force him upon imitation, nor criticks of such authority as might
restrain his extravagance: He therefore indulged his natural
disposition, and his disposition, as Rhymer has remarked, led him
to comedy. In tragedy he often writes with great appearance of
toil and study, what is written at last with little felicity; but
in his comick scenes, he seems to produce without labour, what no
labour can improve. In tragedy he is always struggling after some
occasion to be comick, but in comedy he seems to repose, or to
luxuriate, as in a mode of thinking congenial to his nature. In his
tragick scenes there is always something wanting, but his comedy
often surpasses expectation or desire. His comedy pleases by the
thoughts and the language, and his tragedy for the greater part by
incident and action. His tragedy seems to be skill, his comedy to
be instinct.

The force of his comick scenes has suffered little diminution from
the changes made by a century and a half, in manners or in words.
As his personages act upon principles arising from genuine passion,
very little modified by particular forms, their pleasures and
vexations are communicable to all times and to all places; they are
natural, and therefore durable; the adventitious peculiarities of
personal habits, are only superficial dies, bright and pleasing
for a little while, yet soon fading to a dim tinct, without any
remains of former lustre; but the discriminations of true passion
are the colours of nature; they pervade the whole mass, and can only
perish with the body that exhibits them. The accidental compositions
of heterogeneous modes are dissolved by the chance which combined
them; but the uniform simplicity of primitive qualities neither
admits increase, nor suffers decay. The sand heaped by one flood is
scattered by another, but the rock always continues in its place.