be admitted by prejudice and paffion, and one or other dictates all characters, whether good or bad.

As I add my own reafons, fuch as they are, for or against Ariftophanes, to thofe of Frifchlinus his defender, I must not omit one thing which he has forgot, and which, perhaps, without taking in the reft, put Plutarch out of humour, which is that perpetual farce which goes through all the comedies of Ariftophanes, like the character of Harlequin on the Italian theatre. What kind of perfonages are clouds, frogs, wafps, and birds? Plutarch, used to a comick stage of a very different appearance must have thought them ftrange things; and yet ftranger muft they appear to us who have a newer kind of comedy, with which the Greeks were unacquainted. This is what our poet may be charged with, and what may be proved beyond refutation. This charge comprifes all the reft, and against this I fhall not pretend to juftify him. It would be of no ufe to say, that Aristophanes wrote for an age that required thews which filled the eye, and grotefque paintings in fatirical performances; that the crowds of spectators, which fometimes neglected Cratinus to throng Ariftophanes, obliged him more and more to comply with the ruling tafte, left he fhould lofe the publick favour by pictures more delicate and lefs ftriking; that in a ftate, where it was confidered as policy to lay open every thing that had the appearance of ambition, fingularity, or knavery, comedy was become a haranguer, a reformer, and a publick counsellor, from whom the people learned to take care of their moft valuable interefts; and that this comedy, in the attempt to lead and to pleafe the people, claimed a right to the ftrongeft touches of eloquence, and had likewife the power of perfonal VOL. III. painting

D

painting peculiar to herself. All these reasons, and many others, would disappear immediately, and my mouth would be ftopped with a fingle word, with which every body would agree: my antagonist would tell me that fuch an age was to be pitied, and pasfing on from age to age, till he came to our own, he would conclude flatly, that we are the only poffeffors of common sense; a determination with which the French are too much reproached, and which overthrows all the prejudice in favour of antiquity. At the fight of fo many happy touches, which one cannot help admiring in Ariftophanes, a man might, perhaps, be inclined to lament that fuch a genius was thrown into an age of fools: but what age has been without them? And have not we ourselves reafon to fear, left pofterity fhould judge of Moliere and his age, as we judge of Aristophanes ? Menander altered the tafte, and was applauded in Athens; but it was after Athens was changed. Terence imitated him at Rome, and obtained the preference over Plautus, though Cafar called him but a demi-Menander, because he appears to want that spirit and vivacity which he calls the vis comica. We are now weary of the manner of Menander and Terence, and leave them for Moliere, who appears like a new ftar in a new courfe. Who can anfwer, that in fuch an interval of time as has paft between these four writers there will not arife another author, or another taste, that may bring Moliere, in his turn, into neglect? Without going further, our neighbours, the English, think he wants force and fire. Whether they are right, or no, is another question; all that I mean to advace is, that we are to fix it as a conclufion, that comick authors must grow obfolete with the modes of life, if we admit any one age, or any one cli

mate,

mate, for the fovereign rule of tafte. But let us talk with more exactnefs, and endeavour by an exact analyfis to find out what there is in comedy, whether of Ariftophanes and Plautus, of Menander and Terence, of Moliere and his rivals, which is never obfolete, and muit please all ages and all nations.

XI. I now speak particularly of comedy; for we must observe that between that and other works of literature, efpecially tragedy, there is an effential difference, which the enemies of antiquity will not understand, and which I shall endeavour palpably to fhew.

Remarkable difference between the flate of comedy,and

other works of genius, with regard to their

duration.

All works fhew the age in which they are produced; they carry its ftamp upon them; the manners of the times are impreffed by indelible marks. If it be allowed, that the best of past times were rude in 'comparison with ours, the caufe of the ancients is decided against them; and the want of politenefs, with which their works are charged in our days, muft be generally confeffed. Hiftory alone feems to claim exemption from this accufation. Nobody will dare to fay of Herodotus or Thucydides, of Livius or Tacitus, that which has been faid without fcruple of Homer and the ancient poets. The reafon is, that history takes the nearest way to its purpose, and gives the characters and practices of nations, be they what they will; it has no dependance upon its fubject, and offers nothing to examination, but the art of the narrative. An hiftory of China well written, would please a Frenchman as well as one of France. It is otherwife with mere works of genius, they depend upon their subjects, and confequently upon the characters and

the practices of the times in which they were written; this at leaft is the light in which they are beheld, This rule of judgment is not equitable; for, as I have faid over and over, all the orators and the poets are painters, and merely painters. They exhibit nature as it is before them, influenced by the accidents of education, which, without changing it intirely, yet give it, in different ages and climates, a different appearance; but we make their fuccefs depend in a great degree upon their fubject, that is, upon circumstances which we measure by the circumstances of our own days, According to this prejudice, oratory depends more upon its fubject than hiftory, and poetry yet more than oratory. Our times, therefore, fhew more regard to Herodotus and Suetonius, than to Demofthenes and Cicero, and more to all these than to Homer or Virgil. Of this prejudice, there are regular gradations; and to come back to the point which we have left, we fhew, for the fame imperceptible reafon, lefs regard to tragick poets than to others. The reason is, that the subjects of their paintings are more examined than the art. Thus comparing the Achilles and Hippolytus of Euripides, with thofe of Racine, we drive them off the fstage, without confidering that Racine's heroes will be driven. off, in a future age, if the fame rule of judgment be followed, and one time be measured by another.

Yet tragedy having the paffions for its object, is not wholly expofed to the caprice of our tafte, which would make our own manners the rule of human kind; for the paffions of Grecian heroes are often dreffed in external modes of appearance that difguft us, yet they break through the veil when they are strongly marked, as we cannot deny them to be in Efchylus, Sophocles, and Euri

pides. The effence then gets the better of the circumftance. The paffions of Greece and France do not fo much differ by the particular characters of particular ages, as they agree by the participation of that which belongs to the fame paffion in all ages. Our three tragick poets will, therefore, get clear by fuffering only a little ridicule, which falls directly upon their times; but thefe times and themfelves will be well recompenfed by the admiration which their art will irrefiftibly inforce.

Comedy is in a more lamentable fituation; for, not only its object is the ridiculous, which, though in reality always the fame, is fo dependant on cuftom as to change its appearance with time, and with place; but the art of a comick writer is, to lay hold of that fpecies of the ridiculous which will catch the fpectators of the present hour, without regard to futurity. But, though comedy has attained its end, and diverted the pit, for which it was written; if it goes down to pofterity, it is in a new world, where it is no longer known; it becomes there quite a foreigner, because there are no longer the fame originals, nor the fame fpecies of the ridiculous, nor the same spectators, but a set of merciless readers, who complain that they are tired with it, though it once filled Athens, Rome, or Paris, with merriment. This pofition is general, and comprises all poets and all ages. To fay all at once, comedy is the flave of its fubject, and of the reigning taste; tragedy is not subject to the fame degree of flavery, because the ends of the two fpecies of poetry are different. For this reafon, if we fuppofe that in all ages there are criticks who meafure every thing by the fame rule, it will follow, that if the comedy of Ariftophanes be become obfolete, that of Menander likę-·