Yet deny I not,
but that they may go well together; for, as in Alexander's picture
well set out, we delight without laughter, and in twenty mad antics
we laugh without delight: so in Hercules, painted with his great
beard and furious countenance, in a woman's attire, spinning at
Omphale's commandment, it breeds both delight and laughter; for the
representing of so strange a power in love procures delight, and the
scornfulness of the action stirreth laughter.
But I speak to this purpose, that all the end of the comical part be
not upon such scornful matters as stir laughter only, but mix with
it that delightful teaching which is the end of poesy. And the
great fault, even in that point of laughter, and forbidden plainly
by Aristotle, is, that they stir laughter in sinful things, which
are rather execrable than ridiculous; or in miserable, which are
rather to be pitied than scorned. For what is it to make folks gape
at a wretched beggar, and a beggarly clown; or against the law of
hospitality, to jest at strangers, because they speak not English so
well as we do? what do we learn, since it is certain,
"Nil habet infelix pauperatas durius in se,
Quam qnod ridiculos, homines facit." {88}
But rather a busy loving courtier, and a heartless threatening
Thraso; a self-wise seeming school-master; a wry-transformed
traveller: these, if we saw walk in stage names, which we play
naturally, therein were delightful laughter, and teaching
delightfulness: as in the other, the tragedies of Buchanan {89} do
justly bring forth a divine admiration.
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