s6o APPENDIX. 



painting of Clowns, the reprefentation of a Dutch Kermis, 

 the brutal fport of Snick-or-Snee, and a thoufand other things 

 of this mean invention, a kind of picture which belongs to 

 Nature, but of the loweft form. Such is a Lazar in compa- 

 rifon to a Venus ; both are drawn in human figures ; they have 

 faces alike, though not like faces. There is yet a lower fort 

 of Poetry and Painting, which is out of Nature ; for a Farce 

 is that in Poetry which Grotefque is in a Picture : The per- 

 fons and action of a Farce are all unnatural, and the manners 

 falfe; that is, inconfifting with the characters of mankind. 

 Grotefque Painting is the juft refemblance of this; and Horace 

 begins his Art of Poetry, by defcribing fuch a figure with a 

 man's head, a horfe's neck, the wings of a bird, and a fifh's 

 tail,, parts of different fpecies jumbled together, according to 

 the mad imagination of the Dauber ; and the end of all this, 

 as he tells you afterward, is to caufe laughter : A very mon- 

 fter in Bartholomew Fair, for the mob to gape at for their 

 twopence. Laughter is indeed the propriety of a man, but 

 juft enough to diftinguifli him from his elder brother with 

 four legs. It is a kind of baftard-pleafure too, taken in at 

 the eyes of the vulgar gazers, and at the ears of the beaftly 

 audience. Church-painters ufe it to divert the honeft country 

 man at public prayers, and keep his eyes open at a heavy fer- 

 mon ; and farce-fcribblers make ufe of the fame noble inven- 

 tion to entertain Citizens, Country Gentlemen, and Covent- 

 Garden Fops : If they are merry, all goes well on the Poet's 

 fide. The better fort go thither too, but in defpair of fenfe 

 and the juft images of Nature, which are the adequate pleafures 

 of the mind. But the Author can give the ftage no better 

 . than what was given him by Nature ; and the Actors muft 

 reprefent fuch things as they are capable to perform, and by 

 which both they and the Scribbler may get their living. Af- 

 ter 



