Part 3

1. _Though a plot be necessary to produce_ humour, _as well as the pathos, yet a_ good plot _is not so essential to comedy, as tragedy_. For the pathos is the result of the _entire action_; that is, of all the circumstances of the story taken together, and conspiring by a probable tendency, to a completion in the _event_. A failure in the just arrangement and disposition of the parts may, then, affect what is of the essence of this drama. On the contrary, _humour_, though brought out by _action_, is not the effect of the _whole_, but may be distinctly evidenced in a _single scene_; as may be eminently illustrated in the two comedies of Fletcher, called _The Little French Lawyer_, and _The Spanish Curate_. The nice contexture of the fable therefore, though it may give _pleasure_ of another kind, is not so immediately required to the production of _that_ pleasure, which the nature of comedy demands. Much less is there occasion for that labour and ingenuity of contrivance, which is seen in the intricacy of the Spanish fable. Yet this is the taste of our comedy. Our writers are all for plot and intrigue; and never appear so well satisfied with themselves as when, to speak in their own phrase, they contrive to have a great deal of _business_ on their hands. Indeed they have reason. For it hides their inability to colour _manners_, which is the proper but much harder province of true comedy.

2. _Tragedy succeeds best, when the subject is_ real; _comedy, when it is_ feigned. What would this say, but that tragedy, turning our attention principally on the _action represented_, finds means to _interest_ us more strongly on the persuasion of its being taken from _actual life_? While comedy, on the other hand, can neglect these scrupulous measures of _probability_, as intent only on exhibiting _characters_; for which purpose an _invented story_ will serve much better. The reason is, _real action_ does not ordinarily afford variety of incidents enough to shew the _character_ fully: _feigned action_ may.

And this difference, we may observe, explains the reason why tragedies are often formed on the most _trite and vulgar subjects_, whereas a _new_ subject is generally demanded in comedy. The _reality_ of the story being of so much consequence to interest the affections, the more _known_ it is, the fitter for the poet’s purpose. But a _feigned_ story having been found more convenient for the display of characters, it grew into a rule that the story should be always _new_. This disadvantage on the side of the comic poet is taken notice of in those verses of Antiphanes, or rather, as Casaubon conjectures, of _Aristophanes_, in a play of his intitled, Ποίησις. The reason of this difference now appears.

—Μακάριόν ἐστιν ἡ τραγῳδία Ποίημα κατὰ πάντ’. εἴγε πρῶτον οἱ λόγοι Ὑπὸ τῶν θεατῶν εἰσὶν ἐγνωρισμένοι, Πρὶν καί τιν’ εἰπεῖν, ὡς ὑπομνῆσαι μόνον Δεῖ τὸν ποιητήν. Οἰδίπουν γάρ ἄν γε φῶ, Τὰ δ’ ἄλλα πάντ’ ἴσασιν· Ὁ πατὴρ Λάïος, Μήτηρ Ἰοκάστη, θυγατέρες, παῖδες τίνες· Τὶ πείσεθ’ οὗτος, τί πεποίηκεν···· Ἡμῖν δὲ ταῦτ’ οὐκ ἔστιν· ἀλλὰ πάντα δεῖ Εὑρεῖν ὀνόματα καινὰ, τὰ διῳκημένα Πρότερον, τὰ νῦν παρόντα, τὴν καταστροφὴν, Τὴν ἐσβολήν. ἀν ἕν τι τούτων παραλίπῃ, Χρέμης τις, ἢ Φείδων τις ἐκσυρίττεται, Πηλεῖ δὲ ταῦτ’ ἔξεστι καὶ Τεύκρῳ ποιεῖν.

One sees, then, the reason why Tragedy prefers real _subjects_, and even old ones; and, on the contrary, why comedy delights in feigned subjects, and new.

The same genius in the two dramas is observable, in their draught of _characters_. Comedy makes all its Characters _general_; Tragedy, _particular_. The _Avare_ of Moliere is not so properly the picture of a _covetous man_, as of _covetousness_ itself. Racine’s _Nero_, on the other hand, is not a picture of _cruelty_, but of a _cruel man_.

