which was the distinguishing character of the old comedy properly so called.

Both these kinds evidently belong to FARCE: not only as failing in that general and universal imitation of nature, which is alone deserving the name of comedy, but, also, for this reason, that, being more directly written for the present purpose of discrediting certain characters or persons, it is found convenient to exaggerate their peculiarities and enlarge their features; and so, on a double account, they are to be referred to that class.

And thus the three forms of dramatic composition, the only ones which good sense acknowledges, are kept distinct: and the proper END and CHARACTER of each, clearly understood.

1. Tragedy and Comedy, by their lively but faithful representations, cannot fail to instruct. Such natural exhibitions of the human character, being set before us in the clear mirror of the drama, must needs serve to the highest moral uses, in awakening that instinctive approbation, which we cannot withhold from virtue, or in provoking the not less necessary detestation of vice. But this, though it be their best use, is by no means their primary intention. Their proper and immediate end is, to PLEASE: the one, more especially by interesting the affections; the other, by a just and delicate imitation of real life. Farce, on the contrary, professes to entertain, but this, in order more effectually to serve the interests of virtue and good sense. Its proper end and purpose (if we allow it to have any reasonable one) is, then, to INSTRUCT. Which the reader will understand me as saying, not of what we know by the name of farce on the modern stage (whose prime intention can hardly be thought even that low one, ascribed to it by Mr. Dryden, of entertaining citizens, country gentlemen, and Covent Garden fops), but of the legitimate end of this drama; known to the Ancients under the name of the old Comedy, but having neither name nor existence, properly speaking, among the Moderns. Of which we may say, as Mr. Dryden did, but with less propriety, of Comedy, “That it is a sharp manner of instruction for the vulgar, who are never well amended, till they are more than sufficiently exposed.” [Pref. to Trans. of Fresnoy, p. xix.]

2. Though tragedy and comedy respect the same general END, yet pursuing it by different means, hence it comes to pass, their CHARACTERS are wholly different. For tragedy, aiming at pleasure, principally through the affections, whose flow must not be checked and interrupted by any counter impressions: and comedy, as we have seen, addressing itself principally to our natural sense of resemblance and imitation; it follows, that the ridiculous can never be associated with tragedy, without destroying its nature, though with the serious comic it very well consists.

And here the practice coincides with the rule. All exact writers, though they constantly mix grave and pleasant scenes together in the same comedy, yet never presume to do this in tragedy, and so keep the two species of tragedy and comedy themselves perfectly distinct. But,

3. It is quite otherwise with comedy and farce. These almost perpetually run into each other. And yet the reason of the thing demands as intire and perfect a separation in this case, as in the other. For the perfection of comedy lying in the accuracy and fidelity of universal representation, and farce professedly neglecting or rather purposely transgressing the limits of common nature and just decorum, they clash entirely with each other. And comedy must so far fail of giving the pleasure, appropriate to its design, as it allies itself with farce; while farce, on the other hand, forfeits the use, it intends, of promoting popular ridicule, by restraining itself within the exact rules of Nature, which Comedy observes.

But there is little occasion to guard against this latter abuse. The danger is all on the other side. And the passion for what is now called Farce, the shadow of the Old Comedy, has, in fact, possessed the modern poets to such a degree that we have scarcely one example of a comedy, without this gross mixture. If any are to be excepted from this censure in Moliere, they are his Misanthrope and Tartuffe, which are accordingly, by common allowance, the best of his large collection. In proportion as his other plays have less or more of this farcical turn, their true value hath been long since determined.

