COM 
intitled to the greatest attention of che- 
mists. See Caloric, Capacity, Che- 
mistry, Heat. 
Combustion of living individuals of the 
hutnan species. Citizen Lair, in 1797, com- 
municated to the Philoinathic Society at 
Paris a memoir on the spontaneous com- 
bustion of human individuals, of which in- 
stances are related in the Copenhagen Acts 
for 1692; the Annual Register, 1763 and 
1775 ; the Philosophical Transactions, 1744; 
the Observations of Le Cat, 1729 and 1749; 
and the Journal de Medicine for 1779 and 
1783: and to these he has added some 
others related by persons living at Caen, 
and on the testimony of a surgeon of the 
same town, who attested the circumstances 
of an event of this description by a verbal 
process. 
Difficulties would no doubt be offered 
from reasoning against these facts ; but the 
writer remarks, that human testimony is 
not to be rejected, unless the probability 
that the facts must be impossible shall 
be greater than that arising from the 
concurrence of evidence : and he adds, 
that the narratives, though varying so 
widely as to time and place, do very re- 
markably agree in their tenor. The cir- 
cumstances are, that (1.) the combustion 
has usually destroyed the person by reducuig 
the body to a mass of pulverulent fatty 
matter, resembling ashes. 2. There were 
no signs of combustion in surrounding bo- 
dies by which it could be occasioned, scs 
these were little if at all injured ; though 
(3.) the combustion did not seem to be so 
perfectly spontaneous, but that some slight 
cause, such as the lire of a pipe, or a taper, 
or a candle, seems to have began it. 4. The 
persons were generally much addicted to 
the use of spiritous liquors , were very fat ; 
in most instances women ; and old. 5. The 
extremities, such as the legs, hands, or cra- 
nium, escaped the fire. 6. Water, instead 
of extinguishing the fire, gave it more acti- 
vity, as happens when fat is burned. 7. The 
residue was oily and fetid ashes, with a 
greasy soot, of a very penetrating and disa- 
greeable smell. 
The theory of the author may be consi- 
dered as hypothetical, until maturer obser- 
vations shall throw more light on the subject. 
The principal fact is, that charcoal and oil, 
or fat, are known in some instances to take 
fire spontaneously, and he supposes the car- 
bon of the alcohol to be deposited in the fat 
parts of the human system, and to produce 
this effect. 
COM 
COMEDY, a dramatic poem, represents 
ing some event in common life, which is 
supposed to take place among private indi- 
viduals. Its object is to ridicule tlie vice* 
and follies of mankind. 
The unities of action, time and place, the 
division of the acts, the introduction of 
episodes, the intertexture of the scenes are 
common to both tragedy and comedy. But 
in other essentials they differ: the one 
inspires terror and pity ; the other excites 
gaiety and mirth. The characters in tra- 
gedy are, kings, princes, tyrants, heroes ; 
those in comedy are ridiculous people of 
quality, cits, valets, gossips, &c. The style 
also of the latter has its peculiar character- 
istics ; it should be simple, lively, familiar, 
and replete with sallies of wit, satire, and 
genuine hmnour. 
As almost all the rules of dramatic poetry 
are constructed with a view to strengthen 
the resemblance of fiction to reality, they 
ought in comedy to be most minutely at- 
tended to ; because, as the scenes it repre- 
sents bear a nearer affinity to real life, any 
defect in the resemblance is more readily 
discovered. Hence the necessity of truth 
in the delineation of character, of simpli- 
city in the texture of the, intrigue, of spirit 
and consistency in the dialogue, and of 
genuine nature in the sentiments. Hence, 
too, that grand requisite, the art of con- 
cealing art, in managing the progressive 
intricacy of the plot, which constitutes the 
illusion of theatrical representations. The 
intrigue of comedy does not consist in the 
construction of a fable barely probable, 
but in a natural series of familiar events, 
developed in the most clear and impressive, 
way. It may be of use, therefore, to trace 
the rise and progress of comedy, with its 
various revolutions, in order to examine 
the principles on which those rules are 
founded, and to point out their various 
applications. 
On the waggon of Thespis, comedy was 
a mere tissue of ribaldry, uttered to the 
passing multitude by vintagers with their 
faces stained with wine-lees. After tlie ex- 
ample of the Sicilian poets Epicharmus and 
Phormis, Crates gave it a more regular 
form, and raised it to a more appropriate 
stage. Comedy then took for its model 
the tragedy invented by .Sschylus, or ra- 
ther both were founded on the poems of 
Homer. This epoch is, properly speaking, 
the origin of comedy among the Greeks ; 
they divided it into the old, the middle, 
and the new. The Athenian comedian^ 
