I do not intend to enter upon an exact Critique of this Piece; the intended Brevity of this Essay will permit me to take Notice of but some few Particulars.--I have no Design or Desire to derogate from the Reputation of the deceas’d Author; but this I take to be a standing Rule in Critical Writings, as well as in judicious Reading, that we ought not to be so struck with the Beauties of an Author, as to be blind to his Failings; nor yet so prejudiced by his Failings, as to be blind to his Beauties. The original Design of Characteristic-Writings is to give us real Images of Life. An exact Imitation of Nature is the chief Art which is to be us’d. The Imagination, I own, may be allow’d to work in Pieces of this Kind, provided it keeps within the Degrees of Probability; But Mr. _de la Bruyere_ gives us Characters of Men, who are not to be found in Nature; and, out of a false Affectation of the Wonderful, he carries almost every thing to Excess; represents the Irregularities of Life as downright Madness, and by his false Colours converts Men into Monsters. [I]_Troilus_ is a very supercilious Man: And ’tis no ways inconsistent with this Character to suppose, that he may entertain a natural Antipathy against an ugly Face, or a bad Voice; but our Author represents him as labourirg under this Distemper to such a Degree of Excess, as, I believe, has never been observ’d in any Man. I do not know by what Name it may be call’d. _Troilus_ conceives an immediate Aversion against a Person that enters the Room where he is; he shuns him, flies from him, and will throw himself out at the Window, rather than suffer himself to be accosted by one, whose Face and Voice he does not like.--Is this Humour, or, rather, are not these the genuine Symptoms of Madness and Phrenzy? And if _Troilus_ does really act after this manner, is he not rather an Object of Pity, than a Subject for Humour and Ridicule? [I: De la Societè & de la Conversation. Ad init.]