The fondness I have so frequently manifested for the ancients, has not so far blinded my judgment, as to render me unable to discern, or unwilling to acknowledge, the superiority of the moderns, in pieces of Humour and Ridicule. I shall, therefore, confirm the general assertion of Addison, part of which hath already been examined. Comedy, Satire, and Burlesque, being the three chief branches of ridicule, it is necessary for us to compare together the most admired performances of the ancients and moderns, in these three kinds of writing, to qualify us justly to censure or commend, as the beauties or blemishes of each party may deserve. As Aristophanes wrote to please the multitude, at a time when the licentiousness of the Athenians was boundless, his pleasantries are coarse and impolite, his characters extravagantly forced, and distorted with unnatural deformity, like the monstrous caricaturas of Callot. He is full of the grossest obscenity, indecency, and inurbanity; and as the populace always delight to hear their superiors abused and misrepresented, he scatters the rankest calumnies on the wisest and worthiest personages of his country. His style is unequal, occasioned by a frequent introduction of parodies on Sophocles and Euripides. It is, however, certain, that he abounds in artful allusions to the state of Athens at the time when he wrote; and, perhaps, he is more valuable, considered as a political satirist than a writer of comedy. Plautus has adulterated a rich vein of genuine wit and humour, with a mixture of the basest buffoonry. No writer seems to have been born with a more forcible or more fertile genius for comedy. He has drawn some characters with incomparable spirit: we are indebted to him for the first good miser, and for that worn-out character among the Romans, a boastful Thraso. But his love degenerates into lewdness; and his jests are insupportably low and illiberal, and fit only for "the dregs of Romulus" to use and to hear; he has furnished examples of every species of true and false wit, even down to a quibble and a pun. Plautus lived in an age when the Romans were but just emerging into politeness; and I cannot forbear thinking, that if he had been reserved for the age of Augustus, he would have produced more perfect plays than even the elegant disciple of Menander. Delicacy, sweetness, and correctness, are the characteristics of Terence. His polite images are all represented in the most clear and perspicuous expression; but his characters are too general and uniform, nor are they marked with those discriminating peculiarities that distinguish one man from another; there is a tedious and disgusting sameness of incidents in his plots, which, as hath been observed in a former paper, are too complicated and intricate. It may be added, that he superabounds in soliloquies; and that nothing can be more inartificial or improper, than the manner in which he hath introduced them.