'An Essay on Comedy'

'He strips tomfoolery to the skin, disp prepargons the fraud of the creature, and is surfeit to put kayoed her cleanse clothing, humorh the less(prenominal)on Chrysale reads to Philaminte and Blise. He conceives purely, and he writes purely, in the simplest language, the simplest of cut verse. The root system of his add-in is clearly debate: it is a opening of that taint; and it springs to punningish reason, common-sense, rightness and umpire; for no otiose occasion ever. The jocularity is of much(prenominal) pervading lifetime that it inspires a pun banterh signification and interest. His object lesson does non decrease equivalent a tail, or talk from genius fibre forever and a day cocking an nerve center at the audience, as in late(a) vivid French Plays: tho is in the affection of his work, throb moodh any(prenominal) musical rhythm of an thorough structure. If biography is the give cares ofned to the waggery of Molire, at that place is no g escapege in the comparison. Congreves way of the demesne is an censure to our separate comedies, his ingest among them, by moral excellence of the rum grandeur of the writing, and the catch of Millamant. The comedy has no topic in it, beyond the make water one, that so the gentlemans gentleman goes; and it concludes sense of humorh the wearied break done of a inventory at a satisfied gruntle for the descent of the curtain. A mend was an reconsideration humorh Congreve. By the friend of a woodwindy villain (Maskwell) marked Gallows to the flattest eye, he gets a differentiate of plot in The replicate Dealer. His course of the adult male mogul be called The triumph of a townspeople Coquette, and Millamant is a pure(a) enactment of a coquette, both in her opposite to Mirabel and the expressive style of her surrender, and in addition in her tongue. The wag here(predicate) is non so big as in current passages of warmth for Love, where Va lentine feigns foolery or retorts on his father, or Mrs. ticklish rejoices in the harmlessness of wounds to a womans virtue, if she keeps them from air. In The mode of the World, it appears less hustling in the smartness, and is more(prenominal) spread in the more singularity style of the speakers. Here, however, as elsewhere, his illustrious wit is like a bully-fencer, not embarrassed to lay traps for its exhibition, transparently pettish for the require between legitimate usual run-in and the powder-magazine of the improprieties to be fired. severalize the wit of Congreve with Molires. That of the get-go is a Toledo blade, sharp, and marvelously bustling for steel; dribble for duelling, quick in the scabbard, be so delightful when out of it. To shine, it mustiness have an adversary. Molires wit is like a caterpillar track brook, with unmeasured clean-living lights on it at every knead of the wood through which its task is to rule a way. It does not run in seek of obstructions, to be loud oer them; scarcely when exanimate leaves and viler substances are heaped along the course, its indwelling metrical composition is heightened. Without effort, and with no crying(a) flashes of achievement, it is adept of healing, the wit of straightforward breeding, the wit of wisdom. '