m, presented to his view; one whose final punishment we shall be so far
from regretting, that we ourselves shall be ready to consign him to a
severer doom.

The reader will very easily apprehend that a character, which we might
wholly disapprove of, considered as existing in human life, may yet be
thrown on the stage into certain peculiar situations, and be compressed by
external influences into such temporary appearances, as may render such
character for a time highly acceptable and entertaining, and even more
distinguished for qualities, which on this supposition would be accidents
only, than another character really possessing those qualities, but which,
under the pressure of the same situation and influences, would be
distorted into a different form, or totally left in timidity and weakness.
If therefore the character before us will admit of this kind of
investigation, our Inquiry will not be without some dignity, considered as
extending to the principles of human nature, and to the genius and arts of
Him, who has best caught every various form of the human mind, and
transmitted them with the greatest happiness and fidelity.

To return then to the vices of _Falstaff_.--We have frequently referred to
them under the name of ill habits;--but perhaps the reader is not fully
aware how very vicious he indeed is;--he is a robber, a glutton, a cheat, a
drunkard, and a lyar; lascivious, vain, insolent, profligate, and
profane:--A fine infusion this, and such as without very excellent cookery
must have thrown into the dish a great deal too much of the _fumet_. It
was a nice operation;--these vices were not only to be of a particular
sort, but it was also necessary to guard them at both ends; on the _one_,
from all appearance of malicious motive, and indeed from the manifestation
of any ill principle whatever, which must have produced _disgust_,--a
sensation no less opposite to laughter than is _respect_;--and, on the
_other_, from the notice, or even apprehension, in the spectators, of
_pernicious effect_; which produces _grief_ and _terror_, and is the
proper province of Tragedy alone.

_Actions_ cannot with strict propriety be said to be either virtuous or
vicious. These qualities, or attributes, belong to _agents_ only; and are
derived, even in respect to _them_, from intention alone. The abstracting
of qualities, and considering them as independent of any _subject_, and
the applying of them afterwards to actions independ