This observation needs not be confined to the Clouds of Aristophanes, but may be farther extended, and appears indeed to comprehend the general characteristic of all early comedies, written or represented before people have arrived at a great degree of refinement.

It is not difficult to assign the reason for this being the general characteristic of early comedies.

Men in an early age are not reasoners.The bulk of the people at least are not accustomed to make general conclusions and reflections on human character. They would not therefore be amused by general exhibitions of character, by comedies which represented actions as displaying only the internal features and original causes of human conduct. Such an exhibition would not be adapted to their taste, or the state of their minds. The rude representation of a particular person, who does actions absurd in themselves, or absurd in him to perform, is the only thing which can produce their laughter, or afford them a comic entertainment.

Men in an early age, who have not made much progress in refinement, will receive a peculiar pleasure in seeing the character of an individual, of a person known to themselves, exhibited on the stage; whereas, when men advance in refinement, they will come to feel uneasy at this representation of real characters; their delicacy will be shocked at the exhibition of so coarse an entertainment, and something of a purer kind will be substituted in its room.— Hence what was called the middle comedy was substituted among the Greeks in place of the old. The middle comedy was less coarse than the old, because the old represented real persons on the stage, under their real names; in the middle, feigned names were given to the real persons; but this improvement soon gave way to a much higher one, the new comedy,

where both real names and real living persons were banished from the stage.

Should it be said that at the time Aristophanes wrote the Greeks were in a state of great advancement, were a learned and intelligent people; and that therefore Aristophanes should not be given as an example of a comic author in an early and unrefined period; it may be observed, that though the Greeks were certainly in the time of Aristophanes a very wise people, and possessed of the most eloquent and philosophical writers, yet at that time the Athenians were remarkably deficient in delicacy and politeness. Perhaps in so violent and turbulent a democracy as that of Athens, the people, amidst the acrimony of debate and rude contests of ambition, remain long in a state of barbarism as to manners. This has been observed, and endeavoured to be accounted for by several ingenious authors; one* of whom indeed cites, as an instance of it, this very circumstance of the amusement which the Athenians found in the lowest species of comedy. They were so little judges,' says he, of propriety in wit and humour, as to relish the low ribaldry of an Aristophanes, at a period when they were entertained with the sublime eloquence of a Demosthenes, with the pathetic compositions of an Euripides or a Sophocles."

As the body of the people, however, advance in refinement or delicacy, this ancient species of comedy, as it did among the Greeks, will come to give disgust instead of entertainment.

Comic authors will then betake themselves to a different species of writing; and the next step seems to be, instead of the exhibition of a particular person, to give the history of some general passion, affection, or principle of the human mind. The bulk of men who frequent public places of amusement

* Miller on the Origin of the Distinction of Ranks.

have then attained such a degree of improvement, by experience and reflection, as to relish a general representation of the history of the human heart in trying and interesting scenes; and hence views of characters in those situations will be relished and understood.

When this species of writing, however, first begins, the representations of character that are given will be confined to the more general views of the human mind, acting under the influence of some one leading principle. The nice features of that principle, the small deviations to which it is subject, its various combinations with other principles, or its discriminations arising from peculiar circumstances of situation or of habit, will not be attended to or held out to view. Before men go into particulars, they must be well acquainted with what is general; before they consider the nice, they must be intimate with the gross features.

Hence our early but improved writers, not only of comedy, but of every species of writing which represents characters, give only general representations. The ambitious, the envious, the avaricious man, is represented under the dominion of his guiding principle, but the nicer features of the principle are not delineated. Theophrastus wrote at a period of less delicacy, and when minute proprieties were less attended to, than La Bruyere; the characters therefore of the first are more general and less nice than of the latter.

Of all writers, indeed, the French seem to have paid most attention to the small and minute views of character, and to the different properties of life and manners. Living in an age of refinement and politeness, under a monarchical government, where the agreeable are the qualities which conduce to advancement, the elegant and recommendatory virtues are

chiefly cultivated. A new species of morals, unknown and unattended to among the ancients, the term for which, petites morales, cannot even be translated into our language, has been introduced, and has become a principal object both in conduct and philosophy. Hence the nice perception which French authors have of all the delicate discriminations of character; hence their observance of all the deviations from what is becoming; and hence their talent of describing and representing all the proprieties and improprieties of human conduct. The English writers in general may be possessed of more metaphysical profoundness; but they have not the same lively talent at describing manners, nor the same delicate observation of the different tints and colourings in which they appear.

At the same time it may be observed, that even in Britain some authors have appeared, who have excelled in giving minute pictures of manners, and of the nice features of character. Of these Addison and Sterne may be mentioned as holding a distinguished place.

This is the last improvement which arises in the representation of human characters; when not only their general features, under certain great classes, are exhibited, but when writers descend to, and are able at the same time to point out, the smaller discriminations into which those general classes subdivide themselves, and appear in different men. When characters are represented in this manner, the writing of comedy is at its perfection; and as the moderns seem to have possessed more of this talent than the ancients, so the comedies of the former seem to excel those of the latter. The ancient comedies contain only the general characters of men and manners, young rakes, old men, parasites, lovers, slaves: but every old man is the same, every young rake is like

THE LOUNGER,

311 every other rake; their pursuits are without distinctions; and their slaves have no other discrimination, than that the one half of them are old, faithful, trusty servants, and the other half lying, plotting, witty rascals.

It may, however, be observed, that this species of writing, in which the moderns have so greatly excelled, is much exposed to corruption and abuse. While the ancient manner of drawing characters is defective, by being too general, there is danger lest this other species become faulty, by being too particular. Men attentive to represent the minute lines may neglect the more important, and instead of representing a character which belongs to human kind, they may come to represent only those particular characters which distinguish individuals. Instead of comedies of nature, they may give comedies of manners, fleeting, volatile, uncertain, and as impossible to be reduced to rule as the flimsy modes of fashion, Thus, according to the phrase, that extremes always agree, it may happen that the last improvement in comedy may degenerate into that very abuse for which the rudest and most ancient may be censured. Particular persons may come to be represented on the stage instead of general characters. Something of this kind was some time ago introduced on the English stage; though it may be observed, that this mode of writing owed its success more to the mimic qualities of its author than to its being approved of by the taste of the audience.

But this is not the only thing to be feared from men's giving minute attention to the smaller parts of character; there is also a danger of its having an improper effect on their own character and conduct. When their attention is chiefly bestowed on the little parts of conduct, they may come to neglect or overlook the greater. Manner may be put in the place