Yet here it will be proper to guard against two mistakes, which the principles now delivered may be thought to countenance.

The _first_ is with regard to _tragic_ characters, which I say are _particular_. My meaning is, they are _more_ particular than those of comedy. That is, the _end_ of tragedy does not require or permit the poet to draw together so many of those characteristic circumstances which shew the manners, as Comedy. For, in the former of these dramas, no more of _character_ is shewn, than what the course of the action necessarily calls forth. Whereas, all or most of the features, by which it is usually distinguished, are sought out and industriously displayed in the _latter_.

The case is much the same as in _portrait painting_; where, if a great master be required to draw a _particular face_, he gives the very lineaments he finds in it; yet so far resembling to what he observes of the same turn in other faces, as not to affect any minute circumstance of peculiarity. But if the same artist were to design a _head_ in general, he would assemble together all the customary traits and features, any where observable through the species, which should best express the idea, whatever it was, he had conceived in his own mind and wanted to exhibit in the picture.

There is much the same difference between the two sorts of _dramatic_ portraits. Whence it appears that in calling the tragic character _particular_, I suppose it only _less representative_ of the kind than the comic; not that the draught of so much character as it is concerned to represent should not be _general_: the contrary of which I have asserted and explained at large elsewhere [_Notes on the A. P._ v. 317.]

_Next_, I have said, the characters of just comedy are _general_. And this I explain by the instance of the _Avare_ of Moliere, which conforms more to the idea of _avarice_, than to that of the real _avaricious man_. But here again, the reader will not understand me, as saying this in the strict sense of the words. I even think Moliere faulty in the instance given; though, with some necessary explanation, it may well enough serve to express my meaning.

The view of the comic scene being to delineate characters, this end, I suppose, will be attained most perfectly, by making those characters as _universal_ as possible. For thus the person shewn in the drama being the representative of all characters of the same kind, furnishes in the highest degree the entertainment of _humour_. But then this universality must be such as agrees not to our idea of the _possible_ effects of the character as conceived in the abstract, but to the _actual_ exertion of its powers; which experience justifies, and common life allows. Moliere, and before him Plautus, had offended in this; that for a picture of the _avaricious man_, they presented us with a fantastic unpleasing draught of the _passion of avarice_. I call this a _fantastic_ draught, because it hath no archetype in nature. And it is, farther, an _unpleasing_ one, for, being the delineation of a _simple passion unmixed_, it wanted all those

—Lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife Gives all the strength and colour of our life.

These _lights and shades_ (as the poet finely calls the intermixture of many passions, which, with the _leading_ or principal one, form the human character) must be blended together in every picture of dramatic manners; because the avowed business of the drama is to image real life. Yet the draught of the _leading_ passion must be as general as this _strife_ in nature permits, in order to express the intended character more perfectly.

All which again is easily illustrated in the instance of painting. In _portraits of character_, as we may call those that give a picture of the _manners_, the artist, if he be of real ability, will not go to work on the possibility of an abstract idea. All he intends, is to shew that some one quality _predominates_: and this he images strongly, and by such signatures as are most conspicuous in the operation of the _leading passion_. And when he hath done this, we may, in common speech or in compliment, if we please, to his art, say of such a portrait that it images to us not the _man_ but the _passion_; just as the ancients observed of the famous statue of Apollodorus by Silarion, that it expressed not the angry _Apollodorus_, but his passion of _anger_[6]. But by this must be understood only that he has well expressed the leading parts of the designed character. For the rest he treats his _subject_ as he would any other; that is, he represents the _concomitant affections_, or considers merely that general symmetry and proportion which are expected in a human figure. And this is to copy nature, which affords no specimen of a man turned all into a single passion. No metamorphosis could be more strange or incredible. Yet portraits of this vicious taste are the admiration of common starers, who, if they find a picture of a _miser_ for instance (as there is no commoner subject of moral portraits) in a collection, where every muscle is strained, and feature hardened into the expression of this idea, never fail to profess their wonder and approbation of it.—On this idea of excellence Le Brun’s book of the PASSIONS must be said to contain a set of the justest _moral portraits_: And the CHARACTERS of Theophrastus might be recommended, in a _dramatic_ view, as preferable to those of Terence.

