Over time, the morality plays began to include many lesser vices on stage and one chief vice figure, a tempter above all the others, who was called simply the Vice. Originally, the Vice was a serious role, but over time his part became largely comical. Scholar F.P. Wilson notes, “Whatever else the Vice may be, he is always the chief comic character”; this comic portrayal is explained thus: "In theory there is no reason why vice should not be put upon the stage with the same seriousness and sobriety as virtue: in practice, however, dramatists, and many a preacher, knew that men and women will not listen for long to unrelieved gravity”. In his "Declaration of Popish Impostures" from 1603, Bishop Harsnet wrote that "It was a pretty part in the old church plays, when the nimble Vice would skip up nimbly like a Jacke-an-apes into the Devil's necke, and ride the devil a course, and belabour him with his wooden dagger, till he made him roar, whereat the people would laugh to see the Devil so Vice-haunted.”