"Others say, 'It is not enough, to find one man of such an humour. It
must he common to more; and the more common, the more natural.' To prove
this, they instance in the best of comical characters, _FALSTAFF_. There
are many men resembling him; Old, Fat, Merry, Cowardly, Drunken, Amorous,
Vain, and Lying. But to convince these people; I need but [to] tell them,
that _Humour is the ridiculous extravagance of conversation, wherein one
man differs from all others_. If then it be common, or communicated to
any; how differs it from other men's? or what indeed causes it to be
ridiculous, so much as the singularity of it. As for _FALSTAFF_, he is
not properly one Humour; but a Miscellany of Humours or Images drawn from
so many several men. That wherein he is singular is his Wit, or those
things he says, _praeter expectatum_, 'unexpected by the audience'; his
quick evasions, when you imagine him surprised: which, as they are
extremely diverting of themselves, so receive a great addition from his
person; for the very sight of such an unwieldy old debauched fellow is a
Comedy alone.

"And here, having a place so proper for it, I cannot but enlarge somewhat
upon this subject of Humour, into which I am fallen.

"The Ancients had little of it in their Comedies: for the [Greek: no
geloiou] [_facetious absurdities_] of the Old Comedy, of which
ARISTOPHANES was chief, was not so much to imitate a man; as to make the
people laugh at some odd conceit, which had commonly somewhat of
unnatural or obscene in it. Thus, when you see _SOCRATES_ brought upon
the Stage, you are not to imagine him made ridiculous by the imitation of
his actions: but rather, by making him perform something very unlike
himself; something so childish and absurd, as, by comparing it with the
gravity of the true SOCRATES, makes a ridiculous object for the
spectators.

"In the New Comedy which succeeded, the Poets sought, indeed, to express
the [Greek: aethos] [_manners and habits_]; as in their Tragedies, the
[Greek: pathos] [_sufferings_] of mankind. But this [Greek: aethos]
contained only the general characters of men and manners; as [of] Old
Men, Lovers, Servingmen, Courtizans, Parasites, and such other persons as
we see in their Comedies. All which, they made alike: that is, one Old Man
or Father, one Lover, one Courtizan so like another, as if the first of
them had begot the rest of every [_each_] sort. _Ex homine hunc natum
dicas_. The same custom they observe