Collier's strictures. Collier would later fire back with his Defence of the Short View in 1699 and Edward Filmer would go on to defend Restoration theatre in 1707 with A Defence of Plays. Analysis By the end of the 17th century, the Restoration comic style had already collapsed: the satiric presentation of English life gave way to the sentimental portrait (beginning in 1696 with Colley Cibber's Love's Last Shift) (Bernbaum 72). A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage only signaled the swelling of public opposition to the real or imposed indecency of the plays staged over the last three decades. Collier writes in the introduction: "The business of plays is to recommend Vertue, and discountenance Vice" (Collier 1). However, the Restoration playwright rarely saw their function within Collier's strictures; in Congreve's dedication to The Double-Dealer (1693), he writes, "It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of humankind" (Congreve 174). Congreve implies that the purpose of the comic playwright was to portray the vices and follies of society in order to correct them. Collier, instead, preferred his restrictions imposed on comedy (e.g. his rigid Neoclassical notions of dramatic decorum) and in doing so he followed the a logic similar to what is found in the work of other critics who had imposed the law of poetic justice on tragedy (e.g. Thomas Rymer and his A Short View of Tragedy (1693)). Legacy A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage is often credited with turning the tide against the sexually explicit nature of Restoration comedy, but the tide had already begun turning; Collier's pamphlet was only "swimming" with the "tide" of public opinion. The truth was that Restoration comedy was over; it had been worn down by external factors, such as the Glorious Revolution and William and Mary's bête-noire for theatre. Maybe the most obvious sign of Restoration theatre's death came with the nolle prosequi (immunity from prosecution for earlier offenses) granted to Collier by William III (for A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage). Further reading Cordner, Michael (2000). "Playwright versus priest: profanity and the wit of Restoration comedy." In Deborah Payne Fisk (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vanbrugh, John (1698). A Short Vindication of The Relapse and The Provok'd Wife From Immorality