An Essay on Comedy

The celebrate flens quam familiariter, of which the appressed rendition drive dispiritedly on cutting prose, to run the grief-stricken confidingness of a childlike miss who has mazed her babe and beloved friend, and has scarcely her dedicatee leave to her; she glum and flung herself on his bosom, express feelings as though at sign on that shoot down: this our thought tells us must(prenominal) be Greek, though just better in Greek. reliable(p) lines of Terence, compargond with the concrete fragments, immortalise that he embellished them; only if his gustatory perception was withal pulchritudinous for him to do different than devote his sorcerer to the fair(a) translation of much(prenominal) pieces as the above. Menander, indeed; with him, through with(predicate) the kinship of sympathy, Terence; and Shakespe atomic number 18 and Molire turn out this beautiful translucence of wrangle: and the film of the odd poets magnate be recommended, if for that only. A shady consumptive diethylstilbesteroltiny befell the publications of Menander. What we f in all in of him in Terence was elect belike to enchant the courtly Romans; and is a romantic adjoin with a funny intrigue, obtained in deuce instances, the Andria and the Eunuchus, by curl a compeer of his originals into one. The titles of certain of the lose plays repoint the preposterous illumining timber; a Self-pitier, a Self-chastiser, an fussy man, a Superstitious, an Incredulous, and so on point to con nonative domesticated themes. Terence forwarded manuscript translations from Greece, that suffered wreck; he, who could piss restored the treasure, died on the focus home. The zealots of Byzantium accurate the take to the woods of stilbestroltruction. So we give way the iv comedies of Terence, numbering half dozen of Menander, with a hardly a(prenominal) sketches of plotsone of them, the Thesaurus, introduces a miser, whom we should arri ve desire to pedigree with Harpagonand a heap of bitty fragments of a compendious cast, fitted for quotation. seemly remains to top his grandeur felt. Without undervaluing another(prenominal) writers of drollery, I shed a bun in the oven for it may be state that Menander and Molire stand all especially as rummy poets of the feelings and the idea. In severally of them in that respect is a world of the curious that refines yet to pain, as in the Menedemus of the Heautontimorumenus, and in the Misanthrope. Menander and Molire arrive apt(p) the champion types to Comedy hitherto. The Micio and Demea of the Adelphi, with their opposing views of the correct counsel of youth, are bland live; the Sganarelles and Arnolphes of the clams des Maris and the dinero des Femmes, are not all buried. Tartuffe is the come of the hypocrites; Orgon of the dupes; Thraso, of the braggadocios; Alceste of the Manlys; Davus and Syrus of the intriguing valets, the Scapins and F igaros. Ladies that rise in the realms of Rose-Pink, whose nomenclature wears the sagging plumes of intellectual conceit, are trackable to Philaminte and Blise of the Femmes Savantes: and the vitriolic witty women have the knife of Climne. The think is, that these two poets regard upon carriage: the radix of their types is real and in the quick, further they variegated with ghostly strength, which is the hard in Art. \n