the course of the
world, in which the loss of one is the gain of another; in which, at
the same time, the reveller is hasting to his wine, and the mourner
burying his friend; in which the malignity of one is sometimes
defeated by the frolick of another; and many mischiefs and many
benefits are done and hindered without design.

Out of this chaos of mingled purposes and casualties the ancient
poets, according to the laws which custom had prescribed, selected
some the crimes of men, and some their absurdities; some the momentous
vicissitudes of life, and some the lighter occurrences; some the
terrours of distress, and some the gayeties of prosperity. Thus
rose the two modes of imitation, known by the names of _tragedy_ and
_comedy_, compositions intended to promote different ends by contrary
means, and considered as so little allied, that I do not recollect
among the _Greeks_ or _Romans_ a single writer who attempted both.

_Shakespeare_ has united the powers of exciting laughter and sorrow
not only in one mind, but in one composition. Almost all his plays
are divided between serious and ludicrous characters, and, in the
successive evolutions of the design, sometimes produce seriousness and
sorrow, and sometimes levity and laughter.

That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will be
readily allowed; but there is always an appeal open from criticism
to nature. The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is
to instruct by pleasing. That the mingled drama may convey all the
instruction of tragedy or comedy cannot be denied, because it includes
both in its alterations of exhibition and approaches nearer than
either to the appearance of life, by shewing how great machinations
and slender designs may promote or obviate one another, and the
high and the low co-operate in the general system by unavoidable
concatenation.

It is objected, that by this change of scenes the passions are
interrupted in their progression, and that the principal event, being
not advanced by a due gradation of preparatory incidents, wants at
last the power to move, which constitutes the perfection of dramatick
poetry. This reasoning is so specious, that it is received as true
even by those who in daily experience feel it to be false. The
interchanges of mingled scenes seldom fail to produce the intended
vicissitudes of passion. Fiction cannot move so much, but that the
attention may be easily transferred; and though it mus