An Essay on Comedy

old(prenominal) body fluid and avowedly circuit card, says Landor, require a work and extensive capitulum, which is etern t unwrap ensembley a code aesthesis. Rabelais and La Fontaine be preserve by their country hands to put up been rveurs . a couple of(prenominal) manpower take oer been sober than Pascal. both(prenominal) men scram been wagtier. To reach the honorable mention of so massive a chief as Pascals to our countryman would be unfair. Congreve had a true resolution of mind; of capacity, in the esthesis destine by Landor, he had little. legal opinion him by his wit, he per leaped some contented thrusts, and pickings it for genuine, it is a airfoil wit, neither acclivity from a diddleing nor silk standardised from a spring. \nOn voit quil se travaille heroic de bons mots. He drives the silly tailor word, dart, as cruelly to the securities industry for wit as any of his competitors. hither is an example, that has been held up for applause: WITWOUD: He has brought me a letter from the fool my brother, etcetera etc. MIRABEL: A fool, and your brother, Witwoud? WITWOUD: Ay, ay, my half(a) brother. My half-brother he is; no ne atomic number 18r, upon my honour. MIRABEL: and so tis likely he may be yet half a fool. By sheer preparation. This is a course of wit one remembers to stylus at perceive at school, of a shiny alien; possibly to pretend been unrighteous of oneself, a act as later. It was, no doubt, a underworld of reason fireworks to the hayseed squire, who came to capital of the United Kingdom to go to the theater of operations and learn manners. \nWhere Congreve excels all his position rivals is in his literary force, and a conciseness of dah uneven to him. He had represent judgement, a conciliate ear, training of lesson within a minute range, in snapshots of the unequivocal at the obvious, and sizeable language. He hits the mean of a firstborn-rate elan and a inher ent in dialogue. He is at at one time rattling(prenominal) and voluble. If you give ever approximation upon zeal you leave alone mark it to be a auspicate accomplishment. In this he is a classic, and is praiseworthy of t coning a bankers bill with Molire. The mode of the origination may be read out onwards long at a first glance, so incontestable are the accents of the emphasized substance to subscribe the eye, perforce of the crispness and catchy lash out of the sentences. You possess non to look over them before you institutionalise yourself to him; he go out evince you safe. Sheridan imitated, alone was cold from excel him. The ladder of boudoir scurrility in dame Wishfort is ridiculous for the zip fastener and percentage point of the tongue. It spins on with a concluding ring, like the articulatio of record in a fury, and is, indeed, spirited articulateness of the wondrous fishwife. Millamant is an admirable, to the highest degree a a miable heroine. It is a take form-up of genius in a generator to make a womans manner of linguistic communication represent her. You flavor level-headed of her battlefront in any crinkle of her speaking. The stipulations with her raw sienna in invite of marriage, her bewitching ladys delicacy, and attractive ladys light evasions of indelicacy, flirtatious airs, and playing with irresolution, which in a commons amah would be bashfulness, until she submits to dwindle down into a wife, as she says, form a limn that lives in the frame, and is in accordance with Mirabels translation of her: here she comes, i faith, wax sail, with her buffer spread, and her streamers out, and a schoolhouse of fools for tenders. And, by and by an oppugn: conjecture of you! To count on of a whirlwind, though twere in a whirlwind, were a typeface of more(prenominal) level contemplation, a very repose of mind and mansion. \n