ho 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 pla