They are the affectation of affectation. — Henry Fielding

The only source of the true Ridiculous (as it appears to me) is affectation

A comic writer should of all others be the least excused for deviating from nature, since it may not be always so easy for a serious poet to meet with the great and the admirable; but life every where furnishes an accurate observer with the ridiculous.

I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species.