name. Of this nature are the plays of Aristophanes, eleven of which are still extant; plays of a very singular nature, and wholly different from all compositions which have, since that age, borne the name of comedy. They show what a turbulent and licentious republic that of Athens was, and what unrestrained scope the Athenians gave to ridicule, when they could suffer the most illustrious personages of their state, their generals, and their magistrates, Cleon, Lamachus, Nicias, Alcibiades, not to mention Socrates the philosopher, and Euripides the poet, to be publicly made the subject of comedy. Several of Aristophanes' plays are wholly political satires upon public management, and the conduct of generals and statesmen, during the Peloponnesian war. They are so full of political allegories and allusions, that it is impossible to understand them without a considerable knowledge of the history of those times. They abound, too, with parodies of the great tragic poets, particularly of Euripides; to whom the author bore much enmity, and has written two comedies, almost wholly in order to ridicule him.

Vivacity, satire, and buffoonery, are the characteristics of Aristophanes. Genius and force he displays upon many occasions; but his performances, upon the whole, are not calculated to give us any high opinion of the Attic taste of wit, in his age. They seem, indeed, to have been composed for the mob. The ridicule employed in them is extravagant; the wit, for the most part, buffoonish and farcical; the personal raillery, biting and cruel; and the obscenity that reigns in them, is gross and intolerable. The treatment given by this comedian, to Socrates the philosopher, in his play of 'The Clouds,' is well known; but however it might tend to disparage Socrates in the public esteem, P. Brumoy, in his Théatre Grec, makes it appear, that it could not have been, as is commonly supposed, the cause of decreeing the death of that philosopher, which did not happen till twenty-three years after the representation of Aristophanes' Clouds. There is a chorus in Aristophanes' plays; but altogether of an irregular kind. It is partly serious, partly comic; sometimes mingles in the action, sometimes addresses the spectators, defends the author, and attacks his enemies.

Soon after the days of Aristophanes, the liberty of attacking persons on the stage by name, being found of dangerous consequence to the public peace, was prohibited by law. The chorus also was, at this period, banished from the comic theatre, as having been an instrument of too much license and abuse. Then, what is called the middle comedy, took rise; which was no other than an elusion of the law. Fictitious names, indeed, were employed; but living persons were still attacked; and described in such a manner as to. be sufficiently known. Of these comic pieces, we have no remains. To them succeeded the new comedy; when the stage being obliged to desist wholly from personal ridicule, became, what it is now, the picture of manners and characters, but not of particular persons. Menander was the most distinguished author, of this kind, among the Greeks; and both from the imitations of him by Terence, and

the account given of him by Plutarch, we have much reason to regret that his writings have perished; as he appears to have reformed, in a very high degree, the public taste, and to have set the model of correct, elegant, and moral comedy.

The only remains which we now have of the new comedy, among the ancients, are the plays of Plautus and Terence; both of whom were formed upon the Greek writers. Plautus is distinguished for very expressive language, and a great degree of the vis comica. As he wrote in an early period, he bears several marks of the rudeness of the dramatic art among the Romans, in his time. He opens his plays with prologues, which sometimes pre-occupy the subject of the whole piece. The representation too, and the action of the comedy, are sometimes confounded; the actor departing from his character and addressing the audience. There is too much low wit and scurrility in Plautus; too much of quaint conceit, and play upon words. But withal, he displays more variety and more force than Terence. His characters are always strongly marked, though sometimes coarsely. His Amphytrion has been copied both by Moliere and by Dryden; and his Miser also, (in the Audularia) is the foundation of a capital play of Moliere's, which has been once and again imitated on the English stage. Than Terence, nothing can be more delicate, more polished, and elegant. His style is a model of the purest and most graceful Latinity. His dialogue is always decent and correct; and he possesses, beyond most writers, the art of relating with that beautiful picturesque simplicity, which never fails to please. His morality is, in general, unexceptionable. The situations which he introduces are often tender and interesting; and many of his sentiments touch the heart. Hence, he may be considered as the founder of that serious comedy, which has of late years been revived, and of which I shall have occasion afterwards to speak. If he fails in any thing, it is in sprightliness and strength. Both in his characters, and in his plots, there is too much sameness and uniformity throughout all his plays; he copied Menander, and is said not to have equalled him. In order to form a perfect comic author, an union would be requisite of the spirit and fire of Plautus, with the grace and correctness of Terence.

