mes of men, and some their absurdities; some the momentous
vicissitudes of life, and some the lighter occurrences; some the
terrours of distress and some the gaieties of prosperity. Thus rose the
two modes of imitation, known by the names of _tragedy_ and _comedy_,
compositions intended to promote different ends by contrary means, and
considered as so little allied, that I do not recollect among the Greeks
or Romans a single writer who attempted both[6].

Shakespeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and sorrow, not
only in one mind, but in one composition. Almost all his plays are
divided between serious and ludicrous characters, and, in the successive
evolutions of the design, sometimes produce seriousness and sorrow, and
sometimes levity and laughter.

That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will be
readily allowed; but there is always an appeal open from criticism to
nature. The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to
instruct by pleasing. That the mingled drama may convey all the
instruction of tragedy or comedy cannot be denied, because it includes
both in its alternations of exhibition, and approaches nearer than
either to the appearance of life, by showing how great machinations and
slender designs may promote or obviate one another, and the high and the
low co-operate in the general system by unavoidable concatenation.

It is objected, that by this change of scenes the passions are
interrupted in their progression, and that the principal event, being
not advanced by a due gradation of preparatory incidents, wants, at
last, the power to move, which constitutes the perfection of dramatick
poetry. This reasoning is so specious, that it is received as true even
by those who, in daily experience, feel it to be false. The interchanges
of mingled scenes seldom fail to produce the intended vicissitudes of
passion. Fiction cannot move so much, but that the attention may be
easily transferred; and though it must be allowed that pleasing
melancholy may be sometimes interrupted by unwelcome levity, yet let it
be considered, likewise, that melancholy is often not pleasing, and that
the disturbance of one man may be the relief of another; that different
auditors have different habitudes; and that, upon the whole, all
pleasure consists in variety.

The players, who, in their edition, divided our author's works into
comedies, histories and tragedies, seem not to have distinguished