would become more curious, and, perhaps, very difficult of solution.  Indeed, though nature must have a great part of the expanse of poetry, yet no poetry lasts long that is not very correct:  the balance, therefore, seems to incline in favour of correction.  For is it not known that Virgil, with less genius than Ovid, is yet valued more by men of exquisite judgment; or, without going so far, Boileau, the Horace of our time, who composed with so much labour, and asked Moliere where he found his rhyme so easily, has said; “If I write four words, I shall blot out three:”  has not Boileau, by his polished lines, retouched and retouched a thousand times, gained the preference above the works of the same Moliere, which are so natural, and produced, by so fruitful a genius!  Horace was of that opinion, for when he is teaching the writers of his age the art of poetry, he tells them, in plain terms, that Rome would excel in writing as in arms, if the poets were not afraid of the labour, patience, and time required to polish their pieces.  He thought every poem was bad that had not been brought ten times back to the anvil, and required that a work should be kept nine years, as a child is nine months in the womb of its mother, to restrain that natural impatience which combines with sloth and self-love to disguise faults:  so certain is it that correction is the touchstone of writing.

The question proposed comes back to the comparison which I have been making between genius and correction, since we are now engaged in inquiring, whether there is more or less difficulty in writing tragedy or comedy:  for, as we must compare nature and study one with another, since they must both concur, more or less, to make a poet; so if we will compare the labours of two different minds in different kinds of writing, we must, with regard to the authors, compare the force of genius, and, with respect to the composition, the difficulties of the task.

The genius of the tragick and comick writer will be easily allowed to be remote from each other.  Every performance, be what it will, requires a turn of mind which a man cannot confer upon himself; it is purely the gift of nature, which determines those who have it to pursue, almost in spite of themselves, the taste which predominates in their minds.  Pascal found in his childhood, that he was a mathematician; and Vandyke, that he was born a painter.  Sometimes this internal direction of the mind does not make such evident discoveries of itself; but it is rare to find Corneilles, who have lived long without knowing that they were poets.  Corneille, having once got some notion of his powers, tried a long time, on all sides, to know what particular direction he should take.  He had first made an attempt in comedy, in an age when it was yet so gross in France, that it could give no pleasure to polite persons.  Melite was so well received, when he dressed her out, that she gave rise to a new species of comedy and comedians.