Comedy, on the other hand, aims to amuse, and seeks chiefly the topics of common life. It deals largely in ridicule and satire, and often ends in the marriage or other good fortune of the principal personages.

Among the Greek dramatists are Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, and Aristophanes; and in English Literature, Shakespeare, who perhaps is the greatest in all literature. His plays are numerous, and are divided into Tragedies, Comedies, and Histories. These last are dramatic representations of portions of English history, and are mainly tragic in their character, though having a large comic element.

MACDUFF

MACBETH

Act IV. Sc. iii.

Shakespeare.

Fit to govern!

No, not to live. O nation miserable!

With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd,
When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,
Since that the truest issue of thy throne

By his own interdiction stands accursed,

And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father
Was a most sainted king: the queen that bore thee,
Oftener upon her knees than on her feet,

Died every day she lived. Fare thee well!
These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself

Have banish'd me from Scotland. O my breast,
Thy hope ends here!

XV. Satirical Poetry

A Satire is a poem intended to hold up the follies of men to ridicule. It aims to reform men only by appealing to

their sense of shame. It is impersonal, or personal, exposing faults in general, rather than exposing individuals.

Dear Sir,-You wish to know my notions
On sartin pints thet rile the land:
There's nothin' thet my natur so shuns
Ez bein' mum or underhand;
I'm a straight-spoken kind o' creetur
Thet blurts right out wut's in his head,
An' ef I've one pecooler feetur,

It is a nose that wunt be led.

So, to begin at the beginnin',
An' come directly to the pint,
I think the country's underpinnin'
Is some consid❜ble out o' jint;
I ain't agoin' to try your patience
By tellin' who done this or thet,
I don't make no insinooations,
I jest let on I smell a rat.

Thet is, I mean, it seems to me so,
But, ef the public think I'm wrong,
I wunt deny but wut I be so,—

An', fact, it don't smell very strong;
My mind's tu fair to lose its balance
An' say wich party hez most sense;
There may be folks o' greater talence
Thet can't set stiddier on the fence.

I'm an eclectic; ez to choozin'

"Twixt this an' thet, I'm plaguy lawth; I leave a side that looks like losin',

But (wile there's doubt) I stick to both;

I stan' upon the Constitution,

Ez preudunt statesmun say, who've planned

A way to git the most profusion

O' chances ez to ware they'll stand.

Biglow Papers.

XVI. The Lampoon

A lampoon attacks individuals. Examples:

"Let him be gallows-free by my consent,
And nothing suffer, since he nothing meant;
Hanging supposes human soul and reason,-
This animal's below committing treason:
Shall he be hanged who never could rebel?

*

Let him rail on; let his invective Muse
Have four-and-twenty letters to abuse,
Which if he jumbles to one line of sense,
Indict him of a capital offense."

"Drink, swear, and roar, forbear no lewd delight
Fit for thy bulk; do anything but write.
Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men;
A strong nativity-but for the pen;
Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink,
Still thou mayest live, avoiding pen and ink.
I see, I see, 'tis counsel given in vain,

For treason, botched in rhyme, will be thy bane;
Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck;
"Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck."

XVII. The Epitaph

Dryden.

The Epitaph is similar in some degree to the Elegy, but it is only for the passer-by to read, scarcely ever voiced from the platform. It is usually placed on tombstones as silent reminders from the dead to the living, although the dead may or may not have originated the thought, as many times we find various epitaphs which it would seem could have been conceived only by some perverted mind.

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,

A Youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown;
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
A Melancholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had,—a tear;

He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, There they alike in trembling hope repose,The Bosom of his Father and his God.

TWO HUNDRED YEARS

John Pierpont.

Two hundred years!-two hundred years!
How much of human power and pride,
What glorious hopes, what gloomy fears,
Have sunk beneath their noiseless tide!

The red man, at his horrid rite,

Seen by the stars at night's cold noon,
His bark canoe its track of light

Left on the wave beneath the moon

His dance, his yell, his council fire,
The altar where his victim lay,
His death song, and his funeral pyre,
That still, strong tide hath borne away.

And that pale pilgrim band is gone,
That on this shore with trembling trod,
Ready to faint, yet bearing on

The ark of freedom and of God.

And war-that since o'er ocean came,
And thundered loud from yonder hill,
And wrapped its foot in sheets of flame
To blast that ark-its storm is still.

Chief, sachem, sage, bards, heroes, seers, That live in story and in song,

Time, for the last two hundred years,

Has raised, and shown, and swept along.

"Tis like a dream when one awakesThis vision of the scenes of old; 'Tis like the moon, when morning breaks, "Tis like a tale round watch-fires told.

God of our fathers,-in whose sight
The thousand years that swept away
Man, and the traces of his might,

Are but the break and close of day.

Grant us that love of truth sublime,
That love of goodness and of thee,
Which makes thy children, in all time,
To share thine own eternity.