It is no doubt true, that a highly-buskined tragedy, in which
all the personages maintain the funereal pomp usually required from the
victims of Melpomene, is apt to be intolerably tiresome, after all the
pains which a skilful and elegant poet can bestow upon finishing it. But
it is chiefly tiresome, because it is unnatural; and, in respect of
propriety, ought no more to be relieved by the introduction of a set of
comic scenes, independent of those of a mournful complexion, than the
_sombre_ air of a funeral should be enlivened by a concert of fiddles.
There appear to be two legitimate modes of interweaving tragedy with
something like comedy. The first and most easy, which has often been
resorted to, is to make the lower or less marked characters of the
drama, like the porter in "Macbeth," or the fool in "King Lear," speak
the language appropriated to their station, even in the midst of the
distresses of the piece; nay, they may be permitted to have some slight
under-intrigue of their own. This, however, requires the exertion of
much taste and discrimination; for if we are once seriously and deeply
interested in the distress of the play, the intervention of anything
like buffoonery may unloosen the hold which the author has gained on the
feelings of the audience. If such subordinate comic characters are of a
rank to intermix in the tragic dialogue, their mirth ought to be
chastened, till their language bears a relation to that of the higher
persons.
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