of cool reafoning which are within the rightful confines of ridicule. That they are generally conceived to be fo, appears from the fenfe univerfally affigned to expreffions like thefe, Such

a pofition is ridiculous.—It doth not deferve a ⚫ferious anfwer.' Every body knows that they import more than It is falfe,' being, in other words, This is fuch an extravagance as is not • so much a fubject of argument as of laughter.' And that we may discover what it is, with regard to conduct, to which ridicule is applicable; we need only confider the different departments of tragedy and of comedy. In the last, it is of mighty influence; into the firft, it never legally obtains admittance. Thofe things which principally come under its lath are awkwardness, rufticity, ignorance, cowardice, levity, foppery, pedantry, and affectation of every kind. But against murder, cruelty, parricide, ingratitude, perfidy, to attempt to raife a laugh, would fhew fuch an unnatural infenfibility in the speaker,

To this black catalogue an ancient Pagan of Athens or of Rome would have added adultery, but the modern refinementa of us Chriftians (if without profanation we can fo apply the name) abfolutely forbid it, as nothing on our theatre is a more common fubject of laughter than this. Nor is the laugh raifed againft the adulterer, elfe we might have fome plea for our morals, if none for our taste; but to the indelible reproach of the taste, the feafe, and the virtue of the nation, in his favour.

as

as would be exceffively difguftful to any audience. To punish fuch enormities, the tragic poet must take a very different route.

Now from this diftinction of vices or faults into two claffes, there hath fprung a parallel division in all the kinds of poefy which relate to manners. The epopée, a picturefque, or graphical poem, is either heroic, or what is called mock-heroic, and by Ariftotle iambic, from the measure in which poems of this kind were at first compofed. The drama, an animated poem, is either in the bufkin, or in the fock; for farce deferves not a place in the fubdivifion, being at moft but a kind of dramatical apologue, whereof the characters are monftrous, the intrigue unnatural, the incidents often impoffible, and which, instead of humour, has adopted a fpurious bantling called fun. To fatisfy us that fatire, whofe end is perfuafion, admits alfo the like diftribution, we need only recur to the different methods purfued by the two famous Latin fatirifts, Juvenal and Horace. The one declaims, the other derides. Accordingly, as Dryden juftly obferves †, vice is the quarry of the

Poet. 4.

+ Origin and progrefs of Satire.

F 4

former,

former, folly of the latter. Thus, of the three graver forms, the aim, whether avowed or latent, always is, or ought to be the improvement of morals; of the three lighter, the refinement of manners*. But though the latter have for their peculiar object manners, in the limited and diftinctive fense of that word, they may, with propriety, admit many things which directly conduce to the advancement of morals, and ought never to admit any thing which hath a contrary tendency. Virtue is of primary importance, both for the happiness of individuals, and for the well-being of fociety; an external

The differences and relations to be found in the feveral forms of poetry mentioned, may be more concisely marked by the following scheme, which brings them under the view at

* Thefe obfervations will enable us to understand that of the poet,

Ridiculum acri

Fortius et melius magnas plerumque fecat res. Hor. Great and fignal, it must be owned, are the effects of ridicule; but the subject muft always appear to the ridiculer, and to those affected by his pleasantry, under the notion of littleness and fu tility, two effential requifites in the object of contempt and rifibility.

polish

polish is at best but a fecondary accomplishment, ornamental indeed when it adds a luftre to virtue, pernicious when it ferves only to embellish profligacy, and in itself comparatively of but little confequence, either to private or to public felicity*.

• Whether this attention has been always given to morals, particularly in comedy, must be left to the determination of those who are most converfant in that fpecies of fcenic reprefentations. One may, however, venture to prognofticate, that if in any period it fhall become fashionable to fhew no regard to virtue in fuch entertainments, if the hero of the piece, a fine gentleman to be fure, adorned as ufual with all the fuperficial and exterior graces which the poet can confer, and crowned with fuccefs in the end, fhall be an unprincipled libertine, a man of more spirit, forfooth, than to be checked in his pursuits by the reftraints of religion, by a regard to the common right of man kind, or by the laws of hospitality and private friendships, which were accounted facred among Pagans and those whom we denominate Barbarians; then, indeed, the ftage will become merely the school of gallantry and intrigue; thither the youth of both sexes will refort, and will not resort in vain, in order to get rid of that troublesome companion modefty, intended by Providence as a guard to virtue, and a check againft licentioufnefs; there vice will foon learn to provide herself in a proper flock of effrontery, and a fuitable addrefs for effecting her defigns, and triumphing over innocence; then, in fine, if religion, virtue, principle, equity, gratitude, and good faith, are not empty founds, the stage will prove the greatest of nuisances, and deferve to be styled, the principal corrupter of the age. Whether fuch an era hath ever happened in the hiftory of the theatre, in this or any other country, or is likely to happen, I do not take upon me to decide.

ANOTHER

ANOTHER remarkable difference, the only one which remains to be obferved, between the vehement or contentious, and the derifive, confifts in the manner of conducting them. As in each there is a mixture of argument, this in the former ought, in appearance at least, to have the afcendant, but not in the latter. The attack of the declaimer is direct and open; argument therefore is his avowed aim. On the contrary, the paffions which he excites, ought never to appear to the auditors as the effects of his intention and address, but both in him and them, as the native, the unavoidable confequences of the fubject treated, and of that conviction which his reasoning produces in the understanding. Although, in fact, he intends to move his auditory, he only declares his purpose to convince them. To reverse this method, and profefs an intention to work upon their paffions, would be in effect to tell them that he meant to impose upon their understandings, and to bias them by his art, and confequently, would be to warn them to be on their guard against him, Nothing is better founded than the famous aphorifm of rhetoricians, that the perfection of art confifts in concealing art. On

• Artis eft celare artem,

the