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The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes by Samuel Johnson

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Yet tragedy, having the passions for its object, is not wholly exposed
to the caprice of our taste, which would make our own manners the rule
of human kind; for the passions of Grecian heroes are often dressed in
external modes of appearance that disgust us, yet they break through the
veil when they are strongly marked, as we cannot deny them to be in
Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The essence then gets the better of
the circumstance. The passions of Greece and France do not so much
differ by the particular characters of particular ages, as they agree by
the participation of that which belongs to the same passion in all ages.
Our three tragick poets will, therefore, get clear by suffering only a
little ridicule, which falls directly upon their times; but these times
and themselves will be well recompensed, by the admiration which their
art will irresistibly enforce.

Comedy is in a more lamentable situation; for, not only its object is
the ridiculous, which, though in reality always the same, is so
dependant on custom, as to change its appearance with time, and with
place; but the art of a comick writer is, to lay hold of that species of
the ridiculous which will catch the spectators 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
posterity, it is a new world, where it is no longer known; it becomes
there quite a foreigner, because there are no longer the same originals,
nor the same species 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
position is general, and comprises all poets and all ages. To say all,
at once, comedy is the slave of its subject, and of the reigning taste;
tragedy is not subject to the same degree of slavery, because the ends
of the two species of poetry are different. For this reason, if we
suppose that in all ages there are criticks, who measure every thing by
the same rule, it will follow, that if the comedy of Aristophanes be
become obsolete, that of Menander, likewise, after having delighted
Athens, and revived again at Rome, at last suffered by the force of
time. The muse of Moliere has almost made both of them forgotten, and
would still be walking the stage, if the desire of novelty did not in
time make us weary of that which we have too frequently admired.

Those, who have endeavoured to render their judgment independent upon
manners and customs, and of such men there have been always some, have
not judged so severely either of times, or of writers; they have
discovered that a certain resemblance runs through all polished ages,
which are alike in essential things, and differ only in external
manners, which, if we except religion, are things of indifference; that,
wherever there is genius, politeness, liberty, or plenty, there prevails
an exact and delicate taste, which, however hard to be expressed, is
felt by those that were born to feel it; that Athens, the inventress of
all the arts, the mother first of the Roman, and then of general taste,
did not consist of stupid savages; that the Athenian and Augustan ages
having always been considered as times that enjoyed a particular
privilege of excellence, though we may distinguish the good authors from
the bad, as in our own days, yet we ought to suspend the vehemence of
criticism, and proceed with caution and timidity, before we pass
sentence upon times and writers, whose good taste has been universally
applauded. This obvious consideration has disposed them to pause; they
have endeavoured to discover the original of taste, and have found that
there is not only a stable and immutable beauty, as there is a common
understanding in all times and places, which is never obsolete; but
there is another kind of beauty, such as we are now treating, which
depends upon times and places, and is, therefore, changeable. Such is
the imperfection of every thing below, that one mode of beauty is never
found without a mixture of the other, and from these two, blended
together, results what is called the taste of an age. I am now speaking
of an age sprightly and polite, an age which leaves works for a long
time behind it, an age which is imitated or criticised, when revolutions
have thrown it out of sight.

Upon this incontestable principle, which supposes a beauty, universal
and absolute, and a beauty, likewise, relative and particular, which are
mingled through one work in very different proportions, it is easy to
give an account of the contrary judgments passed on Aristophanes. If we
consider him only with respect to the beauties, which, though they do
not please us, delighted the Athenians, we shall condemn him at once,
though even this sort of beauty may, sometimes, have its original in
universal beauty carried to extravagance. Instead of commending him for
being able to give merriment to the most refined nation of those days,
we shall proceed to place that people, with all their atticism, in the
rank of savages, whom we take upon us to degrade, because they have no
other qualifications but innocence, and plain understanding. But have
not we, likewise, amidst our more polished manners, beauties merely
fashionable, which make part of our writings as of the writings of
former times; beauties of which our self-love now makes us fond, but
which, perhaps, will disgust our grandsons? Let us be more equitable;
let us leave this relative beauty to its real value, more or less, in
every age: or, if we must pass judgment upon it, let us say that these
touches in Aristophanes, Menander, and Moliere, were well struck off in
their own time; but that, comparing them with true beauty, that part of
Aristophanes was a colouring too strong, that of Menander was too weak,
and that of Moliere was a peculiar varnish, formed of one and the other,
which, without being an imitation, is itself inimitable, yet depending
upon time, which will efface it, by degrees, as our notions, which are
every day changing, shall receive a sensible alteration. Much of this
has already happened since the time of Moliere, who, if he was now to
come again, must take a new road.

