, is the Person that is familiar with other Men's Wives, and indifferent to his own; as the fine Woman is generally a Composition of Sprightliness and Falshood. I do not know whether it proceeds from Barrenness of Invention, Depravation of Manners, or Ignorance of Mankind, but I have often wondered that our ordinary Poets cannot frame to themselves the Idea of a Fine Man who is not a Whore-master, or of a Fine Woman that is not a Jilt.
I have sometimes thought of compiling a System of Ethics out of the Writings of these corrupt Poets, under the Title of
Stage Morality
. But I have been diverted from this Thought, by a Project which has been executed by an ingenious Gentleman of my Acquaintance. He has compos'd, it seems, the History of a young Fellow, who has taken all his Notions of the World from the Stage, and who has directed himself in every Circumstance of his Life and Conversation, by the Maxims and Examples of the Fine Gentlemen in
English
Comedies. If I can prevail upon him to give me a Copy of this new-fashioned Novel, I will bestow on it a Place in my Works, and question not but it may have as good an Effect upon the Drama, as
Don Quixote
had upon Romance.
C.