PAGE 2
No. 065 [from The Spectator]
by
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, he 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.
This whole celebrated Piece is a perfect Contradiction to good Manners, good Sense, and common Honesty; and as there is nothing in it but what is built upon the Ruin of Virtue and Innocence, according to the Notion of Merit in this Comedy, I take the Shoemaker to be, in reality, the Fine Gentleman of the Play: For it seems he is an Atheist, if we may depend upon his Character as given by the Orange-Woman, who is her self far from being the lowest in the Play. She says of a Fine Man who is Dorimant’s Companion, There is not such another Heathen in the Town, except the Shoemaker. His Pretension to be the Hero of the Drama appears still more in his own Description of his way of Living with his Lady. There is, says he, never a Man in Town lives more like a Gentleman with his Wife than I do; I never mind her Motions; she never enquires into mine. We speak to one another civilly, hate one another heartily; and because it is Vulgar to Lye and Soak together, we have each of us our several Settle-Bed. That of Soaking together is as good as if Dorimant had spoken it himself; and, I think, since he puts Human Nature in as ugly a Form as the Circumstances will bear, and is a staunch Unbeliever, he is very much Wronged in having no part of the good Fortune bestowed in the last Act.
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. [2]
R.
[Footnote 1: ‘The Man of Mode’, or ‘Sir Fopling Flutter’, by Sir George Etherege, produced in 1676. Etherege painted accurately the life and morals of the Restoration, and is said to have represented himself in Bellair; Beau Hewit, the son of a Herefordshire Baronet, in Sir Fopling; and to have formed Dorimant upon the model of the Earl of Rochester.]
[Footnote 2: To this number of the Spectator is appended the first advertisement of Pope’s ‘Essay on Criticism’.
This Day is publish'd An ESSAY on CRITICISM.
Printed for W. Lewis in Russell street Covent-Garden;
and Sold by W. Taylor, at the Ship in Pater Noster Row;
T. Osborn, in Gray’s Inn near the Walks;
T. Graves, in St. James’s Street;
and T. Morphew, near Stationers-Hall.
Price 1s.]