An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule, page 49 by Corbyn Morris
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m>Equal amongst Ancients or _Moderns_; But the Characters he exhibits are of satirical, and deceitful, or of a peevish or despicable Species; as Volpone, Subtle, Morose, and _Abel Drugger_; In all of which there is something very justly to be hated or _despised_; And you feel the same Sentiments of Dislike for every other Character of _Johnson_'s; so that after you have been _gratify'd_ with their Detention and Punishment, you are quite tired and disgusted with their Company:--Whereas Shakespear, besides the peculiar Gaiety in the Humour of Falstaff, has guarded him from disgusting you with his forward Advances, by giving him Rank and _Quality_; from being despicable by his real good Sense and excellent _Abilities_; from being odious by his harmless Plots and _Designs_; and from being tiresome by his inimitable Wit, and his new and incessant Sallies of highest Fancy and Frolick.
This discovers the Secret of carrying COMEDY to the highest Pitch of Delight; Which lies in drawing the Persons exhibited, with such chearful and amiable Oddities and Foibles, as you would chuse in your own Companions in _real Life; --otherwise, tho' you may be diverted at first with the Novelty of a Character, and with a proper Detection and Ridicule of it, yet its Peevishness, Meanness, or Immorality, will begin to disgust you after a little Reflection, and become soon tiresome and _odious_; It being certain, that whoever cannot be endured as an accidental Companion in real Life, will never become, for the very same Reasons, a favorite comic Character in the Theatre.
This Relish for generous and worthy Characters alone