ic character
and Theophrastan character differ only 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.

Section III of Gally's essay, like Section I thoroughly conventional,
is also omitted here. Gally attributes to Theophrastus the spurious
"Proem," in which Theophrastus, emphasizing his ethical purpose,
announces his intention of following up his characters of vice with
characters of virtue. At one point Gally asserts that Theophrastus
taught the same doctrine as Aristotle and Plato, but

accommodated Morality to the Taste of the _Beau Monde_, with all the
Embellishments that can please the nice Ears of an intelligent Reader,
and with that inoffensive Satir, which corrects the Vices of Men,
without making them conceive any Aversion for the Satirist.

It is Gally's concept of the character as an art-form, however, which
is most interesting to the modern scholar. Gally breaks sharply with
earlier character-writers like Overbury who, he thinks, have departed
from the Theophrastan method. Their work for the most part reflects
corrupted taste:

A continued Affectation of far-fetched and quaint Simile's, which
runs thro' almost all these Characters, makes 'em appear like so many
Pieces of mere Grotesque; and the Reader must not expect to find
Persons describ'd as they really are, but rather according to what
they are thought to be like.

And Gally attacks one of the favorite devices of the seventeenth-century
character:

An Author, in this Kind, must not dwell too long upon one Idea; As
soon as the masterly Stroke is given, he must immediately pass on
to another Idea.... For if, after the masterly Stroke is given, the
Author shou'd, in a paraphrastical Manner, still insist upon the same
Idea, the Work will immediately flag, the Character grow languid, and
the Person characteris'd will insensibly vanish from the Eyes of the
Reader.

One has only to read a character like Butler's "A Flatterer" to
appreciate Gally's point. The Theophrastan method had been to describe
a character operatively--that is, through the use of concrete dramatic
incident illustrating the particular v