oral put into action. To conclude, the new
comedy, invented by Menander, has produced the comedy, properly so
called in our times. This is that which has for its subject general
pictures of common life, and feigned names and adventures, whether of
the court or of the city. This third kind is incontestably the most
noble, and has received the strongest sanction from custom. It is,
likewise, the most difficult to perform, because it is merely the work
of invention, in which the poet has no help from real passages or
persons, which the tragick poet always makes use of. Who knows but, by
deep thinking, another kind of comedy may be invented, wholly different
from the three which I have mentioned? such is the fruitfulness of
comedy. But its course is already too wide for the discovery of new
fields to be wished; and on ground where we are already so apt to
stumble, nothing is so dangerous as novelty imperfectly understood. This
is the rock on which men have often split, in every kind of pursuit; to
go no further, in that of grammar and language, it is better to
endeavour after novelty, in the manner of expressing common things, than
to hunt for ideas out of the way, in which many a man loses himself. The
ill success of that odd composition, tragick comedy, a monster wholly
unknown to antiquity,[33] sufficiently shows the danger of novelty in
attempts like these.

15. WHETHER TRAGEDY OR COMEDY BE THE HARDER TO WRITE[34].

To finish the parallel of the two dramas, a question may be revived
equally common and important, which has been oftener proposed than well
decided: it is, whether comedy or tragedy be most easy or difficult to
be well executed. I shall not have the temerity to determine,
positively, a question which so many great geniuses have been afraid to
decide; but, if it be allowed to every literary man to give his reason
for and against a mere work of genius, considered without respect to its
good or bad tendency, I shall, in a few words, give my opinion, drawn
from the nature of the two works, and the qualifications they demand.
Horace[35] proposes a question nearly of the same kind: "It has been
inquired, whether a good poem be the work of art or nature? for my part,
I do not see much to be done by art without genius, nor by genius
without knowledge. The one is necessary to the other, and the success
depends upon their cooperation." If we should endeavour to accommodate
matters in imitation of this decision of Ho