The virtuosi in the fine arts would certainly laugh at the former of these judgments. But the latter, I suspect, will not be thought so extraordinary. At least if one may guess from the practice of some of our best comic writers, and the success which such plays have commonly met with. It were easy to instance in almost all plays of character. But if the reader would see the extravagance of building dramatic manners on abstract ideas, in its full light, he needs only turn to B. Jonson’s _Every man out of his humour_; which under the name of a _play of character_ is in fact, an unnatural, and, as the painters call it, _hard_ delineation of a group of _simply existing passions_, wholly chimerical, and unlike to any thing we observe in the commerce of real life. Yet this comedy has always had its admirers. And _Randolph_, in particular, was so taken with the design, that he seems to have formed his _muse’s looking-glass_ in express imitation of it.

Shakespeare, we may observe, is in this as in all the other more essential beauties of the drama, a perfect model. If the discerning reader peruse attentively his comedies with this view, he will find his _best-marked_ characters discoursing through a great deal of their _parts_, just like any other, and only expressing their essential and leading qualities occasionally, and as circumstances concur to give an easy exposition to them. This singular excellence of his comedy, was the effect of his copying faithfully after nature, and of the force and vivacity of his genius, which made him attentive to what the progress of the scene successively presented to him: whilst _imitation_ and _inferior talents_ occasion little writers to wind themselves up into the habit of attending perpetually to their main view, and a solicitude to keep their favourite characters in constant play and agitation. Though in this illiberal exercise of their wit, they may be said to use the _persons of the drama_ as a certain facetious sort do their _acquaintance_, whom they urge and teize with their civilities, not to give them a reasonable share in the conversation, but to force them to play _tricks_ for the diversion of the company.

I have been the longer on this argument, to prevent the reader’s carrying what I say of the superiority of _plays of character_ to _plays of intrigue_ into an extreme; a mistake, into which some good writers have been unsuspectingly betrayed by the acknowledged truth of the general principle. It is so natural for men on all occasions, to fly out into extremes, that too much care cannot be had to retain them in a due medium. But to return from the digression to the consideration of the difference of the two dramas.

3. A sameness of _character is not usually objected to in tragedy: in comedy, it would not be endured_. The passion of _avarice_, to resume the instance given above, being the main object, we find nothing but a disgustful repetition in a second attempt to delineate that _character_. _A particular cruel man_ only engrossing our regard in _Nero_, when the train of events evidencing such cruelty is changed, we have all the novelty we look for, and can contemplate, with pleasure, the very _same_ character, set forth by a different course of action, or displayed in some other _person_.

4. Comedy succeeds best when the scene is laid _at home_, tragedy for the most part when _abroad_. “This appears at first sight whimsical and capricious, but has its foundation in nature. What we chiefly seek in comedy is a true image of life and _manners_, but we are not easily brought to think we have it given us, when dressed in foreign modes and fashions. And yet a good writer must follow his scene, and observe decorum. On the contrary, ’tis the action in tragedy which most engages our attention. But to fit a domestic occurrence for the stage, we must take greater liberties with the action than a well-known story will allow.” [_Pope’s Works_, vol. iv. p. 185.]

Other _characters_ of the two dramas, as well _peculiar_, as _common_, which might be accounted for from the just notion of them, delivered above, I leave to the observation of the reader. For my intention is not to write a complete treatise on the drama, but briefly to lay down such principles, from whence its _laws_ may be derived.

CHAP. II.

OF THE GENIUS OF COMEDY.

