We will now turn to Comedy, which, in order to compare more satisfactorily with Tragedy, we will consider under the same view.  First, then, the province of Comedy is with the follies and foibles or our nature; it is generally, and it ought always to be, a speaking picture of national faults, and should satirize the people of the country where it is represented, by which means a much greater scope is afforded for the improvement of the spectator.  It is not so confined in its sphere as Tragedy is, for it may affect as well as amuse; there should be a proper mixture of gravity with mirth, and that succession of ridiculous and pathetic events with which the life of man is variegated.  But the main superiority of Comedy consists in its having what Tragedy wants, a moral.  It is true that the enlightened portion of the audience do not require this moral; no farther interested in the scene they witness than as being spectators of it, they sit by in silence, void of all passion, and learn in silence a lesson that speaks for itself, and will have its certain effect on their future lives; but the greater part of the audience, not being capable either of accurate reasoning or deep reflection, require to be told what is right, and to have its distinction from wrong pointed out to them; as in a fable, its point would be useless to most men without its concomitant moral.  Secondly, the plot of Comedy (as I have said before) is for the most part fictitious, and refers to national manners, the advantages of both which peculiarities I have already had occasion to refer to; the characters also being selected from private as well as public life, from low as well as polite company, afford Comedy a far wider field to range in than Tragedy can boast.  Comedy introduces us to the cottage as well as the palace, and displays the economy of one as well as the splendour of the other; and it can amuse us with the intrigues of a citizen’s wife, as well as interest us with the passion of a princess.  We see also in Comedy, as well as in the world itself, the despicable character of the rake, and the disgusting vanity of the coquette; we learn to distinguish between the different traits of character, and we soon find that those whose language is that of men of honour, often act like knaves.  It is all this diversity that makes Comedy so pleasing as well as so instructive.  Thirdly, the end that Comedy has in view, is to bring about improvement by exciting contempt and ridicule:  by thus mixing ridicule with vice, we feel a positive enjoyment in seeing it exposed, and it is by this powerful engine that the manners of a people may be insensibly improved.  A satirical exhibition will at all times explode vice better than serious argument; and it was from a conviction of this that the Lacedemonians intoxicated their unhappy slaves in order that the children of the state, by seeing the despicable state to which drunkenness reduced a man, might learn a lesson that wanted no explanation.