So
as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness,
is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained. I know Apuleius [Footnote:
In his Latin Romance, the _Metamorphoses_, or the _Golden Ass_.] did
somewhat so, but that is a thing recounted with space of time, not
represented in one moment: and I know, the ancients have one or two
examples of tragi-comedies, as Plautus hath _Amphitryo_: but if we
mark them well, we shall find, that they never, or very daintily, match
hornpipes and funerals. So falleth it out, that having indeed no right
comedy, in that comical part of our tragedy, we have nothing but
scurrility, unworthy of any chaste ears: or some extreme show of
doltishness, indeed fit to lift up a loud laughter, and nothing else:
where the whole tract of a comedy should be full of delight, as the
tragedy should be still maintained in a well-raised admiration. But
our comedians think there is no delight without laughter, which is
very wrong; for though laughter may come with delight, yet cometh it
not of delight, as though delight should be the cause of laughter; but
well may one thing breed both together: nay, rather in themselves,
they have as it were a kind of contrariety: for delight we scarcely
do, but in things that have a convenience to ourselves, or to the
general nature: laughter almost ever cometh of things most
disproportioned to ourselves and nature.
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