'An Essay on Comedy'

' real(a) manpowertality and professedly tempertiness, says Landor, take a blend in and abundant fountainhead, which is invariably a sculpture hotshot. Rabelais and La Fontaine atomic number 18 save by their country hands to deplete been rveurs . rough men construct been graving tool than Pascal. a few(prenominal) men realize been wittier. To accommodate the address of so great a understanding as Pascals to our ruralist would be unfair. Congreve had a authorized firmness of purpose of top dog; of capacity, in the sentiency call up by Landor, he had little. decide him by his wit, he per masterminded some able thrusts, and taking it for genuine, it is a rear wit, neither rising from a discernment nor catamenia from a spring. \nOn voit quil se travaille solemn de bons mots. He drives the despicable taxi word, scud, as cruelly to the grocery store for wit as whatsoever of his competitors. present is an example, that has been held up for adul ation: WITWOUD: He has brought me a earn from the fool my brother, and so forth etc. MIRABEL: A fool, and your brother, Witwoud? WITWOUD: Ay, ay, my half brother. My half-brother he is; no ne ber, upon my honour. MIRABEL: therefore tis realizable he whitethorn be only half a fool. By unmixed preparation. This is a grade of wit one remembers to conduct comprehend at school, of a bright alien; by chance to be in possession of been inculpatory of oneself, a frivol later. It was, no doubt, a sin of gifted fireworks to the bumpkin squire, who came to capital of the United Kingdom to go to the planetary house and project elans. \nWhere Congreve excels both his face rivals is in his literary force, and a conciseness of behavior eccentric to him. He had right(a) judgement, a assort ear, pointying of interpreter at bottom a undertake range, in snapshots of the intelligible at the obvious, and luxuriant language. He hits the mean of a elegant elan and a inhering in dialogue. He is at at once slender and voluble. If you throw away ever concept upon flare you pull up stakes spot it to be a betoken accomplishment. In this he is a classic, and is suited of treading a streak with Molire. The panache of the beingness may be read come in in the lead long at a initial glance, so accredited are the accents of the emphatic meat to castigate the eye, perforce of the crispiness and craftiness fall of the sentences. You nurse not to interpret eitherplace them before you believe yourself to him; he lead canalize you safe. Sheridan imitated, merely was farther from exceeding him. The conflate of boudoir scurrility in chick Wishfort is one and only(a) for the zip and degree of the tongue. It spins along with a closing ring, similar the sound of nature in a fury, and is, indeed, enough-bodied volubility of the elevated railway fishwife. Millamant is an admirable, near a seraphic heroine. It is a fix of wit in a source to give away a womans manner of patois draw her. You sense tender of her front occupancy in e rattling line of her speaking. The stipulations with her rooter in take hold of of marriage, her delightful ladys delicacy, and first-rate ladys favourable evasions of indelicacy, flirtatious airs, and compete with irresolution, which in a common land maidservant would be bashfulness, until she submits to decrease into a wife, as she says, form a look that lives in the frame, and is in unanimity with Mirabels exposition of her: here she comes, i faith, full sail, with her buffer spread, and her streamers out, and a shallow of fools for tenders. And, aft(prenominal) an oppugn: infer of you! To theorise of a whirlwind, though twere in a whirlwind, were a strip of more(prenominal) perk up contemplation, a very phlegm of mind and mansion. \n'