"As first, _MOROSE_, an old man, to whom all noise, but his own talking, is offensive. Some, who would be thought critics, say, 'This humour of his is forced.' But, to remove that objection, we may consider him, first, to be naturally of a delicate hearing, as many are, to whom all sharp sounds are unpleasant: and, secondly, we may attribute much of it to the peevishness of his age, or the wayward authority of an old man in his own house, where he may make himself obeyed; and this the Poet seems to allude to, in his name _MOROSE_. Besides this, I am assured from divers persons, that BEN. JOHNSON was actually acquainted with such a man, one altogether as ridiculous as he is here represented. "Others say, 'It is not enough, to find one man of such an humour. It must he common to more; and the more common, the more natural.' To prove this, they instance in the best of comical characters, _FALSTAFF_. There are many men resembling him; Old, Fat, Merry, Cowardly, Drunken, Amorous, Vain, and Lying. But to convince these people; I need but [to] tell them, that _Humour is the ridiculous extravagance of conversation, wherein one man differs from all others_. If then it be common, or communicated to any; how differs it from other men's? or what indeed causes it to be ridiculous, so much as the singularity of it. As for _FALSTAFF_, he is not properly one Humour; but a Miscellany of Humours or Images drawn from so many several men. That wherein he is singular is his Wit, or those things he says, _praeter expectatum_, 'unexpected by the audience'; his quick evasions, when you imagine him surprised: which, as they are extremely diverting of themselves, so receive a great addition from his person; for the very sight of such an unwieldy old debauched fellow is a Comedy alone. "And here, having a place so proper for it, I cannot but enlarge somewhat upon this subject of Humour, into which I am fallen. "The Ancients had little of it in their Comedies: for the [Greek: no geloiou] [_facetious absurdities_] of the Old Comedy, of which ARISTOPHANES was chief, was not so much to imitate a man; as to make the people laugh at some odd conceit, which had commonly somewhat of unnatural or obscene in it. Thus, when you see _SOCRATES_ brought upon the Stage, you are not to imagine him made ridiculous by the imitation of his actions: but rather, by making him perform something very unlike himself; something so childish and absurd, as, by comparing it with the gravity of the true SOCRATES, makes a ridiculous object for the spectators.