never be
denied the honour of sprightliness, animation, and invention; nor that
of Menander and Terence the praise of nature and of delicacy; to that of
Moliere must be allowed the happy secret of uniting all the piquancy of
the former, with a peculiar art which they did not know. Of these three
sorts of merit, let us show to each the justice that is due, let us, in
each, separate the pure and the true, from the false gold, without
approving or condemning either the one or the other, in the gross. If we
must pronounce, in general, upon the taste of their writings, we must
indisputably allow that Menander, Terence and Moliere, will give most
pleasure to a decent audience, and, consequently, that they approach
nearer to the true beauty, and have less mixture of beauties purely
relative, than Plautus and Aristophanes.

If we distinguish comedy by its subjects, we shall find three sorts
among the Greeks, and as many among the Latins, all differently dressed;
if we distinguish it by ages and authors, we shall again find three
sorts; and we shall find three sorts, a third time, if we regard more
closely the subject. As the ultimate and general rules of all these
sorts of comedy are the same, it will, perhaps, be agreeable to our
purpose to sketch them out, before we give a full display of the last
class. I can do nothing better, on this occasion, than transcribe the
twenty-fifth reflection of Rapin upon poetry in particular.

13. GENERAL RULES OF COMEDY.

"Comedy," says he[32], "is a representation of common life: its end is
to show the faults of particular characters on the stage, to correct the
disorder of the people by the fear of ridicule. Thus ridicule is the
essential part of a comedy. Ridicule may be in words, or in things; it
may be decent, or grotesque. To find what is ridiculous in every thing,
is the gift merely of nature; for all the actions of life have their
bright, and their dark sides; something serious, and something merry.
But Aristotle, who has given rules for drawing tears, has given none for
raising laughter; for this is merely the work of nature, and must
proceed from genius, with very little help from art or matter. The
Spaniards have a turn to find the ridicule in things, much more than we;
and the Italians, who are natural comedians, have a better turn for
expressing it; their language is more proper for it than ours, by an air
of drollery which it can put on, and of which ours may become capable,