the publick favour by pictures more delicate and less striking; that, in a state, where it was considered as policy to lay open every thing that had the appearance of ambition, singularity, or knavery, comedy was become a haranguer, a reformer, and a publick counsellor, from whom the people learned to take care of their most valuable interests; and that this comedy, in the attempt to lead, and to please the people, claimed a right to the strongest touches of eloquence, and had, likewise, the power of personal painting, peculiar to herself.  All these reasons, and many others, would disappear immediately, and my mouth would be stopped with a single word, with which every body would agree:  my antagonist would tell me that such an age was to be pitied, and, passing on from age to age, till he came to our own, he would conclude flatly, that we are the only possessours of common sense; a determination with which the French are too much reproached, and which overthrows all the prejudice in favour of antiquity.  At the sight of so many happy touches, which one cannot help admiring in Aristophanes, a man might, perhaps, be inclined to lament that such a genius was thrown into an age of fools; but what age has been without them?  And have not we ourselves reason to fear, lest posterity should judge of Moliere and his age, as we judge of Aristophanes?  Menander altered the taste, and was applauded in Athens, but it was after Athens was changed.  Terence imitated him at Rome, and obtained the preference over Plautus, though Caesar called him but a demi-Menander, because he appears to want that spirit and vivacity which he calls the vis comica.  We are now weary of the manner of Menander and Terence, and leave them for Moliere, who appears like a new star in a new course.  Who can answer, that in such an interval of time as has passed between these four writers, there will not arise another author, or another taste, that may bring Moliere, in his turn, into neglect?  Without going further, our neighbours, the English, think he wants force and fire.  Whether they are right, or no, is another question; all that I mean to advance is, that we are to fix it as a conclusion, that comick authors must grow obsolete with the modes of life, if we admit any one age, or any one climate, for the sovereign rule of taste.  But let us talk with more exactness, and endeavour, by an exact analysis, to find out what there is in comedy, whether of Aristophanes and Plautus, of Menander and Terence, of Moliere and his rivals, which is never obsolete, and must please all ages and all nations.

11.  REMARKABLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE STATE OF COMEDY, AND OTHER WORKS OF GENIUS, WITH REGARD TO THEIR DURATION.

I now speak particularly of comedy; for we must observe that between that and other works of literature, especially tragedy, there is an essential difference, which the enemies of antiquity will not understand, and which I shall endeavour palpably to show.