business of the savage of Dryden, where his hero talks of being

--"As free as nature first made man,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

But although the occupations, and even the sentiments, of human beings
in a primitive state, find access and interest in the minds of the
more civilized part of the species, it does not therefore follow, that
the national tastes, opinions, and follies of one civilized period,
should afford either the same interest or the same amusement to those
of another. These generally, when driven to extravagance, are founded,
not upon any natural taste proper to the species, but upon the growth
of some peculiar cast of affectation, with which mankind in general,
and succeeding generations in particular, feel no common interest or
sympathy. The extravagances of coxcombry in manners and apparel are
indeed the legitimate and often the successful objects of satire,
during the time when they exist. In evidence of this, theatrical
critics may observe how many dramatic _jeux d'esprit_ are well
received every season, because the satirist levels at some well-known
or fashionable absurdity; or, in the dramatic phrase, "shoots folly as
it flies." But when the peculiar kind of folly keeps the wing no
longer, it is reckoned but waste of powder to pour a discharge of
ridicule on what has ceased to exist; and the pieces in which such
forgotten absurdities are made the subject of ridicule, fall quietly
into oblivion with the follies which gave them fashion, or only
continue to exist on the scene, because they contain some other more
permanent interest than that which connects them with manners and
follies of a temporary character.

This, perhaps, affords a reason why the comedies of Ben Jonson,