With respect to unalterable beauties, of which comedy admits much fewer
than tragedy, when they are the subject of our consideration, we must
not, too easily, set Aristophanes and Plautus below Menander and
Terence. We may properly hesitate with Boileau, whether we shall prefer
the French comedy to the Greek and Latin. Let us only give, like him,
the great rule for pleasing in all ages, and the key by which all the
difficulties in passing judgment may be opened. This rule and this key
are nothing else but the ultimate design of the comedy.

Etudiez la cour, et connoissez la ville:
L'une et l'autre est toujours en modeles fertile.
C'est par-la que Moliere illustrant ses ecrits
Peut-etre de son art eut remporte le prix,
Si, moins ami du peuple en ses doctes peintures,
Il n'eut point fait souvent grimacer ses figures,
Quitte pour le bouffon l'agreable et le fin,
Et sans honte a Terence allie Tabarin[31].

In truth, Aristophanes and Plautus united buffoonery and delicacy, in a
greater degree than Moliere; and for this they may be blamed. That which
then pleased at Athens, and at Rome, was a transitory beauty, which had
not sufficient foundation in truth, and, therefore, the taste changed.
But, if we condemn those ages for this, what age shall we spare? Let us
refer every thing to permanent and universal taste, and we shall find in
Aristophanes at least as much to commend as censure.


12. TRAGEDY MORE UNIFORM THAN COMEDY.

But before we go on to his works, it may be allowed to make some
reflections upon tragedy and comedy. Tragedy, though different,
according to the difference of times and writers, is uniform in its
nature, being founded upon the passions, which never change. With comedy
it is otherwise. Whatever difference there is between Eschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides; between Corneille and Racine; between the
French and the Greeks; it will not be found sufficient to constitute
more than one species of tragedy.

The works of those great masters are, in some respects, like the
seanymphs, of whom Ovid says, "That their faces were not the same, yet
so much alike, that they might be known to be sisters;"

--facies non omnibus una,
Nec diversa tamen, qualem decet esse sororum.

The reason is, that the same passions give action and animation to them
all. With respect to the comedies of Aristophanes and Plautus, Menander
and Terence, Moliere and his imitators, if we compare them one with
another, we shall find something of a family likeness, but much less
strongly marked, on account of the different appearance which ridicule
and pleasantry take from the different manners of every age. They will
not pass for sisters, but for very distant relations. The Muse of
Aristophanes and Plautus, to speak of her with justice, is a bacchanal
at least, whose malignant tongue is dipped in gall, or in poison
dangerous as that of the aspick or viper; but whose bursts of malice,
and sallies of wit, often give a blow where it is not expected. The Muse
of Terence, and, consequently, of Menander, is an artless and unpainted
beauty, of easy gaiety, whose features are rather delicate than
striking, rather soft than strong, rather plain and modest than great
and haughty, but always perfectly natural:

Ce n'est pas un portrait, une image semblable:
C'est un fils, un amant, un pere veritable.