But it may not be amiss to express myself a little more fully as to the _genius_ of comedy; which for want of passing through the hands of such a critic as Aristotle, has been less perfectly understood.

Its _end_ is the production of _humour_: or which comes to the same thing, “of that _pleasure_, which the _truth_ of representation affords, in the _exhibition_ of the _private characters_ of life, more particularly their _specific differences_.” I add this _latter_ clause, because the principal pleasure we take in contemplating characters consists in noting those _differences_. The general attributes of humanity, if represented ever so truly, give us but a slender entertainment. They, of course, make a part of the drama; but we chiefly delight in a picture of those peculiar _traits_, which distinguish the species. Now these discriminating marks in the characters of men are not _necessarily_ the causes of ridicule, or pleasantry of any kind; but _accidentally_, and according to the nature or quality of them. The vanity, and impertinent boasting of _Thraso_ is the natural object of _contempt_, and, when truly and forcibly expressed in his own character, provokes _ridicule_. The easy humanity of _Mitio_, which is the leading part of his character, is the object of _approbation_; and, when shewn in his own conduct, excites a _pleasure_, in common with all just _expression of the manners_, but of a _serious_ nature, as being joined with the sentiment of _esteem_.

But now as most men find a greater pleasure in gratifying the passion of _contempt_, than the calm instinct of _approbation_, and since perhaps the constitution of human life is such, as affords more exercise for the one, than the other, hence it hath come to pass, that the comic poet, who paints for the generality, and follows nature, chuses more commonly to select and describe those _peculiarities_ in the human character, which, by their nature, excite _pleasantry_, than such as create a serious regard and esteem. Hence some persons have appropriated the name of _comedies_ to those dramas, which chiefly aim at producing _humour_, in the more _proper_ sense of the word; under which view it means “such an expression or picture of what is odd, or inordinate in each character, as gives us the fullest and strongest image of the original, and by the truth of the representation exposes the _ridicule_ of it.” And it is certain, that comedy receives great advantage from representations of this kind. Nay, it cannot well subsist without them. Yet it doth not exclude the other and more _serious_ entertainment, which, as it stands on the same foundation of _truth of representation_, I venture to include under the _common term_.

Further, there are _two ways_ of evidencing the characteristic and predominant qualities of men, or, of producing _humour_, which require to be observed. The _one_ is, when they are shewn in the perpetual course and tenor of the representation; that is, when the _humour_ results from the _general_ conduct of the person in the drama, and the discourse, which he holds in it. The _other_ is, when by an happy and lively stroke, the characteristic quality is laid open and exposed _at once_.

The _first_ sort of _humour_ is that which we find in the ancients, and especially Terence. The _latter_ is almost peculiar to the moderns; who, in uniting these two species of _humour_, have brought a vast improvement to the comic scene. The reason of this difference may perhaps have been the singular simplicity of the old writers, who were contented to take up with such sentiments or circumstances, as most naturally and readily occurred in the course of the drama: whereas the moderns have been ambitious to shew a more exquisite and studied investigation into the workings of human nature, and have sought out for those peculiarly striking lineaments, in which the essence of character consists. On the same account, I suppose, it was that the ancients had _fewer_ characters in their plays, than the moderns, and those more _general_; that is, their dramatic writers were well satisfied with picturing the most _usual_ personages, and in their most _obvious_ lights. They did not, as the moderns (who, if they would aspire to the praise of _novelty_, were obliged to this route), cast about for less _familiar_ characters; and the nicer and _less observed_ peculiarities which distinguish _each_. Be it as it will, the observation is certain. Later dramatists have apparently shewn a more accurate knowledge of human life: and, by opening these new and untryed veins of _humour_, have exceedingly enriched the comedy of our times.

