have different habitudes; and that, upon the whole, all pleaſure conſiſts in variety.
The players, who in their edition divided our author’s works into comedies, hiſtories, and tragedies, ſeem not to have diſtinguiſhed the three kinds, by any very exact or definite ideas.
An action which ended happily to the principal perſons, however ſerious or diſtreſsful through its intermediate incidents, in their opinion conſtituted a comedy. This idea of a comedy continued long amongſt us, and plays were written, which, by changing the cataſtrophe, were tragedies to-day, and comedies to-morrow.
Tragedy was not in thoſe times a poem of more general dignity or elevation than comedy; it required only a calamitous concluſion, with which the common criticiſm of that age was ſatisfied, whatever lighter pleaſure it afforded in its progreſs.
Hiſtory was a ſeries of actions, with no other than chronological ſucceſſion, independent on each other, and without any tendency to introduce or regulate the concluſion. It is not always very nicely diſtinguiſhed from tragedy. There is not much nearer approach to unity of action in the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, than in the hiſtory of Richard the Second. But a hiſtory might be continued through many plays; as it had no plan, it had no limits.