The Muse of Moliere is not always plainly dressed, but takes airs of
quality, and rises above her original condition, so as to attire herself
gracefully in magnificent apparel. In her manners she mingles elegance
with foolery, force with delicacy and grandeur, or even haughtiness with
plainness and modesty. If, sometimes, to please the people, she gives a
loose to farce, it is only the gay folly of a moment, from which she
immediately returns, and which lasts no longer than a slight
intoxication. The first might be painted encircled with little satyrs,
some grossly foolish, the others delicate, but all extremely licentious
and malignant; monkeys always ready to laugh in your face, and to point
out to indiscriminate ridicule, the good and the bad. The second may be
shown encircled with geniuses full of softness and of candour, taught to
please by nature alone, and whose honeyed dialect is so much the more
insinuating, as there is no temptation to distrust it. The last must be
accompanied with the delicate laughter of the court, and that of the
city somewhat more coarse, and neither the one nor the other can be
separated from her. The Muse of Aristophanes and of Plautus can never be
denied the honour of sprightliness, animation, and invention; nor that
of Menander and Terence the praise of nature and of delicacy; to that of
Moliere must be allowed the happy secret of uniting all the piquancy of
the former, with a peculiar art which they did not know. Of these three
sorts of merit, let us show to each the justice that is due, let us, in
each, separate the pure and the true, from the false gold, without
approving or condemning either the one or the other, in the gross. If we
must pronounce, in general, upon the taste of their writings, we must
indisputably allow that Menander, Terence and Moliere, will give most
pleasure to a decent audience, and, consequently, that they approach
nearer to the true beauty, and have less mixture of beauties purely
relative, than Plautus and Aristophanes.

If we distinguish comedy by its subjects, we shall find three sorts
among the Greeks, and as many among the Latins, all differently dressed;
if we distinguish it by ages and authors, we shall again find three
sorts; and we shall find three sorts, a third time, if we regard more
closely the subject. As the ultimate and general rules of all these
sorts of comedy are the same, it will, perhaps, be agreeable to our
purpose to sketch them out, before we give a full display of the last
class. I can do nothing better, on this occasion, than transcribe the
twenty-fifth reflection of Rapin upon poetry in particular.

13. GENERAL RULES OF COMEDY.

"Comedy," says he[32], "is a representation of common life: its end is
to show the faults of particular characters on the stage, to correct the
disorder of the people by the fear of ridicule. Thus ridicule is the
essential part of a comedy. Ridicule may be in words, or in things; it
may be decent, or grotesque. To find what is ridiculous in every thing,
is the gift merely of nature; for all the actions of life have their
bright, and their dark sides; something serious, and something merry.
But Aristotle, who has given rules for drawing tears, has given none for
raising laughter; for this is merely the work of nature, and must
proceed from genius, with very little help from art or matter. The
Spaniards have a turn to find the ridicule in things, much more than we;
and the Italians, who are natural comedians, have a better turn for
expressing it; their language is more proper for it than ours, by an air
of drollery which it can put on, and of which ours may become capable,
when it shall be brought nearer to perfection. In short, that agreeable
turn, that gaiety, which yet maintains the delicacy of its character,
without falling into dulness or into buffoonery; that elegant raillery,
which is the flower of fine wit, is the qualification which comedy
requires. We must, however, remember that the true artificial ridicule,
which is required on the theatre, must be only a transcript of the
ridicule which nature affords. Comedy is naturally written, when, being
on the theatre, a man can fancy himself in a private family, or a
particular part of the town, and meets with nothing but what he really
meets with in the world; for it is no real comedy in which a man does
not see his own picture, and find his own manners, and those of the
people among whom he lives. Menander succeeded only by this art among
the Greeks: and the Romans, when they sat at Terence's comedies,
imagined themselves in a private party; for they found nothing there
which they had not been used to find in common company. The great art of
comedy is to adhere to nature, without deviation; to have general
sentiments and expressions, which all the world can understand; for the
writer must keep it always in his mind, that the coarsest touches after
nature will please more, than the most delicate, with which nature is
inconsistent. However, low and mean words should never be allowed upon
the stage, if they are not supported with some kind of wit. Proverbs and
vulgar smartnesses can never be suffered, unless they have something in
them of nature and pleasantry. This is the universal principle of
comedy; whatever is represented, in this manner must please, and nothing
can ever please without it. It is by application to the study of nature
alone, that we arrive at probability, which is the only infallible guide
to theatrical success: without this probability, every thing is
defective, and that which has it, is beautiful; he that follows this,
can never go wrong; and the most common faults of comedy proceed from
the neglect of propriety, and the precipitation of incidents. Care must,
likewise, be taken, that the hints, made use of to introduce the
incidents, are not too strong, that the spectator may enjoy the pleasure
of finding out their meaning; but commonly the weak place in our comedy
is the untying of the plot, in which we almost always fail, on account
of the difficulty which there is in disentangling of what has been
perplexed. To perplex an intrigue is easy; the imagination does it by
itself; but it must be disentangled merely by the judgment, and is,
therefore, seldom done happily; and he that reflects a very little, will
find, that most comedies are faulty by an unnatural catastrophe. It
remains to be examined, whether comedy will allow pictures larger than
the life, that this strength of the strokes may make a deeper impression
upon the mind of the spectators; that is, if a poet may make a covetous
man more covetous, and a peevish man more impertinent, and more
troublesome than he really is. To which I answer, that this was the
practice of Plautus, whose aim was to please the people, but that
Terence, who wrote for gentlemen, confined himself within the compass of
nature, and represented vice without addition or aggravation. However,
these extravagant characters, such as the Citizen turned gentleman, and
the Hypochrondriac patient of Moliere, have lately succeeded at court,
where delicacy is carried so far; but every thing, even to provincial
interludes, is well received, if it has but merriment, for we had rather
laugh than admire. These are the most important rules of comedy.