But, though we are not to look for the _two species of humour_, before-mentioned, in the same perfection on the simpler stages of _Greece and Rome_, as in _our_ improved Theatres, yet the _first_ of them was clearly seen and successfully practised by the ancient comic masters; and there are not wanting in them some few examples even of the _last_. “The old man in the _Mother-in-Law_ says to his Son,

_Tum tu igitur nihil adtulisti huc plus unâ sententiâ._

This, as an excellent person observed to me, is true _humour_. For his character, which was that of a lover of money, drew the observation naturally and forcibly from him. His disappointment of a rich succession made him speak contemptibly of a moral lesson, which rich and covetous men, in their best humours, have no high reverence for. And this too without _design_; which is important, and shews the distinction of what, in the more restrained sense of the word, we call _humour_, from other modes of _pleasantry_. For had a young friend of the son, an unconcerned spectator of the scene, made the observation, it had then, in another’s mouth, been _wit_, or a designed _banter_ on the father’s disappointment. As, on the other hand, when such characteristic qualities are exaggerated, and the expression of them stretched beyond _truth_, they become _buffoonry_, even in the person’s _own_.”

This is an instance of the _second species_ of humour, under its idea of exciting _ridicule_. But it may, also, be employed with the utmost _seriousness_; as being only a method of expressing the _truth_ of character in the _most striking_ manner. This same _old man_ in the Hecyra will furnish an example. Though a lover of money, he appears, in the main, of an honest and worthy nature, and to have born the truest affection to an amiable and favourite son. In the perplexity of the scene, which had arisen from the supposed misunderstanding between his _son’s_ wife and his _own_, he proposes, as an expedient to end all differences, to retire with his wife into the country. And to enforce this proposal to the young man, who had his reasons for being against it, he adds,

_odiosa est haec aetas adolescentulis: E medio aequum excedere est: postremò nos jam fabula Sumus, Pamphile, senex atque anus_.

There is nothing, I suppose in these words, which provokes a smile. Yet the _humour_ is strong, as before. In his solicitude to promote his son’s satisfaction, he lets fall a sentiment truly characteristic, and which old men usually take great pains to conceal; I mean, his acknowledgment of _that suspicious fear of contempt, which is natural to old age_. So true a picture of life, in the representation of this _weakness_, might, in other circumstances, have created some _pleasantry_; but the _occasion_, which forced it from him, discovering, at the same time, the _amiable disposition_ of the speaker, covers the ridicule of it, or more properly converts it into an object of our _esteem_.

We have here, then, a kind of _intermediate_ species of _humour_ betwixt the _ridiculous_ and the _grave_; and may perceive how insensibly the _one_ becomes the _other_, by the accidental mixture of a virtuous _quality_, attracting _esteem_. Which may serve to reconcile the reader to the application of this _term_ even to such _expression_ of the manners, as is perfectly _serious_; that is, where the _quality represented_ is entirely, and without the least _touch_ of attending ridicule, the object of _moral approbation_ to the mind. As in that famous asseveration of Chremes in the _Self-tormentor_:

_Homo sum: humani nihil à me alienum puto._

This is a strong expression of character; and, coming unaffectedly from him in answer to the cutting reproof of his friend,

_Chreme, tantumne ab re tuâ’st otî tibi Aliena ut cures; ea quae nihil ad te adtinent?_

hath the essence of true _humour_, that is, is a _lively picture of the manners without design_.

Yet in this instance, which hath not been observed, the _humour_, though of a serious cast, is heightened by a mixture of _satire_. For we are not to take this, as hath constantly been done, for a sentiment of pure humanity and the natural ebullition of benevolence. We may observe in it a designed stroke of satirical resentment. _The Self-tormentor_, as we saw, had ridiculed Chremes’ _curiosity_ by a severe reproof. Chremes, to be even with him, reflects upon the _inhumanity_ of his temper. “You, says he, seem such a foe to humanity, that you spare it not _in yourself_; I, on the other hand, am affected, when I see it suffer in _another_.”

Whence we learn, that, though all which is requisite to constitute comic humour, be a _just expression of character without design_, yet such _expression_ is felt more _sensibly_, when it is further enlivened by _ridicule_, or quickened by the poignancy of _satire_.