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Once we step out of that region, the inhumanity of the thing becomes too apparent. Increasingly, the plays came to be treated not as plays but as documents for a social historian — realistic descriptions of upper-class life in Restoration London. In the latter half of the nineteenth century a number of continental critics wrote on Restoration comedy with increased emphasis on the social context of the plays, partly as an answer to Lamb. Finally, in 1913, John Palmer brought forth his book The Comedy of Manners, to answer both Lamb and Macaulay by the flat assertion: "The excellence of Restoration comedy is, in fact, directly due to the honest fidelity with which it reflects the spirit of an intensely interesting phase of our social history. The artist is dealing with emotions and conduct which in the world whence he draws material are determined by positive morality. Morality is his subject, though it is not his object.
There is a higher morality than that of Jeremy Collier … and without in the least circumscribing the sphere of the artist one may confidently say that the highest art has invariably expressed the highest morality. The morality of our Restoration drama cannot be impugned. It assumes orthodox Christian morality, and laughs (in its comedy) at human nature for not living up to it. It retains it respect for the divine by showing the failure of the human. It depends upon virtue for its existence. Restoration comedy is a comedy of social manners.

Formerly the question of "moral" or "immoral" had been simply one question. Now several others were added: Is the world of Restoration comedy a "real" reflection of Stuart court life, or is it artificial? Does that world have any relation to ordinary life? Does Restoration comedy concern itself with morality or simply with the "manners" of a coterie? Finally, then, is Restoration comedy "moral" or "immoral"? For example, of six writers, all of whom agree that Restoration comedy was a thoroughly real picture of the life of the court coterie, two find the plays moral, two immoral, and two amoral.
The plays are commonly regarded as meaningless representatives of an outmoded frivolity. In 1923, Professor Nicoll published his definitive history of the drama of the period, a book rich with stage information, play lists, datings, and the like, to which all later critics of Restoration comedy are greatly indebted. This large body of criticism and scholarship, when it dealt with the background of Restoration comedy, concentrated on social background, neglecting almost entirely the intellectual background — with one salient exception. Science, he pointed out, might well be that significant background motive. Restoration comedy, therefore, should perhaps be understood as a bitter, brittle questioning (in view of the new scientific discoveries) of the old, narrow, conventional morality. Another notable exception to the critical failure was Miss Kathleen M.

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