serve the interests of virtue and good fenfe. Its proper end and purpose (if we allow it to have any reasonable one) is, then, to Which the reader will un

INSTRUCT.

derstand me as faying, not of what we know by the name of farce on the modern ftage (whofe prime intention can hardly be thought even that low one, afcribed to it by Mr. Dryden, of entertaining citizens, country gentlemen, and Covent-Garden fops), but of the legitimate end of this drama; known to the Antients under the name of the old Comedy, but having neither name nor existence, properly speaking, among the Moderns. Of which we may fay, as Mr. Dryden did, but with lefs propriety, of Comedy," That it is a sharp manner of "inftruction for the vulgar, who are never "well amended, till they are more than suf"ficiently expofed." [Pref. to Tranf. of Fresnoy, p. xix.]

2. Though tragedy and comedy respect the fame general END, yet purfuing it by different means; hence it comes to pass, their CHARACTERS are wholly different.

For

For tragedy, aiming at pleasure principally through the affections, whofe flow muft not be checked and interrupted by any counter impreffions: and comedy, as we have feen, addreffing itself principally to our natural fense of resemblance and imitation; it follows, that the ridiculous can never be affociated with tragedy, without destroying its nature, though with the ferious comic it very well confiits.

And here the practice coincides with the rule. All exact writers, though they conftantly mix grave and pleasant scenes together in the fame comedy, yet never presume to do this in tragedy, and fo keep the two fpecies of tragedy and comedy themselves perfectly distinct. But,

3. It is quite otherwise with comedy and farce. These almoft perpetually run into each other. And yet the reafon of the thing demands as intire and perfect a separation in this cafe, as in the other. For the perfection of comedy lying in the accuracy and fidelity of universal representation, and farce profeffedly neglecting or rather purpofely

pofely tranfgreffing the limits of common nature and just decorum, they clash entirely with each other. And comedy must so far fail of giving the pleasure, appropriate to its defign, as it allies itfelf with farce; while farce, on the other hand, forfeits the ufe, it intends, of promoting popular ridicule, by restraining itfelf within the exact rules of Nature which Comedy obferves.

But there is little occafion to guard against this latter abuse. The danger is all on the other fide. And the paffion for what is now called Farce, the fhadow of the Old Comedy, has, in fact, poffeffed the modern poets to fuch a degree, that we have scarcely one example of a comedy without this grofs mixture. If any are to be excepted from this cenfure in Moliere, they are his Mifanthrope, and Tartuffe; which are accordingly, by common allowance, the best of his large collection. In proportion as his other plays have lefs or more of this farcical turn, their true value hath been long fince determined.

Of our own comedies, fuch of them, I mean, as are worthy of criticism, Ben JonVOL. II.

R.

fon's

fon's Alchemist and Volpone bid the fairest for being written in this genuine unmixed manner. Yet, though their merits are very great, fevere Criticism might find fomething to object even to thefe. The ALCHEMIST, fome will think, is exaggerated throughout; and fo, at beft, belongs to that species of comedy which we have before called particular and partial. At leaft, the extravagant purfuit, so strongly exposed in that play, hath now, of a long time, been forgotten; fo that we find it difficult to enter fully into the humour of this highly-wrought character. And, in general, we may remark of fuch characters, that they are, a ftrong temptation to the writer to exceed the bounds of truth in his draught of them at first, and are further liable to an imperfect, and even unfair, fentence from the reader afterwards. For the welcome reception, which these pictures of prevailing local folly meet with on the stage, cannot but induce the poet, almost without defign, to inflame the representation: and the want of archetypes, in a little time, makes it pafs for immoderate,

derate, wère it originally given with ever fo much difcretion and juftice. So that, whether the Alchemist be farcical or not, it will appear, at least, to have this note of Farce, "That the principal character is "exaggerated." But then this is all we muft affirm. For, as to the Jubject of this Play's being a local folly, which feems to bring it directly under the denomination of Farce, it is but just to make a diftinction. Had the end and parpofe of the Play been to expofe Alchemy, it had been liable to this objection. But this mode of local folly is employed as the means only of expofing another folly, extenfive as our Nature, and coeval with it, namely Avarice. So that the subject has all the requifites of true Comedy. It is juft otherwise, we may ob ferve, in the Devil's an Afs; which therefore properly falls under our cenfure. For there, the folly of the time, Projects and Monopolies, are brought in to be exposed as the end and purpose of the comedy.

On the whole, the Alchemift is a Comedy in just form, but a little Farcical in the extenfion of one of its characters.