The principal strokes of absence of mind will always be the same; and there are only those striking touches which are fit for a comedy, of which, the end is painting after nature, but with strength and sprightliness, like the designs of Callot.  If comedy were among us what it is in Spain, a kind of romance, consisting of many circumstances and intrigues, perplexed and disentangled, so as to surprise; if it was nearly the same with that which Corneille practised in his time; if, like that of Terence, it went no farther than to draw the common portraits of simple nature, and show us fathers, sons, and rivals; notwithstanding the uniformity, which would always prevail, as in the plays of Terence, and, probably, in those of Menander, whom he imitated in his four first pieces, there would always be a resource found, either in variety of incidents, like those of the Spaniards, or in the repetition of the same characters, in the way of Terence; but the case is now very different, the publick calls for new characters, and nothing else.  Multiplicity of accidents, and the laborious contrivance of an intrigue, are not now allowed to shelter a weak genius, that would find great conveniencies in that way of writing.  Nor does it suit the taste of comedy, which requires an air less constrained, and such freedom and ease of manners as admits nothing of the romantick.  She leaves all the pomp of sudden events to the novels, or little romances, which were the diversion of the last age.  She allows nothing but a succession of characters resembling nature, and falling in, without any apparent contrivance.  Racine has, likewise, taught us to give to tragedy the same simplicity of air and action; he has endeavoured to disentangle it from that great number of incidents, which made it rather a study than diversion to the audience, and which show the poet not so much to abound in invention, as to be deficient in taste.  But, notwithstanding all that he has done, or that we can do, to make it simple, it will always have the advantage over comedy in the number of its subjects, because it admits more variety of situations and events, which give variety and novelty to the characters.  A miser, copied after nature, will always be the miser of Plautus or Moliere; but a Nero, or a prince like Nero, will not always be the hero of Racine.  Comedy admits of so little intrigue, that the miser cannot be shown in any such position as will make his picture new; but the great events of tragedy may put Nero in such circumstances, as to make him wholly another character.

But, in the second place, over and above the subjects, may we not say something concerning the final purpose of comedy and tragedy?  The purpose of the one is to divert, and the other to move; and, of these two, which is the easier?  To go to the bottom of those purposes; to move is to strike those strings of the heart which are most natural, terrour and pity; to divert is to make one laugh, a thing which, indeed,