_Love Makes a Man_ (1701) is a rather close adaptation of two of Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays,[78] in which Cibber does not pretend to any serious purpose. “For masks, we’ve scandal, and for beaus, French airs.” And yet his moralizing and sentimental tendency cannot be entirely restrained, for when Carlos, the hero of the play, does turn from his books to love, he speaks in a most heightened and sentimental strain. So too the efforts of Louisa to seduce him are met with sentiments of lofty morality which are actuated by his sincere love for Angelina. The Restoration lover would not have hesitated in the slightest degree to enjoy all that Louisa offered and his wife-to-be would have taken it as a matter of course, probably would have joked with her confidante, if not with the hero, on the subject. But with Cibber not only is the attitude concerning this sort of thing changed, but in his alteration he has omitted one incident[79] that would have been a source of great delight to a Restoration audience, and has softened the language throughout, so that the coarseness which marks his original has largely disappeared. No one undergoes a moral reformation, for Louisa has not been evil in her life, and this one unsuccessful effort at seduction cures her. But the play has two characteristics of the sentimental type; it is perfectly moral in action, and it has some expression of sentimental philosophy. _She Would and She Would Not_ (1702) is probably more in accordance with modern taste than any other play Cibber wrote. In this regard for good taste as well as good morals it is significant of the change in English comedy, and though it is not sentimental, it indicates Cibber’s readiness to adopt and lead the new mode. In its technique it reminds us of the Spanish intrigue plays of Dryden; but it is perfectly moral, and the two lovers do not employ their time, when away from the main business of winning their wives, in carrying on intrigues with other women. _The Careless Husband_ (acted 1704) is Cibber’s masterpiece in sentimental comedy. In it he has reached greater excellence than in his former plays in plot and in character presentation, and in the ability to make his plot and moral purpose work out consistently and logically. The reformation of Loveless in _Love’s Last Shift_ strikes one as not in keeping with his character; one feels that his relapse[80] is quite the natural thing to happen. In this play, however, the hero’s character is presented from the first in a way that prepares one for the final reformation. In this particular Cibber rises above his contemporaries in comedy.