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de bouffonerie et des scenes attendrissantes: il y a beaucoup de tres bonnes pieces ou il ne regne que de la gayetè; d'autres toutes serieuses; d'autres mélangèes: d'autres ou l'attendrissement va jusquez aux larmes: il ne faut donner l'exclusion à aucun genre: et si l'on me demandoit, quel genre est le meilleur, je repondrois, celui qui est le mieux traitè. Surely if a Comedy may be toute serieuse, Tragedy may now and then, soberly, be indulged in a smile. Who shall proscribe it? shall the critic, who in self-defence, declares that no kind ought to be excluded from Comedy, give laws to Shakespeare?
I am aware that the preface from whence I have quoted these passages, does not stand in Monsieur de Voltaire's name, but in that of his editor; yet who doubts that the editor and the author were the same person? or where is the editor, who has so happily possessed himself of his author's stile and brilliant ease of argument? These passages were indubitably the genuine sentiments of that great writer. In his epistle to Maffei, prefixed to his Merope, he delivers almost the same opinion, though Idoubt
