"Tragedy should never go beyond the natural; that which is great in it never goes farther than heroism; it is a living picture, so that its beauty consists in its resemblance with the truth.
"Comedy is a feigned action, in which is represented the ridiculous, in order to correct it; it rebukes with a smile, and corrects with a facetious stroke: the matter of comedy is civil life, of which it is an imitation: it ought to be every where enlivened with all possible care, to have fine and easy strokes of wit and satire, which present the ridiculous in the most glaring point of view; it should be pure, easy, and natural, have no borrowed passions or constrained actions; morality and instruction ought to be infused into the several parts, so that we might feel instruction, but not see it.
"Tragedy imitates the beautiful, and the great; Comedy imitates the ridiculous: one elevates the soul, and forms the heart; the other polishes the behaviour, and corrects the manners. Tragedy humanizes us by compassion, and restrains us by fear; Comedy makes us laugh, because the faults of the little are trifling, we fear not their consequences.
"If examples have some force and life when trusted to paper, how much greater must their vigour be, when they live in the player, and are moved and speak in the most lofty sentiments, and all the eloquence of action. The spectator imagines that a series of ages having revolved back, and the distance of places being contracted, he is suddenly conveyed into those places and ages, in which the subject of the drama happened; or else, that past times being renewed, the subject is again acted in his presence. You do not on these occasions read silently in your closet the illustrious acts of antient heroes, who have immortalized themselves by the love they displayed for their country, their parents, their children, &c. These wonderful men are called from their tombs where they have so long slumbered, appear again in the world, and you behold their generous, their pious strife.
"In Athens the Stage was impowered by the Legislature to instruct the ignorant vulgar, and, as a censor, to reform the rude populace; it was its duty to make Tragedy a school of wisdom, and Comedy of reproof. The poets rendered the Theatre beneficial to the world, by appointing Tragedy to calm the passions by terror and pity, and Comedy to reform the mind by ridicule and censure. The duty of the Poet was, as Horace expresses it—aut prodesse aut delectare.
"I am sorry to say that some of our comic writers have been too fond of familiarizing their audiences to vice; and we need make no doubt that the immorality of the stage has contributed to the depravity of manners too visible amongst all ranks of people, and fulfils what Juvenal says,
——nullâ virtute redemptum
A vitiis.——
"Farce I consider as the gleanings of the Drama. I remember when it was seldom used; those who have seen the Theatrical Calendar for the years 1708 and 1709, will confirm what I assert. Dogget, one of the first Comedians of his time, was three years before he could obtain leave to have his farce of The Country Wake performed; and, when granted, it was provided he acted the principal part (Hob). Farquhar, from the success of his comedies, and interest with the Duke of Ormond his patron, obtained leave for his farce of The Stage Coach; and Cibber, with great difficulty, brought on his School Boy; before these times the plays of Shakspeare, Jonson, &c. did not need the aid of farce. It must be allowed, that the farces by Garrick, and some by Foote, have met with much success, and abound with the utile dulci; but the generality of those now in possession of the Stage are, as Dryden says, 'a compound of extravagances, fit only to entertain such people as are judges of neither men nor manners.' To confirm this great
Poet's opinion, I appeal to those who have seen a new farce last season at Crow-street Theatre, devoid both of wit and satire, and composed of vulgar phrases, beneath a Bartholomew-fair droll; however, I applaud the author for not printing it; if he had, it must certainly have suffered the fate it most justly deserved, to be condemned by all its readers[252:A].