14. THREE SORTS OF COMEDY.

These rules, indeed, are common to the three kinds which I have in my
mind; but it is necessary to distinguish each from the rest, which may
be done by diversity of matter, which always makes some diversity of
management. The old and middle comedy simply represented real
adventures: in the same way some passages of history and of fable might
form a class of comedies, which should resemble it without having its
faults; such is the Amphitryon. How many moral tales, how many
adventures, ancient and modern; how many little fables of Aesop, of
Phaedrus, of Fontaine, or some other ancient poet, would make pretty
exhibitions, if they were all made use of as materials by skilful hands?
And have we not seen some like Timon the man hater, that have been
successful in this way? This sort chiefly regards the Italians. The
ancient exhibition, called a satire, because the satyrs played their
part in it, of which we have no other instance than the Cyclops of
Euripides, has, without doubt, given occasion to the pastoral comedies,
for which we are chiefly indebted to Italy, and which are there more
cultivated than in France. It is, however, a kind of exhibition that
would have its charms, if it was touched with elegance and without
meanness: it is the pastoral put into action. To conclude, the new
comedy, invented by Menander, has produced the comedy, properly so
called in our times. This is that which has for its subject general
pictures of common life, and feigned names and adventures, whether of
the court or of the city. This third kind is incontestably the most
noble, and has received the strongest sanction from custom. It is,
likewise, the most difficult to perform, because it is merely the work
of invention, in which the poet has no help from real passages or
persons, which the tragick poet always makes use of. Who knows but, by
deep thinking, another kind of comedy may be invented, wholly different
from the three which I have mentioned? such is the fruitfulness of
comedy. But its course is already too wide for the discovery of new
fields to be wished; and on ground where we are already so apt to
stumble, nothing is so dangerous as novelty imperfectly understood. This
is the rock on which men have often split, in every kind of pursuit; to
go no further, in that of grammar and language, it is better to
endeavour after novelty, in the manner of expressing common things, than
to hunt for ideas out of the way, in which many a man loses himself. The
ill success of that odd composition, tragick comedy, a monster wholly
unknown to antiquity,[33] sufficiently shows the danger of novelty in
attempts like these.

