LECTURE XLVII.

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COMEDY — GREEK AND ROMAN -FRENCPI — ENGLISH COMEDY.

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L e c t. V-/OMEDY is fufficiently difcriminated from ’ft

XLVII.- Tragedy, by its general fpirit and ftrain. While a] am

pity and terror, and the other, ftrong paffions aim]

form the province of the latter, the chief or ire,

rather foie inftrument of the former, is ridicule. lit inComedy propofes for its object, neither the great dasfufferings nor the great crimes of men ; but theirfollies and flighter vices, thofe parts of their i.lm

character, which raife in beholders a fenfe of *o[it

impropriety, which expofe them to be cenlured, ~C 0I

and laughed at by others, or which render them y {(

troublefome in civil fociety.

This general idea of Comedy, as a fatirical ^] £

exhibition of the improprieties and follies of Jyj s

mankind , is an idea very moral and ufeful, ijiThere is nothing in the nature, or general plan ^

of this kind of compofition, that renders it liable Jj E

to cenfure. To polilh the manners of men, to

promote attention to the proper decorums of ^focial behaviour, and above all to render vice ^