"He that will look upon theirs, which have been written till [within] these last ten years [_i.e._, 1655, _when MOLIERE began to write_], or thereabouts, will find it a hard matter to pick out two or three passable Humours amongst them. CORNEILLE himself, their Arch Poet; what has he produced, except the _Liar_? and you know how it was cried up in France. But when it came upon the English Stage, though well translated, and that part of _DORANT_ acted to so much advantage by Mr. HART, as, I am confident, it never received in its own country; the most favourable to it, would not put it in competition with many of FLETCHER's or BEN. JOHNSON's. In the rest of CORNEILLE's Comedies you have little humour. He tells you, himself, his way is first to show two lovers in good intelligence with each other; in the working up of the Play, to embroil them by some mistake; and in the latter end, to clear it up. "But, of late years, DE MOLIERE, the younger CORNEILLE, QUINAULT, and some others, have been imitating, afar off, the quick turns and graces of the English Stage. They have mixed their serious Plays with mirth, like our Tragi-Comedies, since the death of Cardinal RICHELIEU [_in_ 1642]: which LISIDEIUS and many others not observing, have commended that in them for a virtue [p. 531], which they themselves no longer practise. "Most of their new Plays are, like some of ours, derived from the Spanish novels. There is scarce one of them, without a veil; and a trusty _DIEGO_, who drolls, much after the rate of the _Adventures_ [pp. 533, 553]. But their humours, if I may grace them with that name, are so thin sown; that never above One of them comes up in a Play. I dare take upon me, to find more variety of them, in one play of BEN. JOHNSON's, than in all theirs together: as he who has seen the _Alchemist_, the _Silent Woman_, or _Bartholomew Fair_, cannot but acknowledge with me. I grant the French have performed what was possible on the ground work of the Spanish plays. What was pleasant before, they have made regular. But there is not above one good play to be writ upon all those Plots. They are too much alike, to please often; which we need not [adduce] the experience of our own Stage to justify.