It opens an avenue into villains'
ratiocination. {9} And the Comic is not cancelled though we should
suppose Jonathan to be giving play to his humour. I may have dreamed this
or had it suggested to me, for on referring to Jonathan Wild, I do not
find it.
Apply the case to the man of deep wit, who is ever certain of his
condemnation by the opposite party, and then it ceases to be comic, and
will be satiric.
The look of Fielding upon Richardson is essentially comic. His method of
correcting the sentimental writer is a mixture of the comic and the
humorous. Parson Adams is a creation of humour. But both the conception
and the presentation of Alceste and of Tartuffe, of Celimene and
Philaminte, are purely comic, addressed to the intellect: there is no
humour in them, and they refresh the intellect they quicken to detect
their comedy, by force of the contrast they offer between themselves and
the wiser world about them; that is to say, society, or that assemblage
of minds whereof the Comic spirit has its origin.
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