When we enter on the view of modern comedy, one of the first objects which presents itself, is, the Spanish theatre, which has been remarkably fertile in dramatic productions. Lopez de Vega, Guillin, and Calderon, are the chief Spanish comedians. Lopez de Vega, who is by much the most famous of them, is said to have written above a thousand plays; but our surprise at the number of his productions will be diminished, by being informed of their nature. From the

* Julius Cæsar has given us his opinion of Terence, in the following lines, which are preserved in the life of Terence, ascribed to Suetonius:

Tu quoque, tu in summis, o dimidiate Menander,
Poneris, et merito puri sermonis amator;

Lenibus atque utinam scriptis adjuncta foret vis
Comica, ut æquato virtus polleret honore

Cum Græcis, neque in hac despectus parte jaceres ;

Unum hoc maceror et doleo tibi deesse, Terenti.

account which M. Perron de Castera, a French writer, gives of them, it would seem that our Shakspeare is perfectly a regular and methodical author, in comparison of Lopez. He throws aside all regard to the three unities, or to any of the established forms of dramatic writing. One play often includes many years, nay, the whole life of a man. The scene, during the first act, is laid in Spain, the next in Italy, and the third in Africa. His plays are mostly of the historical kind, founded on the annals of the country; and they are generally, a sort of tragic-comedies; or a mixture of heroic speeches, serious incidents, war and slaughter, with much ridicule and buffoonery. Angels and gods, virtues and vices, christain religion and pagan mythology, are all frequently jumbled together. In short, they are all plays like no other dramatic compositions; full of the romantic and extravagant. At the same time, it is generally admitted, that in the works of Lopez de Vega, there are frequent marks of genius, and much force of imagination; many well drawn characters; many happy situations; many striking and interesting surprises; and from the source of his rich invention, the dramatic writers of other countries are said to have frequently drawn their materials. He himself apologizes for the extreme irregularity of his composition, from the prevailing taste of his countrymen, who delighted in a variety of events, in strange and surprising adventures, and a labyrinth of intrigues, much more than in a natural and regularly conducted story.

The general characters of the French comic theatre are, that it is correct, chaste, and decent. Several writers of considerable note it has produced, such as Regnard, Dufresny, Dancourt, and Marivaux; but the dramatic author, in whom the French glory most, and whom they justly place at the head of all their comedians, is the famous Moliere. There is, indeed, no author in all the fruitful and distinguished age of Louis XIV. who has attained a higher reputation than Moliere, or who has more nearly reached the summit of perfection in his own art, according to the judgment of all the French critics. Voltaire boldly pronounces him to be the most eminent comic poet of any age or country; nor, perhaps, is this the decision of mere partiality; for,taking him upon the whole, I know none who deserves to be preferred to him. Molicre is always the satirist only of vice or folly. He has selected a great variety of ridiculous characters peculiar to the times in which he lived, and he has generally placed the ridicule justly. He possessed strong comic powers; he is full of mirth and pleasantry; and his pleasantry is always innocent. His comedies in verse, such as the Misanthrope and Tartuffe, are a kind of dignified comedy, in which vice is exposed in the style of clegant and polite satire. In his prose comedies, though there is abundance of ridicule, yet there is never any thing found to offend a modest ear, or to throw contempt on sobriety and virtue. Together with those high qualities, Moliere has also defects which Voltaire, though his professed panegyrist, candidly admits. He is acknowledged not to be happy in the unravelling of his plots. Attentive more to the strong exhi bition of characters, than to the conduct of the intrigue, his unravel

ling is frequently brought on with too little preparation, and in an improbable manner. In his verse comedies, he is sometimes not sufficiently interesting, and too full of long speeches; and in his more risible pieces in prose, he is censured for being too farcical. Few writers, however, if any, ever possessed the spirit, or attained the true end of comedy so perfectly, upon the whole, as Moliere. His Tartuffe, in the style of grave comedy, and his Avare, in the gay, are accounted his two capital productions.

From the English theatre, we are naturally led to expect a greater variety of original characters in comedy, and bolder strokes of wit and humour, than are to be found on any other modern stage. Humour is, in a great measure, the peculiar province of the English nation. The nature of such a free government as ours; and that unrestrained liberty which our manners allow to every man, of living entirely after his own taste, afford full scope to the display of singularity of character, and to the indulgence of humour in all its forms. Whereas, in France, the influence of a despotic court, the more established subordination of ranks, and the universal observance of the forms of politeness and decorum, spread a much greater uniformity over the outward behaviour and characters of men. Hence, comedy has a more ample field, and can flow with a much freer vein, in Britain than in France. But it is extremely unfortunate, that, together with the freedom and boldness of the comic spirit in Britain, there should have been joined such a spirit of indecency and licentiousness, as has disgraced English comedy beyond that of any nation, since the days of Aristophanes.

