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.