n, drawn chiefly from
Menander and the Greek New Comedy through Terence; or else comedies of
the poet's personal conception, that have had no model in life, and are
humorous exaggerations, happy or otherwise. These are the comedies of
Ben Jonson, Massinger, and Fletcher. Massinger's Justice Greedy we can
all of us refer to a type, 'with fat capon lined' that has been and
will be; and he would be comic, as Panurge is comic, but only a Rabelais
could set him moving with real animation. Probably Justice Greedy would
be comic to the audience of a country booth and to some of our friends.
If we have lost our youthful relish for the presentation of characters
put together to fit a type, we find it hard to put together the
mechanism of a civil smile at his enumeration of his dishes. Something
of the same is to be said of Bobadil, swearing 'by the foot of Pharaoh';
with a reservation, for he is made to move faster, and to act. The comic
of Jonson is a scholar's excogitation of the comic; that of Massinger a
moralist's.

Shakespeare is a well-spring of characters which are saturated with the
comic spirit; with more of what we will call blood-life than is to be
found anywhere out of Shakespeare; and they are of this world, but they
are of the world enlarged to our embrace by imagination, and by great
poetic imagination. They are, as it were--I put it to suit my present
comparison--creatures of the woods and wilds, not in walled towns, not
grouped and toned to pursue a comic exhibition of the narrower world of
society. Jaques, Falstaff and his regiment, the varied troop of Clowns,
Malvolio, Sir Hugh Evans and Fluellen--marvellous Welshmen!--Benedict
and Beatrice, Dogberry, and the rest, are subjects of a special study in
the poetically comic.

His Comedy of incredible imbroglio belongs to the literary section.
One may conceive that there was a natural resemblance between him
and Menander, both in the scheme and style of his lighter plays. Had
Shakespeare lived in a later and less emotional, less heroical period of
our history, he might have turned to the painting of manners as well as
humanity. Euripides would probably, in the time of Menander, when Athens
was enslaved but prosperous, have lent his hand to the composition of
romantic comedy. He certainly inspired that fine genius.

Politically it is accounted a misfortune for France that her nobles
thronged to the Court of Louis Quatorze. It was a boon to the comic
poet. He had