15. WHETHER TRAGEDY OR COMEDY BE THE HARDER TO WRITE[34].

To finish the parallel of the two dramas, a question may be revived
equally common and important, which has been oftener proposed than well
decided: it is, whether comedy or tragedy be most easy or difficult to
be well executed. I shall not have the temerity to determine,
positively, a question which so many great geniuses have been afraid to
decide; but, if it be allowed to every literary man to give his reason
for and against a mere work of genius, considered without respect to its
good or bad tendency, I shall, in a few words, give my opinion, drawn
from the nature of the two works, and the qualifications they demand.
Horace[35] proposes a question nearly of the same kind: "It has been
inquired, whether a good poem be the work of art or nature? for my part,
I do not see much to be done by art without genius, nor by genius
without knowledge. The one is necessary to the other, and the success
depends upon their cooperation." If we should endeavour to accommodate
matters in imitation of this decision of Horace, it were easy to say, at
once, that supposing two geniuses equal, one tragick and the other
comick, supposing the art, likewise, equal in each, one would be as easy
or difficult as the other; but this, though satisfactory in the simple
question put by Horace, will not be sufficient here. Nobody can doubt
but genius and industry contribute their part to every thing valuable,
and particularly to good poetry. But if genius and study were to be
weighed one against the other, in order to discover which must
contribute most to a good work, the question would become more curious,
and, perhaps, very difficult of solution. Indeed, though nature must
have a great part of the expanse of poetry, yet no poetry lasts long
that is not very correct: the balance, therefore, seems to incline in
favour of correction. For is it not known that Virgil, with less genius
than Ovid, is yet valued more by men of exquisite judgment; or, without
going so far, Boileau, the Horace of our time, who composed with so much
labour, and asked Moliere where he found his rhyme so easily, has said;
"If I write four words, I shall blot out three:" has not Boileau, by his
polished lines, retouched and retouched a thousand times, gained the
preference above the works of the same Moliere, which are so natural,
and produced, by so fruitful a genius! Horace was of that opinion, for
when he is teaching the writers of his age the art of poetry, he tells
them, in plain terms, that Rome would excel in writing as in arms, if
the poets were not afraid of the labour, patience, and time required to
polish their pieces. He thought every poem was bad that had not been
brought ten times back to the anvil, and required that a work should be
kept nine years, as a child is nine months in the womb of its mother, to
restrain that natural impatience which combines with sloth and self-love
to disguise faults: so certain is it that correction is the touchstone
of writing.

The question proposed comes back to the comparison which I have been
making between genius and correction, since we are now engaged in
inquiring, whether there is more or less difficulty in writing tragedy
or comedy: for, as we must compare nature and study one with another,
since they must both concur, more or less, to make a poet; so if we will
compare the labours of two different minds in different kinds of
writing, we must, with regard to the authors, compare the force of
genius, and, with respect to the composition, the difficulties of the
task.

The genius of the tragick and comick writer will be easily allowed to be
remote from each other. Every performance, be what it will, requires a
turn of mind which a man cannot confer upon himself; it is purely the
gift of nature, which determines those who have it to pursue, almost in
spite of themselves, the taste which predominates in their minds. Pascal
found in his childhood, that he was a mathematician; and Vandyke, that
he was born a painter. Sometimes this internal direction of the mind
does not make such evident discoveries of itself; but it is rare to find
Corneilles, who have lived long without knowing that they were poets.
Corneille, having once got some notion of his powers, tried a long time,
on all sides, to know what particular direction he should take. He had
first made an attempt in comedy, in an age when it was yet so gross in
France, that it could give no pleasure to polite persons. Melite was so
well received, when he dressed her out, that she gave rise to a new
species of comedy and comedians.

This success, which encouraged Corneille to pursue that sort of comedy,
of which he was the first inventor, left him no reason to imagine, that
he was one day to produce those masterpieces of tragedy, which his muse
displayed afterwards with so much splendour; and yet less did he
imagine, that his comick pieces, which, for want of any that were
preferable, were then very much in fashion, would be eclipsed by another
genius[36] formed upon the Greeks and Romans, and who would add to their
excellencies improvements of his own, and that this modish comedy, to
which Corneille, as to his idol, dedicated his labours, would quickly be
forgot. He wrote first Medea, and afterwards the Cid; and, by that
prodigious flight of his genius, he discovered, though late, that nature
had formed him to run in no other course but that of Sophocles. Happy
genius! that, without rule or imitation, could at once take so high a
flight: having once, as I may say, made himself an eagle, he never
afterwards quitted the path which he had worked out for himself, over
the heads of the writers of his time; yet he retained some traces of the
false taste which infected the whole nation; but even in this, he
deserves our admiration, since, in time, he changed it completely by the
reflections he made, and those he occasioned. In short, Corneille was
born for tragedy, as Moliere for comedy. Moliere, indeed, knew his own
genius sooner, and was not less happy in procuring applause, though it
often happened to him as to Corneille,