A perfect and compleat _Humourist_ is rarely to be found;
and when you hear his _Voice_, is a different Creature.--In writing to
_Englishmen_, who are generally tinged, deeply or slightly, with the
_Dye_ of the _Humourist_, it seem'd not improper to insist the longer
upon this Character; However, let none be too fond of it; For though
an _Humourist_ with his Roughness is greatly to be preferr'd to a
smooth _Insipid_, yet the Extremes of both are equally wretched:
_Ideots_ being only the lowest Scale of _Insipids_, as _Madmen_ are no
other than _Humourists_ in Excess.
It may be proper to observe in this place, that though all
_Ostentation_, _Affectation_, and _Imitation_ are excluded from the
Composition of a perfect _Humourist_; yet as they are the obvious
_Foibles_ of some Persons in Life, they may justly be made the Subject
of _Humour_.
For HUMOUR extensively and fully understood, is _any remarkable_
Oddity _or_ Foible _belonging to a_ Person _in_ real Life; _whether
this_ Foible _be constitutional, habitual_, or _only affected; whether
partial in one or two Circumstances; or tinging the whole Temper and
Conduct of the_ Person.
It has from hence been observ'd, that there is more HUMOUR in the
_English_ Comedies than in others; as we have more various odd
_Characters_ in real Life, than any other Nation, or perhaps than
all other Nations together.
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