Tragedy is rendered comic or burlesque by altering the _station_ and _manners_ of the _persons_; and the reverse may occur, of raising what is comic and burlesque into tragedy. On so little depends the sublime or the ridiculous! Beattie says “In most human characters there are blemishes, moral, intellectual, or corporeal; by exaggerating which, to a certain degree, you may form a comic character; as by raising the virtues, abilities, or external advantages of individuals, you form epic or tragic characters;” a subject humourously touched upon by Lloyd, in the prologue to “The Jealous Wife.” “Quarrels, upbraidings, jealousies, and spleen, Grow too familiar in the comic scene; Tinge but the language with heroic chime, ’Tis passion, pathos, character sublime. What big round words had swell’d the pompous scene, A king the husband, and the wife a queen!” ――――:o:―――― This apology for Parody, extracted from “The Curiosities of Literature,” was written by the late Mr. Isaac D’Israeli more than fifty years ago. Mr. Isaac D’Israeli was a Jewish gentleman of great literary attainments, and of a most amiable character. He was the father of the late Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Mr. Isaac D’Israeli died in 1848. Dr. Oliver Goldsmith, _Born at Pallas, in the County of Longford, Ireland, Nov._ 29, 1728, _Died in Brick Court, Temple, London, April_ 4, 1774. [Illustration: B]efore quoting the Parodies on the Poems of Oliver Goldsmith, mention must be made of three instances, in which he, himself, borrowed ideas from French sources. These are the well-known “Elegy on the Glory of her Sex, Mrs. Mary Blaize,” the “Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog,” and the favourite verses, entitled “Stanzas on Woman,” commencing “When lovely woman stoops to folly,” which appeared in “The Vicar of Wakefield,” when first published in 1765. Before Goldsmith settled down in London as a struggling man of letters, he had spent some time wandering about on the Continent, and had obtained a fairly good insight into foreign literature. He had, therefore, in all probability seen the poems of Ségur, printed in Paris in 1719, in which the following lines occur:―― “Lorsqu’une femme, après trop de tendresse, D’un homme sent la trahison, Comment, pour cette si douce foiblesse, Peut-elle trouver une guérison? Le seul remède qu’elle peut ressentir. La seule revanche pour son tort Pour faire trop tard l’amant repentir, Hélas! trop tard,――est la mort.”[5] These he appears to have almost literally translated, thus:―― When lovely woman stoops to folly And finds too late that men betray, What charm can soothe her melancholy, What art can wash her guilt away?