XLVI. LECT. rather than tragic. Two, however, he has produced, which deferve to be exempted from this cenfure, Jane Shore and the Fair Penitent; in both of which, there are fo many tender and truly pathetic fcenes, as to render them juftly favourites of the Public. DR. YOUNG'S Revenge, is a play which discovers genius and fire; but wants tenderness, and turns too much upon the fhocking and direful paffions. In Congreve's Mourning Bride, there are fome fine fituations, and much good Poetry. The two firft Acts are admirable. The meeting of Almeria with her husband Ofmyn, in the tomb of Anfelmo, is one of the most folemn and ftriking fituations to be found in any Tragedy. The defects in the catastrophe, I pointed out in the laft Lecture. Mr. Thomfon's Tragedies are too full of a ftiff morality, which renders them dull and formal. Tancred and Sigifmunda, far excels the reft; and for the plot, the characters, and fentiments, juftly deferves a place among the best English Tragedies. Of later pieces, and of living Authors, it is not my purpofe to treat. UPON the whole; reviewing the Tragic Compofitions of different nations, the following conclufions arife. A Greek Tragedy is the relation of any distressful or melancholy incident; fometimes the effect of paffion or crime, oftner of the decree of the Gods, fimply expofed; without much variety of XLVI. of parts or events, but naturally and beautifully fet L E C T. before us; heightened by the Poetry of the Chorus. A French Tragedy is a series of artful and refined converfations, founded upon a variety of tragical and interesting fituations; carried on with little action and vehemence; but with much poetical beauty, and high propriety and decorum. An English Tragedy is the combat of ftrong paffions, fet before us in all their violence; producing deep difafters; often irregularly conducted; abounding in action; and filling the Spectators with grief. The Ancient Tragedies were more natural and fimple; the Modern are more artful and complex. Among the French, there is more correctnefs, among the English, more fire. Andromaque and Zayre foften, Othello and Venice Preferved rend, the heart. It deferves remark, that three of the greatest master-pieces of the French Tragic Theatre, turn wholly upon religious fubjects: the Athalie of Racine, the Polyeucte of Corneille, and the Zayre of Voltaire. The first is founded upon a hiftorical paffage of the Old Testament; in the other two, the distress arises from the zeal and attachment of the principal perfonages to the Christian faith; and in all the three, the Authors have, with much propriety, availed themselves of the Majefty which may be derived from religious ideas. LECTURE XLVII. LECT. COM COMEDY is fufficiently difcriminated from Tragedy, by its general spirit and strain. While pity and terror, and the other strong paffions, form the province of the latter, the chief, or rather fole inftrument of the former, is ridicule. Comedy proposes for its object, neither the great fufferings, nor the great crimes of men; but their follies and flighter vices, those parts of their character, which raife in beholders a fenfe of impropriety, which expose them to be cenfured, and laughed at by others, or which render them troublesome in civil fociety. THIS general idea of Comedy, as a fatirical exhibition of the improprieties and follies of mankind, is an idea very moral and useful. There is nothing in the nature, or general plan of this kind of Compofition, that renders it liable to cenfure. To polish the manners of men, to promote attention to the proper decorums of focial behaviour, and, above all, XLVII. all, to render vice ridiculous, is doing a real fervice L E C T. to the world. Many vices might be more fuccefsfully exploded, by employing ridicule against them, than by serious attacks and arguments. At the fame time, it must be confessed, that ridicule is an inftrument of fuch a nature, that when managed by unfkilful, or improper hands, there is hazard of its doing mifchief, instead of good to fociety. . For ridicule is far from being, as fome have maintained it to be, a proper teft of truth. On the contrary, it is apt to mislead, and feduce, by the colours which it throws upon its objects; and it is often more difficult to judge, whether thefe colours be natural and proper, than it is to distinguish between fimple truth and error. Licentious Writers, therefore, of the Comic clafs, have too often had it in their power to caft a ridicule upon characters and objects which did not deserve it. But this is a fault, not owing to the nature of Comedy, but to the genius and turn of the Writers of it. In the hands of a loose, immoral Author, Comedy will mislead and corrupt; while, in thofe of a virtuous and wellintentioned one, it will be not only a gay and innocent, but a laudable and ufeful entertainment. French Comedy is an excellent school of manners; while English Comedy has been too often the fchool of vice. THE rules refpecting the Dramatic Action, which I delivered in the firft Lecture upon Tragedy, belong equally to Comedy; and hence, of course, our difquifitions concerning it are fhortened. It is equally XLVII. LECT. equally neceffary to both these forms of Dramatic Compofition, that there be a proper unity of action and fubject, that the unities of time and place be, as much as poffible, preferved; that is, that the time of the action be brought within reafonable bounds; and the place of the action never changed, at least, not during the course of each Act; that the feveral Scenes or fucceffive converfations be properly linked together; that the Stage be never totally evacuated till the Act clofes; and that the reafon fhould appear to us, why the perfonages, who fill up the different Scenes, enter and go off the Stage, at the time when they are made to do fo. The scope of all these rules, I showed, was to bring the imitation as near as poffible to probability; which is always neceffary, in order to any imitation giving us pleasure. This reafon requires, perhaps, a stricter obfervance of the Dramatic rules in Comedy, than in Tragedy. For the action of Comedy being more familiar to us than that of Tra gedy, more like what we are accustomed to fee in common life, we judge more eafily of what is probabic, and are more hurt by the want of it. The probable and the natural, both in the conduct of the story, and in the characters and fentiments of the perfons who are introduced, are the great foun dation, it must always be remembered, of the whole beauty of Comedy. THE fubjects of Tragedy are not limited to any country, or to any age. The Tragic Poet may lay his Scene in whatever region he pleases. He |