COM 
reign of Charles II. ; but the stage was but 
too faithful a mirror of his licentious court. 
The comedies of Dryden are tinged with 
this alloy : indeed in other respects they 
add little honour to the name of that poet. 
Those of Otway are too obscene to be act- 
ed, or even read. The comic Muse of Con- 
greve has been equally blamed for licenti- 
ousness and for exuberance of wit. Tlie 
latter reproach may perhaps justly apply to 
the best comic productions of the present 
age. 
Comedy has been divided into three 
kinds, according to the ends which it pro- 
poses. By pourtraying vice, it renders it 
contemptible, as tragedy renders crime 
odious : this is characteristic comedy. When 
men are represented as the sport of fortune 
it is called incidental comedy. AVhen the 
domestic virtues are drawn in amiable co- 
lours, and in situations where misfortune 
renders them interesting, it may be termed 
sentimental comedy. 
The first of these is the most useful to 
manners, and at the same time the strongest, 
the most difficult, and of course the rarest. 
It traces vice to its source ; it attacks it in 
its principle ; it presents the mirror to man- 
kind, and makes them blush at their own 
image. Hence it supposes in its author a 
consummate knowledge of human nature, a 
prompt and accurate discernment, and a 
vigour of fancy which seizes at once what 
penetration could not comprehend in de- 
tail. 
Incidental comedy is perhaps tlte most 
successful and popular, as it keeps the at- 
tention continually awake by lively and un- 
expected changes, and as it furnishes a 
source of amusement and mirth when the 
sallies of wit might fail in their effect by too 
frequent recurrence, if not relieved by such 
aid. 
Sentimental comedy is perhaps more use- 
ful to morals than even tragedy, as it excites 
a deeper interest, because the examples it 
holds forth affect us more nearly. But as 
the style of comedy can neither be sustained 
by the grandeur of objects, nor animated by 
the strength of incident and situation, as it 
should be at the same time familiar and in- 
teresting, there are two different extremes to 
be avoided — of being cold and of being 
romantic. Simple nature is the true middle 
path, and it is the highest effort of art to be 
at the same time artful and natural. 
A style of comedy superior to these is 
that which unites characteristic with inci- 
dental comedy. Here the characters are 
COM 
involved by the foibles of the mind and the 
vices of the heart in the most humiliating 
cross purposes, which expose them to the 
laughter and contempt of the audience. A 
happier specimen of this style could not be 
found than in the School for Scandal. 
Such are the three kinds of comedy. There 
are others, which we have purposely omitted 
to enumerate. First, that obscene comedy, 
which is no longer suffered on the stage but 
by a sort of prescription, and which cannot 
excite a smile without raising a blush j 
secondly, that drama of false sentiment, the 
offspring of the German school, which once 
threatened to destroy our taste for genuine 
comedy, but which has now happily passed 
into oblivion ; and, lastly, that comedy of 
low fun and pantomime trick, the feeble 
resource of minds without genius, talent, or 
taste, which it is the disgrace of the British 
stage of the present day to bring forward, 
and the reproach of the British public to 
tolerate and encourage. 
COMET. See Astronomy. 
COBIETARIUM, a curious machine ex- 
hibiting an idea of the revolution of a comet 
about the sun. It is contrived in such a 
manner, as by elliptical wheels to shew the 
unequal motion of a comet in every part of 
its orbit. The comet is represented by 3 
small brass ball, carried by a wire, in an 
elliptic groove about the sun in one of its 
foci, and the years of its period are shewp 
by an index moving with an equable motion 
over a graduated silver circle. 
COMETES, in botany, a genus of the 
Tetrandria Monogynia class and order. 
Natural order of Tricoccaa. Essential 
character : involucre four-leaved, three- 
flowered; calyx four-leaved; capsule tri- 
coccous. One species, viz. C. alterniflora, 
an annual, and a native of Suratte. 
COMMA, among grammarians, a point 
or character marked thus (,), serving to 
denote a short stop, and to divide the mem- 
bers of a period. 
commandant, in tlie army, is that 
person who has the command of a garrison, 
fort, castle, regiment, company, &c. 
COMMANDER, in the navy, an officer 
who has the command of a ship of war un- 
der 20 guns, a sloop of war, armed ship, or 
bomb-vessel. He is entitled Master and 
Commander, and ranks with a Major of the 
army. 
Commander in chief is the chief admi- 
ral in any port, or on any station, aj)pointed 
to hold the command over all other admkals 
within that jurisdiction. 
