the Stage may have experienced in France fince the commencement of the political convulfions which for fome years past have agitated, and still continue to agitate, that country, I am not qualified to speak. But, antecedently to those events, it seems to have been the concurrent opinion of competent judges, that, although corruption of manners and of private conduct had arifen at Paris to an excefs by no means to be pa ralleled at London, the drama of the former capital was far fuperior in purity to that of the latter. Let not this fact be deemed contradictory to the opinion recently given of the powerful effect which theatrical representations are adapted to produce on the moral character and behaviour of those who frequent them. In France, public diffolutenefs was pushed on by caufes from which, of late, England has been, by the blessing of Providence, exempted; caufes which, though capable of deriving ftrength from a depraved Stage, would not have been effectually withstood by the leffons of theatres more more pure than those of Paris. Is it neceffary to particularise them? The disbelief, general among the higher orders, of a religion, depreffed, on the one hand, by a load of fuperstition, and affailed, on the other, by writers of eminent talents and reputation; and the example of a Court, commonly fignalized by unblushing profligacy, and spreading the contagion of vice throughout the empire. We know that, in one at least of these particulars, England was unhappy enough, during a part of the last century, to furnish a picture resembling that of France and we know what was at that period the ftate of our drama. The torrent of immorality and profaneness, which in the days of Charles the second, and for a confiderable time afterwards, deluged the theatre, has fubfided; or is no longer permitted to roll its polluted and infamous tide across the Stage. The glaring colours of vice, which gave no difguft to our ancestors, would fhock, if not the virtue, yet the refinement, of a modern audience. Let the friends of religion, of their country, of private M 4 private worth and of public happiness, be thankful for the change which has taken. place. But has the change been complete? Is the British Stage now irreproachable ? Does it exhibit no scenes which give pain to modeft eyes, no language grating to modeft ears? Does it exhibit nothing which a Christian need be ashamed of writing, of acting, of witneffing? Let those who are the best acquainted with the theatre answer the queftion to their own confciences. And whenever any woman is deliberating whether she shall or fhall not attend the reprefentation of a particular drama, let her ask herself this further queftion; Whether the is not bound in confcience, if the lays claim to the confiftency of a Chriftian, at once to decide in the negative, unless she has sufficient reason to believe that the former enquiry, viewed as relating to that drama, can, with truth, be answered to her fatiffaction? Had these pages been addressed to perfons of the other fex, the fame principles of decifion would have been ftated as no lefs clearly incumbent on men. The Stage is properly defigned to furnish a faithful picture of life and manners. Be it admitted for a moment that the picture is exhibited, and ought to be exhibited, merely for the purpose of amusement. Yet, unless we are to maintain either the abfurd propofition, that amufements have no influence on character, or the wicked proposition, that amusements may lawfully be of a corrupting nature; the picture ought, at leaft, to be fuch as fhall not be injurious to the difpofitions of the heart. But when amusement, though it may be the fole object of the careless fpectator of the drama, is manifeftly not the point in which the whole effect of the reprefentation terminates; when the fentiments delivered, and the line of conduct exemplified, by the favourite actor, in a favourite character, are found by experience to imprefs kindred opinions, and a tendency to a fimilar train of proceeding on the audience; the Stage ought to affume a higher office, and to recommend itself as the nurse of virtue. If it is falfe to its truft, it forfeits every title to public patronage, and ought to be exploded as a nuisance most dangerous to the community. Is the Stage then, it will be faid, to intrude itself into the functions of the pulpit? Are no perfonages to be introduced but women of demure fobriety, and men of unimpeachable integrity? Are the attractions of mirth and wit to be disclaimed? Are folly and affectation no longer to be encountered with ridicule? Are villainy and fraud no longer to be chastised with the lash of fatire? If the Stage is to be curtailed of its most copious fources of amusement, how is it to intereft, how is it to attract spectators? If the mixture of virtue and vice, and the unbounded diversities of character, which prevail in the world, are not to be exhibited, how is a picture of real life and manners to be displayed? The reftrictions which, if enforced, would render the spectacles of the Stage irreproachable, are fuch as would neither lead it from its natural province, nor cripple its powers of entertainment. To conftitute a moral Stage, it is not requifite that Lectures on Divinity |