heightnings

Updated: May 4, 2025

We have Officers intrusted with this useful and important Power, and are able, if they please, to hinder the spreading of the Infection, by not permitting such noxious Productions to appear in Publick: But whether those Inspectors have had a true Taste and Judgment themselves, or have diligently apply'd themselves to the Reading and Amending the Comedies put into their Hands for their Approbation, or whether they comply with the Importunity of the Actors, who tell them, that such is the Disposition of the Audience, that no Plays of that kind will appear beautiful, if they are strip'd of those Embellishments and Ornaments of Wit, which some morose and unfashionable People stile impure and obscene, and that to leave out those ingenious Strokes and Heightnings of Fancy, and put into the Mouths of the Actors only good Sense and modest and clean Expressions, is to clear and refine our Comedies from the most entertaining and delightful Parts: Perhaps they assure them, that the Audience will endure no Reformation of the Stage, and that it were altogether as adviseable to shut up the Doors of the Play-House, as to attempt a Regulation of the Pleasures and Diversions of it.

Sir Richard Blackmore - Essay upon Wit