All in the mind?

There is no pleasure greater than to denounce the wickedness of the times, and since the times are always wicked the pleasure is inexhaustible.

The Reverend Jeremy Collier MA (1650-1726) was a great denouncer of the wickedness of his times. He was famous for it; in fact, it was his metier. He did not think the Glorious Revolution was glorious and refused to swear allegiance to the new monarchs, William and Mary, and he was particularly against the degeneracy and vulgarity of Restoration comedy, which he denounced in his Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, published in 1698. He was answered in kind by Vanbrugh and Congreve, whom he especially attacked, and he wrote a riposte to their riposte. It …