These reflections may shew us the impropriety of that sort of French play called drame, which neither exhibits the most striking circumstances in human events, nor is careful to render distress interesting by a forcible delineation of manners; and yet expects from us application of thought sufficient to attend to it. Its tragic tones are like those of the modern philanthropist, whose refined code of morality gives an importance to trifles, which is only understood by the initiated. Sometimes a comedy attempts gaiety, and yet equally, and with equal impropriety, fixes the attention upon action. Addison's Drummer is an instance of this, in which, the scenes have certainly the elegant language of a periodical paper; and parts of the plot, especially its conclusion, discover sensible composition; but which has a coldness that prevents us from being surprised that it is so much neglected. Dr. Johnson's remark of a comedy's having the operation of a tragedy, would be applied to this with peculiar happiness. It is precisely its character; for it is the ultimate event, and not the means by which it is brought about, that seems to

interest us,

It may be compared to the grave gentleman, who resolves to be facetious among his company, but has not the small talk which Lord Chesterfield recommends to ward off impertinent allusions to his interests and their own; nor keep away the subjects of

Fate and chance, and change in human life.

It is not the mighty good joke of frightening the domestics with a drum, that can be supposed to have any thing in it truly comic. We ought, in comedy, to think less of what is done, than of who does it; and the more astonishing the incidents, the less comic. The German critic, Lessing, observes the resemblance between farce and tragedy. They both endeavour to excite the passions; for, as Longinus remarks," laughter is a passion." But in comedy, this is only excited incidentally, in the portraiture of manners, which is its constant aim. When comedy becomes farcical, it resembles the wag, who interposes ill timed jokes to interrupt

"The feast of reason, and the flow of soul."

I proceed, THIRDLY, to mention manners as related to time and place. In this view, they will have been considered by Ulysses as furnishing a comparison between foreign countries and his own; who

"_Wandering from clime to clime observant stray'd, “ Their manners noted, and their states survey’d. POPE'S ODYSSEY.

This historical sort of effect is favourable to poetical elevation, and to those works where it is required, by the ornament of particular costumi. Its character is the strange, and produces surprise; which, according to Burke, harmonises with the sublime, and of course, with compositions which are sublime. It assists epic poetry, as it does tragedy; resembling a fancy-dress, which prevents the future effect of quaintness in a portrait. It is not of so much service to comedy, since it gives it the awkwardness of an old fashion: the painter's hand, however, may always please us. It appears to form a sort of incrustation that impedes, or incumbers, the display of manners; and so much the more, as the times to which they

belong are distant. Cibber's works have little of it yet; Congreve's and Wycherley's something more; and Jonson's a great deal more. Yet Terence, and even Aristophanes, where he drops the style of farce, give us that peculiar pleasure which results from comedy. Hume's criticism, however, was that of a true historian, when, in describing the advantage of a comedy over a philosophical system, in point of durable fame, he represents it as aiming to paint the manners of the age. Its proper object, is to exhibit a representation of general society. Considered as painting the manners of a former age, or distant country, it distracts the attention to a certain degree; although it may still retain an advantage over a philosophical system.

Pastoral poetry occupies a kind of middle situation between tragedy and comedy. It has been rightly affirmed to be more general than the former; and it is more particular than the latter, from its describing, not life in general, but country life. Its object is to charm us with whatever is pleasing, or can be imagined so, in it. Rural manners are the principal

means of this; the display of which ought not to be impeded by the particularity of the strange. Asiatic or American eclogues must, of course, as pastoral poems, be incumbered by their imagery, which, though it would be remarkably assistant to epic poetry, such as that of Camoëns, or D'Ercilla, would obtrude local ideas upon the pastoral poet, ill calculated to give us a striking picture of rural life. On the other hand, the manners that would be described by him not being intended, like those in comedy, to strike simply by the force of truth, but by some admirable and engaging accession, any extraordinary customs that could coalesce with such manners, and assist their character, would form an exception to the general rule. The ancient mythology may perhaps be made, consistently with poetical probability, to have this effect; and to be only strange in proportion as it is characteristic. In painting, Claude and Poussin add character to their landscapes when the figures are shepherds; but where the Eastern costumi are introduced in a fancy-piece, they must either take away from the effect, or at least not