Spectator # 65, 15 May 1711 (Steele)

Demetri teque Tigelli/Discipularum inter jubeo plorare cathedras.-Hor

Without further Preface, I am going to look into some of our most applauded Plays, and see whether they deserve the Figure they at present bear in the Imagination of Men, or not.

Sir Fopling Flutter. The received Character of this Play is, That it is the Pattern of Genteel Comedy. Dorimant and Harriot are the Characters of greatest Consequence, and if these are Low and Mean, the Reputation of the Play is very Unjust.

Orange-Woman, who, it seems, is inclined to grow Fat, An Over-grown Jade, with a Flasket of Guts before her; and salutes her with a pretty Phrase of How now, Double Tripe? Upon the mention of a Country Gentlewoman, whom he knows nothing of, (no one can imagine why) he will lay his Life she is some awkward ill-fashioned country Toad, who not having above four Dozen of Hairs on her Bead, has adorned her Baldness with a large white Fruz, that she may look Sparkishly in the Forefront of the King’s Box at an old Play. Unnatural Mixture of senseless Common-Place!

! Then to recommend her as a fit Spouse for his Hero, the Poet makes her speak her Sense of Marriage very ingeniously: I think, says she, I might be brought to endure him, and that is all a reasonable Woman should expect in an Husband. It is, methinks, unnatural that we are not made to understand how she that was bred under a silly pious old Mother, that would never trust her out of her sight, came to be so Polite.

It cannot be denied, but that the Negligence of every thing, which engages the Attention of the sober and valuable Part of Mankind, appears very well drawn in this Piece: But it is denied, that it is necessary to the Character of a Fine Gentleman, that he should in that manner trample upon all Order and Decency. As for the Character of Dorimant, it is more of a Coxcomb than that of Fopling. He says of one of his Companions, that a good Correspondence between them is their mutual Interest. Speaking of that Friend, be declares, their being much together makes the Women think the better of his Understanding, and judge more favourably of my Reputation. It makes him pass upon some for a Man of very good Sense, and me upon others for a very civil Person.

To speak plainly of this whole Work, I think nothing but being lost to a sense of Innocence and Virtue can make any one see this Comedy, without observing more frequent Occasion to move Sorrow and Indignation, than Mirth and Laughter. At the same time I allow it to be Nature, but it is Nature in its utmost Corruption and Degeneracy.