They are both an Image of one Life; a Representation of one Person:  All the Diversity lies in the different Manner of representing the same Image.  The Drama presents to the Eyes of a Spectator an Actor, who speaks and acts as the Person, whom he represents, is suppos’d to speak and act in real Life.  The Characteristic Writer introduces, in a descriptive manner, before a Reader, the same Person, as speaking and acting in the same manner:  And both must be perform’d in such a natural and lively manner, as may deceive the Spectator and Reader, and make them fancy they see the Person represented or characteris’d.

But tho’ no English Author has attempted a Performance in this Kind, yet it must be confess’d that in some late diurnal Papers we have had excellent Specimens in the Characteristic-Way.  The Papers, which I mean to point out, are the Tatlers and the Spectators.  They are of the miscellaneous Kind, and were design’d for the universal Delight and Instruction of the British Nation.  In these Papers are contained Abundance of true Wit and Humour, lively Descriptions of human Nature in its various Forms and Disguises, the Praises of Virtue, and pointed Satir against Vice; and here and there are interspers’d Characters of Men and Manners compleatly drawn to the Life.—­If the great Authors, who were concerned in the Composition of those Papers, would have join’d their Abilities to form a Work of this Kind, I doubt not but it would have been inimitable, and deserv’d the next Place, in Point of Fame, to that of Theophrastus:  For this is the highest Pitch to which Moderns can aspire.  A greater Design would be Presumption, and would only serve to shew the greater Vanity of the Attempt.  An establish’d Reputation of above two thousand Years cannot be easily shaken. Theophrastus is, and ever will be, an Original in Characteristic-Writings.  His Fame still lives in our Memory, and the Main of his Characters still subsists in our Actions.

FINIS.

* * * * *

PUBLICATIONS OF THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY
FIRST YEAR (1946-47)

[Transcriber’s Note:  Many of the listed titles are or will be available from Project Gutenberg.  Where possible, the e-text number is given in brackets.]

Numbers 1-4 out of print. [#13484, #14528, #14973]

5.  Samuel Wesley’s Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700)
    and Essay on Heroic Poetry (1693).

6. Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the Stage
    (1704) and Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage (1704). [#15656]

SECOND YEAR (1947-1948)

7.  John Gay’s The Present State of Wit (1711); and a section on
    Wit from The English Theophrastus (1702). [#14800]

8.  Rapin’s De Carmine Pastorali, translated by Creech (1684).
    [#14495]