“We have been spoiled with ... the ... drama of common life; where the moral point is everything; where, instead of the fictitious half-believed personages of the stage (the phantoms of old comedy) we recognize ourselves, our brothers, aunts, kinsfolk, allies, patrons, enemies,--the same as in life.... “I do not know how it is with others, but I feel the better always for the perusal of one of Congreve’s--nay, why should I not add even of Wycherley’s--comedies. I am the gayer at least for it; and I could never connect those sports of a witty fancy in any shape with any result to be drawn from them to imitation in real life. They are a world of themselves almost as much as fairyland.... But in its own world do we feel the creature is so very bad?--The Fainalls and the Mirabels, the Dorimants and the Lady Touchwoods, in their own sphere, do not offend my moral sense; in fact they do not appeal to it at all. They seem engaged in their proper element. They break through no laws, or conscientious restraints. They know of none. They have got out of Christendom into the land--what shall I call it?--of cuckoldry--the Utopia of gallantry, where pleasure is duty, and the manners perfect freedom. It is altogether a speculative scene of things, which has no reference whatever to the world that is.... He [Congreve] has spread a privation of moral light ... over his creations; and his shadows flit before you without distinction or preference. Had he introduced a good character, a single gush of moral feeling, a revulsion of the judgment to actual life and actual duties, the impertinent Goshen would have only lighted to the discovery of deformities, which now are none, because we think them none.... “... When we are among them [the characters of Congreve and Wycherley], we are amongst a chaotic people. We are not to judge them by our usages. No reverend institutions are insulted by their proceedings,--for they have none among them. No peace of families is violated,--for no family ties exist among them. No purity of the marriage bed is stained,--for none is supposed to have a being.... There is neither right nor wrong,--gratitude or its opposite,--claim or duty,--paternity or sonship.... “The whole is a passing pageant.... But, like Don Quixote, we take part against the puppets, and quite as impertinently.... We would indict our very dreams.” 6. BEGINNINGS OF THE CHANGE IN THE DRAMA.