Page:Essays, Moral and Political - David Hume (1741).djvu/165



easy to observe, That Comic Writers exaggerate every Character, and draw their Fop or Coward, with stronger Features than are any where to be met with in Nature. This moral kind of Painting for the Stage has been often compar'd to the Painting for Cupolas and Ceilings, where the Colours are overcharg'd, and every Part is drawn excessively large, and beyond Nature. The Figures seem monstrous and disproportion'd, when seen too nigh; but become natural and regular, when set at a Distance, and placed in that Point of View, in which they are intended to be survey'd. After the same manner, when Characters are exhibited in theatrical Representations, the Want of Reality sets the Personages at a Distance from us; and rendering them