"He that will look upon theirs, which have been written till [within] these last ten years [i.e., 1655, when MOLIERE began to write], or thereabouts, will find it a hard matter to pick out two or three passable Humours amongst them. CORNEILLE himself, their Arch Poet; what has he produced, except the Liar? and you know how it was cried up in France. But when it came upon the English Stage, though well translated, and that part of DORANT acted to so much advantage by Mr. HART, as, I am confident, it never received in its own country; the most favourable to it, would not put it in competition with many of FLETCHER's or BEN. JOHNSON's. In the rest of CORNEILLE's Comedies you have little humour. He tells you, himself, his way is first to show two lovers in good intelligence with each other; in the working up of the Play, to embroil them by some mistake; and in the latter end, to clear it up.
"But, of late years, DE MOLIERE, the younger CORNEILLE, QUINAULT, and some others, have been imitating, afar off, the quick turns and graces of the English Stage. They have mixed their serious Plays with mirth, like our Tragi-Comedies, since the death of Cardinal RICHELIEU [in 1642]: which LISIDEIUS and many others not observing, have commended that in them for a virtue [p. 531], which they themselves no longer practise.
"Most of their new Plays are, like some of ours, derived from the Spanish novels. There is scarce one of them, without a veil; and a trusty DIEGO, who drolls, much after the rate of the Adventures [pp. 533, 553]. But their humours, if I may grace them with that name, are so thin sown; that never above One of them comes up in a Play. I dare take upon me, to find more variety of them, in one play of BEN. JOHNSON's, than in all theirs together: as he who has seen the Alchemist, the Silent Woman, or Bartholomew Fair, cannot but acknowledge with me. I grant the French have performed what was possible on the ground work of the Spanish plays. What was pleasant before, they have made regular. But there is not above one good play to be writ upon all those Plots. They are too much alike, to please often; which we need not [adduce] the experience of our own Stage to justify.
"As for their New Way of mingling Mirth with serious Plot, I do not, with LISIDEIUS, condemn the thing; though I cannot approve their manner of doing it. He tells us, we cannot so speedily re-collect ourselves, after a Scene of great Passion and Concernment, as to pass to another of Mirth and Humour, and to enjoy it with any relish. But why should he imagine the Soul of Man more heavy than his Senses? Does not the eye pass from an unpleasant object, to a pleasant, in a much shorter time than is required to this? and does not the unpleasantness of the first commend the beauty of the latter? The old rule of Logic might have convinced him, that 'Contraries when placed near, set off each other.' A continued gravity keeps the spirit too much bent. We must refresh it sometimes; as we bait [lunch] upon a journey, that we may go on with greater ease. A Scene of Mirth mixed with Tragedy, has the same effect upon us, which our music has betwixt the Acts; and that, we find a relief to us from the best Plots and Language of the Stage, if the discourses have been long.
"I must, therefore, have stronger arguments, ere I am convinced that Compassion and Mirth, in the same subject, destroy each other: and, in the meantime, cannot but conclude to the honour of our Nation, that we have invented, increased, and perfected a more pleasant way of writing for the Stage than was ever known to the Ancients or Moderns of any nation; which is, Tragi-Comedy.
"And this leads me to wonder why LISIDEIUS [p. 533], and many others, should cry up the barrenness of the French Plots above the variety and copiousness of the English?
"Their Plots are single. They carry on one Design, which is push forward by all the Actors; every scene in the Play contributing and moving towards it. Ours, besides the main Design, have Under Plots or By-Concernments of less considerable persons and intrigues; which are carried on, with the motion of the main Plot: just as they say the orb [?orbits] of the fixed stars, and those of the planets (though they have motions of their own), are whirled about, by the motion of the Primum Mobile in which they are contained. That similitude expresses much of the English Stage. For, if contrary motions may be found in Nature to agree, if a planet can go East and West at the same time; one way, by virtue of his own motion, the other, by the force of the First Mover: it will not be difficult to imagine how the Under Plot, which is only different [from], not contrary to the great Design, may naturally be conducted along with it.
"EUGENIUS [?LISIDEIUS] has already shown us [p. 534], from the confession of the French poets, that the Unity of Action is sufficiently preserved, if all the imperfect actions of the Play are conducing to the main Design: but when those petty intrigues of a Play are so ill ordered, that they have no coherence with the other; I must grant, that LISIDEIUS has reason to tax that Want of due Connection. For Co-ordination in a Play is as dangerous and unnatural as in a State. In the meantime, he must acknowledge, our Variety (if well ordered) will afford a greater pleasure to the audience.
"As for his other argument, that by pursuing one single Theme, they gain an advantage to express, and work up the passions [p. 533]; I wish any example he could bring from them, would make it good. For I confess their verses are, to me, the coldest I have ever read.
"Neither, indeed, is It possible for them, in the way they take, so to express Passion as that the effects of it should appear in the concernment of an audience; their speeches being so many declamations, which tire us with the length: so that, instead of persuading us to grieve for their imaginary heroes, we are concerned for our own trouble, as we are, in the tedious visits of bad [dull] company; we are in pain till they are gone.