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An Essay On Comedy And The Uses Of The Comic Spirit
by
I do not know that the fly in amber is of any particular use, but the Comic idea enclosed in a comedy makes it more generally perceptible and portable, and that is an advantage. There is a benefit to men in taking the lessons of Comedy in congregations, for it enlivens the wits; and to writers it is beneficial, for they must have a clear scheme, and even if they have no idea to present, they must prove that they have made the public sit to them before the sitting to see the picture. And writing for the stage would be a corrective of a too-incrusted scholarly style, into which some great ones fall at times. It keeps minor writers to a definite plan, and to English. Many of them now swelling a plethoric market, in the composition of novels, in pun-manufactories and in journalism; attached to the machinery forcing perishable matter on a public that swallows voraciously and groans; might, with encouragement, be attending to the study of art in literature. Our critics appear to be fascinated by the quaintness of our public, as the world is when our beast-garden has a new importation of magnitude, and the creatures appetite is reverently consulted. They stipulate for a writer’s popularity before they will do much more than take the position of umpires to record his failure or success. Now the pig supplies the most popular of dishes, but it is not accounted the most honoured of animals, unless it be by the cottager. Our public might surely be led to try other, perhaps finer, meat. It has good taste in song. It might be taught as justly, on the whole, and the sooner when the cottager’s view of the feast shall cease to be the humble one of our literary critics, to extend this capacity for delicate choosing in the direction of the matter arousing laughter.
FOOTNOTES
{1} A lecture delivered at the London Institution, February 1st, 1877.
{2} Realism in the writing is carried to such a pitch in THE OLD BACHELOR, that husband and wife use imbecile connubial epithets to one another.
{3} Tallemant des Reaux, in his rough portrait of the Duke, shows the foundation of the character of Alceste.
{4} See Tom Jones, book viii. chapter I, for Fielding’s opinion of our Comedy. But he puts it simply; not as an exercise in the quasi-philosophical bathetic.
{5} Femmes Savantes:
BELISE: Veux-tu toute la vie offenser la grammaire?
MARTINE: Qui parle d’offenser grand’mere ni grand-pere?’
The pun is delivered in all sincerity, from the mouth of a rustic.
{6} Maskwell seems to have been carved on the model of Iago, as by the hand of an enterprising urchin. He apostrophizes his ‘invention’ repeatedly. ‘Thanks, my invention.’ He hits on an invention, to say: ‘Was it my brain or Providence? no matter which.’ It is no matter which, but it was not his brain.
{7} Imaginary Conversations: Alfieri and the Jew Salomon.
{8} Terence did not please the rough old conservative Romans; they liked Plautus better, and the recurring mention of the vetus poeta in his prologues, who plagued him with the crusty critical view of his productions, has in the end a comic effect on the reader.
{9} The exclamation of Lady Booby, when Joseph defends himself: ‘Your virtue! I shall never survive it!’ etc., is another instance.–Joseph Andrews. Also that of Miss Mathews in her narrative to Booth: ‘But such are the friendships of women.’–Amelia.