Again; Loquacity and an ill-tim’d Behaviour are two very different Vices in common Conversation; but yet Theophrastus has concluded his Character of Loquacity, with the same Stroke which begins that of an ill-tim’d Behaviour; because tho’ these Vices are of a different Nature, yet do they not exclude each other; and the Actions of Men manifestly prove, that they are frequently to be found in the same Subject.

The nice Reader therefore, instead of being offended to find the peculiar Features of one Vice interspers’d in the Character of another, ought, on the contrary, to admire the Judgment and Accuracy of Theophrastus in this Respect:  For this Mixture does not proceed from Inaccuracy, but is founded in Nature:  And ’tis the Work of a sagacious Head, as well to discover the near Relations that are between different things, as to separate those Things, which by Nature are nearly related, but yet are really distinct.

The Beauty of every Kind of Writing arises from the Conformity which it bears to Nature; and therefore the Excellency of Characteristic-Writings must consist in exact Representations of human Nature.—­This Harmony between Art and Nature may be call’d Justice:  And tho’ the Boundaries of it may be more extensive in those Works, in which a greater Range is allow’d to the Imagination, yet still, Invention and Fiction must be admitted in Characteristic-Writings, when the Characters design’d are of a general Nature; for then the Writer does not copy from an individual Original, and all the Extravagances of Nature are natural, when they are well represented.

It requires, I own, a great deal of Penetration to hit exactly this Point of Reality:  But then it must be confess’d, that as the great difficulty of Characteristic-Writing consists in this, so does the main Beauty and Force of it too:  For Objects are apt to affect and move us according to their Presence or Absence; and a Character will naturally strike us more forcibly, the more the Images, which it consists of, are lively and natural; because the Object is then most present to our Mind.

Since every Feature must be drawn exactly to the Life, great Care must be taken, that the Strokes be not too faint, nor yet too strong:  For Characteristic-Justice is to be observ’d as strictly by the Writers of this Kind, as Poetic-Justice is to be by Poets.  That Medium must be copied, which Nature it self has mark’d out; whatever falls short of it is poor and insipid, whatever is above it is Rant and Extravagance.

  [E] Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi.

    And whatsoever contradicts my Sense,
    I hate to see, and never can believe. 
      Ld. Roscommon.

  [E:  Horat.  Art.  Poet. v. 188.]