Thus, if vice
be not represented as odious, he may lose his love of virtue. If
buffoonery should be made to please him, he may lose the dignity of his
mind. Love-tales may produce in him a romantic imagination. Low
characters may teach him low cunning. If the laws of honour strike him
as the laws of refined life, he may become a fashionable moralist. If
modes of dissipation strike him us modes of pleasure in the estimation
of the world, he may abandon himself to these, and become a rake. Thus
may such representations, in a variety of ways, act upon the moral
principle, and make an innovation there, detrimental to his moral
character.
Lord Kaimes, in his elements of criticism, has the following
observations.
"The licentious court of Charles the second, among its many disorders,
engendered a pest, the virulence of which subsists to this day. The
English comedy, copying the manners of the court, became abominably
licentious; and continues so with very little softening. It is there an
established rule to deck out the chief characters with every vice in
fashion however gross; but as such characters, if viewed in a true
light, would be disgustful, care is taken to disguise their deformity
under the embellishments of wit, sprightliness and good humour, which,
in mixed company makes a capital figure.
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