Of our own comedies, such of them, I mean, as are worthy of criticism, Ben Jonson’s Alchymist and Volpone bid the fairest for being written in this genuine unmixed manner. Yet, though their merits are very great, severe Criticism might find something to object even to these. The Alchymist, some will think, is exaggerated throughout, and so, at best, belongs to that species of comedy, which we have before called particular and partial. At least, the extravagant pursuit so strongly exposed in that play, hath now, of a long time, been forgotten; so that we find it difficult to enter fully into the humour of this highly-wrought character. And, in general, we may remark of such characters, that they are a strong temptation to the writer to exceed the bounds of truth in his draught of them at first, and are further liable to an imperfect, and even unfair sentence from the reader afterwards. For the welcome reception, which these pictures of prevailing local folly meet with on the stage, cannot but induce the poet, almost without design, to inflame the representation: And the want of archetypes, in a little time, makes it pass for immoderate, were it originally given with ever so much discretion and justice. So that whether the Alchymist be farcical or not, it will appear, at least, to have this note of Farce, “That the principal character is exaggerated.” But then this is all we must affirm. For as to the subject of this Play’s being a local folly, which seems to bring it directly under the denomination of Farce, it is but just to make a distinction. Had the end and purpose of the Play been to expose Alchymy, it had been liable to this objection. But this mode of local folly, is employed as the means only of exposing another folly, extensive as our Nature and coeval with it, namely Avarice. So that the subject has all the requisites of true Comedy. It is just otherwise, we may observe, in the Devil’s an Ass; which therefore properly falls under our censure. For there, the folly of the time, Projects and Monopolies, are brought in to be exposed, as the end and purpose of the comedy.

On the whole, the Alchymist is a Comedy in just form, but a little Farcical in the extension of one of its characters.

The Volpone, is a subject so manifestly fitted for the entertainment of all times, that it stands in need of no vindication. Yet neither, I am afraid, is this Comedy, in all respects, a complete model. There are even some Incidents of a farcical invention; particularly the Mountebank Scene and Sir Politique’s Tortoise are in the taste of the old comedy; and without its rational purpose. Besides, the humour of the dialogue is sometimes on the point of becoming inordinate, as may be seen in the pleasantry of Corbaccio’s mistakes through deafness, and in other instances. And we shall not wonder that the best of his plays are liable to some objections of this sort, if we attend to the character of the writer. For his nature was severe and rigid, and this in giving a strength and manliness, gave, at times too, an intemperance to his satyr. His taste for ridicule was strong but indelicate, which made him not over-curious in the choice of his topics. And lastly, his style in picturing characters, though masterly, was without that elegance of hand, which is required to correct and allay the force of so bold a colouring. Thus, the bias of his nature leading him to Plautus rather than Terence for his model, it is not to be wondered that his wit is too frequently caustic; his raillery coarse; and his humour excessive.

Some later writers for the stage have, no doubt, avoided these defects of the exactest of our old dramatists. But do they reach his excellencies? Posterity, I am afraid, will judge otherwise, whatever may be now thought of some more fashionable comedies. And if they do not, neither the state of general manners, nor the turn of the public taste, appears to be such as countenances the expectation of greater improvements. To those who are not over-sanguine in their hopes, our forefathers will perhaps be thought to have furnished (what, in nature, seem linked together) the fairest example of dramatic, as of real manners.

But here it will probably be said, an affected zeal for the honour of our old poets has betrayed their unwary advocate into a concession, which discredits his whole pains on this subject. For to what purpose, may it be asked, this waste of dramatic criticism, when, by the allowance of the idle speculatist himself, his theory is likely to prove so unprofitable, at least, if it be not ill-founded? The only part I can take in this nice conjuncture, is to screen myself behind the authority of a much abler critical theorist, who had once the misfortune to find himself in these unlucky circumstances, and has apologized for it. The objection is fairly urged by this fine writer; and in so profound and speculative an age, as the present, I presume to suggest no other answer, than he has thought fit to give to it. “Speculations of this sort, says he, do not bestow genius on those who have it not; they do not, perhaps, afford any great assistance to those who have; and most commonly the men of genius are even incapable of being assisted by speculation. To what use then do they serve? Why, to lead up to the first principles of beauty such persons as love reasoning and are fond of reducing, under the controul of philosophy, subjects that appear the most independent of it, and which are generally thought abandoned to the caprice of taste[15].”

A
DISCOURSE
ON
POETICAL IMITATION.

DISSERTATION III.
ON
POETICAL IMITATION.

I undertake, in the following discourse, to consider TWO QUESTIONS, in which the credit of almost all great writers, since the time of Homer, is vitally concerned.

First, “Whether that Conformity in Phrase or Sentiment between two writers of different times, which we call Imitation, may not with probability enough, for the most part, be accounted for from general causes, arising from our common nature; that is, from the exercise of our natural faculties on such objects as lie in common to all observers?”

Secondly, “Whether, in the case of confessed Imitations, any certain and necessary conclusion holds to the disadvantage of the natural GENIUS of the imitator?”—Questions, which there seems no fit method of resolving, but by taking the matter pretty deep, and deducing it from its first principles.