SOURCE: Steele, Richard. “No. 65, Tuesday, May 15, 1711.” In The Spectator, Vol. 1, edited by Donald F. Bond, pp. 278-80. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.

In the following essay originally published in The Spectator, Steele deems Etherege's wit immoral in The Man of Mode, concluding that the “whole celebrated piece is a perfect contradiction to good manners, good sense, and common honesty.”

… Demetri, teque, Tigelli, Discipularum inter Jubeo plorare cathedras. 

Hor.¹

After having at large explained what Wit is, and described the false Appearances of it, all that Labour seems but an useless Enquiry, without some Time be spent in considering the Application of it. The Seat of Wit, when one speaks as a Man of the Town and the World, is the Play-house; I shall therefore fill this Paper with Reflections upon the Use of it in that Place. The Application of Wit in the Theatre has as strong an Effect upon...