Or the satiric? who,


"Omne vafer vitium ridenti tangit amico;" {50}


who sportingly never leaveth, until he make a man laugh at folly,
and, at length, ashamed to laugh at himself, which he cannot avoid
without avoiding the folly; who, while "circum praecordia ludit,"
giveth us to feel how many headaches a passionate life bringeth us
to; who when all is done,


"Est Ulubris, animus si nos non deficit aequus." {51}


No, perchance, it is the comic; {52} whom naughty play-makers and
stage-keepers have justly made odious. To the arguments of abuse I
will after answer; only thus much now is to be said, that the comedy
is an imitation of the common errors of our life, which he
representeth in the most ridiculous and scornful sort that may be;
so as it is impossible that any beholder can be content to be such a
one. Now, as in geometry, the oblique must be known as well as the
right, and in arithmetic, the odd as well as the even; so in the
actions of our life, who seeth not the filthiness of evil, wanteth a
great foil to perceive the beauty of virtue. This doth the comedy
handle so, in our private and domestical matters, as, with hearing
it, we get, as it were, an experience of what is to be looked for,
of a niggardly Demea, of a crafty Davus, of a flattering Gnatho, of
a vain-glorious Thraso; and not only to know what effects are to be