Plautus has adulterated a rich vein of genuine wit and humour, with a mixture of the basest buffoonry.  No writer seems to have been born with a more forcible or more fertile genius for comedy.  He has drawn some characters with incomparable spirit:  we are indebted to him for the first good miser, and for that worn-out character among the Romans, a boastful Thraso.  But his love degenerates into lewdness; and his jests are insupportably low and illiberal, and fit only for “the dregs of Romulus” to use and to hear; he has furnished examples of every species of true and false wit, even down to a quibble and a pun.  Plautus lived in an age when the Romans were but just emerging into politeness; and I cannot forbear thinking, that if he had been reserved for the age of Augustus, he would have produced more perfect plays than even the elegant disciple of Menander.

Delicacy, sweetness, and correctness, are the characteristics of Terence.  His polite images are all represented in the most clear and perspicuous expression; but his characters are too general and uniform, nor are they marked with those discriminating peculiarities that distinguish one man from another; there is a tedious and disgusting sameness of incidents in his plots, which, as hath been observed in a former paper, are too complicated and intricate.  It may be added, that he superabounds in soliloquies; and that nothing can be more inartificial or improper, than the manner in which he hath introduced them.

To these three celebrated ancients, I venture to oppose singly the matchless Moliere, as the most consummate master of comedy that former or latter ages have produced.  He was not content with painting obvious and common characters, but set himself closely to examine the numberless varieties of human nature:  he soon discovered every difference, however minute; and by a proper management could make it striking:  his portraits, therefore, though they appear to be new, are yet discovered to be just.  The Tartuffe and the Misantrope are the most singular, and yet, perhaps, the most proper and perfect characters that comedy can represent; and his Miser excels that of any other nation.  He seems to have hit upon the true nature of comedy; which is, to exhibit one singular, and unfamiliar character, by such a series of incidents as may best contribute to shew its singularities.  All the circumstances in the Misantrope tend to manifest the peevish and captious disgust of the hero; all the circumstances in the Tartuffe are calculated to shew the treachery of an accomplished hypocrite.  I am sorry that no English writer of comedy can be produced as a rival to Moliere:  although it must be confessed, that Falstaff and Morose are two admirable characters, excellently, supported and displayed; for Shakespear has contrived all the incidents to illustrate the gluttony, lewdness, cowardice, and boastfulness of the fat old knight:  and Jonson, has, with equal art, displayed the oddity of a wimsical humourist, who could endure no kind of noise.