The first age, however, of English comedy, was not infected by this spirit. Neither the plays of Shakspeare, nor those of Ben Jonson, can be accused of immoral tendency. Shakspeare's general character, which I gave in the last lecture, appears with as great advantage in his comedies as in his tragedies; a strong, fertile, and creative genius, irregular in conduct, employed too often in amusing the mob, but singularly rich and happy in the description of characters and manners. Jonson is more regular in the conduct of his pieces, but stiff and pedantic; though not destitute of dramatic genius. In the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, much fancy and invention appear, and several beautiful passages may be found. But, in general, they abound with romantic and improbable incidents, with overcharged and unnatural characters, and with coarse and gross allusions. These comedies of the last age, by the change of public manners, and of the turn of conversation, since their time, are now become too obsolete to be very agreeable. For we must observe, that comedy, depending much on the prevailing modes of external behaviour, becomes sooner antiquated than any other species of writing; and, when antiquated, it seems harsh to us, and loses its power of pleasing. This is especially the case with respect to the comedies of our own country, where the change of manners is more sensible and striking, than in any foreign production. In our own country, the present mode of behaviour is always the standard of politeness; and whatever departs from it appears uncouth; whereas, in the writ

ings of foreigners, we are less acquainted with any standard of this kind, and, of course, are less hurt by the want of it. Plautus appeared more antiquated to the Romans, in the age of Augustus, than he does now to us. It is a high proof of Shakspeare's uncommon genius, that, notwithstanding these disadvantages, his character of Falstaff is to this day admired, and his "Merry Wives of Windsor" read with pleasure.

It was not till the era of the restoration of King Charles II. that the licentiousness which was observed, at that period, to infect the court, and the nation in general, seized, in a peculiar manner, upon comedy as its province, and, for almost a whole century, retained possession of it. It was then, first, that the rake became the predominant character, and, with some exceptions, the hero of every comedy. The ridicule was thrown, not upon vice and folly, but much more commonly upon chastity and sobriety. At the end of the play, indeed, the rake is commonly, in appearance, reformed, and professes that he is to become a sober man; but throughout the play, he is set up as the model of a fine gentleman; and the agreeable impression made by a sort of sprightly licentiousness, is left upon the imagination, as a picture of the pleasurable enjoyment of life; while the reformation passes slightly away, as a matter of mere form. To what sort of moral conduct such public entertainments as these tend to form the youth of both sexes, may be easily imagined. Yet this was the spirit which prevailed upon the comic stage of Great Britain, not only during the reign of Charles II. but throughout the reigns of King William and Queen Anne, and down to the days of king George II.

Dryden was the first considerable dramatic writer after the restoration; in whose comedies, as in all his works, there are found many strokes of genius, mixed with great carelessness, and visible marks of hasty composition. As he sought to please only, he went along with the manners of the times; and has carried through all his comedies, that vein of dissolute licentiousness which was then fashionable. In some of them, the indecency was sc gross, as to occasion, even in that age, a prohibition of being brought upon the stage.* Since his time, the writers of comedy, of greatest note, have been Cibber, Vanburgh, Farquhar, and Congreve. Cibber has written a great many comedies; and though in several of them there be much sprightliness, and a certain pert vivacity peculiar to him, yet they are so forced and unnatural in the incidents, as to have generally sunk into obscurity, except two which have always continued in high favour with the public, The Careless Husband,' and 'The Provoked Husband.' The former is remarkable for the polite and easy turn of the dialogue; and, with the exception of one indelicate scene, is tolerably moral, too, in the conduct and in the tendency.

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*The mirth which he excites in comedy will, perhaps, be found not so much to arise from any original humour, or peculiarity of character, nicely distinguished, and diligently pursued, as from incidents and circumstances, artifices and surprises, from jests of action, rather than sentiment. What he had of humorous or passionate, he seems to have had, not from nature, but from other poets: if not always a plagiary, yet, at least, an imitator.' JOHNSON'S Life of Dryden.