To speak plainly of this whole Work, I think nothing but being lost to a sense of Innocence and Virtue can make any one see this Comedy, without observing more frequent Occasion to move Sorrow and Indignation, than Mirth and Laughter. At the same time I allow it to be Nature, but it is Nature in its utmost Corruption and Degeneracy. [2]

R.

[Footnote 1: 'The Man of Mode', or 'Sir Fopling Flutter', by Sir George Etherege, produced in 1676. Etherege painted accurately the life and morals of the Restoration, and is said to have represented himself in Bellair; Beau Hewit, the son of a Herefordshire Baronet, in Sir Fopling; and to have formed Dorimant upon the model of the Earl of Rochester.]

[Footnote 2: To this number of the Spectator is appended the first advertisement of Pope's 'Essay on Criticism'.

This Day is publish'd An ESSAY on CRITICISM.Printed for W. Lewis in Russell street Covent-Garden;
and Sold by W. Taylor, at the Ship in Pater Noster Row;
T. Osborn, in Gray's Inn near the Walks;
T. Graves, in St. James's Street;
and T. Morphew, near Stationers-Hall.Price 1s.]

* * * * *

No. 66. Wednesday, May 16, 1711. Steele.

'Motus doceri gaudet Ionicos
Matura Virgo, et fingitur artubus
Jam nunc, et incestos amores
De Tenero meditatur Ungui.'Hor.

The two following Letters are upon a Subject of very great Importance, tho' expressed without an Air of Gravity.

To the SPECTATOR.