The only Thing that can be said to excuse Mr. _de la Bruyere_ on this
Head, is what the Abbot _Fleury_ has alledg’d to his Praise; namely,
[N]that his Characters are sometimes loaded, on purpose that they
might not too nearly resemble the Persons design’d.

[N: On trouve dans ses Characteres une severe Critique, des
Expressions vives, des Tours ingenieux, des Peintures quelquefois
chargeés exprés, pour ne les pas faire trop ressemblantes.
_Discours prononcé dans l’Academie Française._ 1696.]

’Tis very dangerous, I confess, to make free with the Characters of
particular Persons; for there are some Men in the World, who, tho’
they are not asham’d of the Impropriety of their own

Manners, yet are they easily offended at the public Notice which is
taken of ’em. But tho’ Mr. _de la Bruyere_ might have very good
prudential Reasons for not making his Characters too particular, yet
those Reasons cannot be urg’d, as a just Plea for his transgressing
the Bounds of Characteristic-Justice, by making his Images unnatural.

In every Kind of Writing there is something of an establish’d Nature
which is essential to it. To deviate from this, is to deviate from
Nature it self. Mr. _de la Bruyere_ is not the only _French_ Man who
is guilty in this Point. Others of his Country-Men have committed much
the same Fault in Pastoral and Comedy. Out of a vain Affectation of
saying something very extraordinary and remarkable, they have departed
from the nature of Things: They have given to the Simplicity of the
Country, the Airs of the Town and Court, introduced upon the Stage
Buffoonry and Farce instead of Humour; and by misrepresenting the real
Manners of Men, they have turn’d Nature into Grimace.