woman, and yet are far from being moved to laughter; we laugh at
deformed creatures, wherein certainly we cannot delight; we delight
in good chances; we laugh at mischances; we delight to hear the
happiness of our friends and country, at which he were worthy to be
laughed at that would laugh: we shall, contrarily, sometimes laugh
to find a matter quite mistaken, and go down the hill against the
bias, {87} in the mouth of some such men, as for the respect of
them, one shall be heartily sorrow he cannot choose but laugh, and
so is rather pained than delighted with laughter. Yet deny I not,
but that they may go well together; for, as in Alexander's picture
well set out, we delight without laughter, and in twenty mad antics
we laugh without delight: so in Hercules, painted with his great
beard and furious countenance, in a woman's attire, spinning at
Omphale's commandment, it breeds both delight and laughter; for the
representing of so strange a power in love procures delight, and the
scornfulness of the action stirreth laughter.

But I speak to this purpose, that all the end of the comical part be
not upon such scornful matters as stir laughter only, but mix with
it that delightful teaching which is the end of poesy. And the
great fault, even in that point of laughter, and forbidden plainly
by Aristotle, is, that they stir laughter in sinful things, which
are rather execrable than ridiculous; or in miserable, which are
rather to be pitied than scorned. For what is it to make folks gape
at a wretched beggar, and a beggarly clown; or against the law of
hospitality, to jest at strangers, because they speak not English so
well as we do? what do we learn, since it is certain,


"Nil habet infelix pauperatas durius in se,