"abuse of it is worse than that of the Stage. For as faith cometh by hearing, so doth infidelity; and that by hearing the word of God; by hearing it perverted; not rightly opened, nor well applied. So Mr. Herbert says, Sermons are no indifferent things; people are either the better or the worse for them." See The Scholar Armed. vol. ii. p. 258.

G. p. 22. Mr. STYLES very beautifully observes: "Could I summon into one interesting groupe, the venerable men, who have in every age instructed and astonished the world by their wisdom and their virtue, and collect their aggregate opinion on the character and moral influence of the Stage, the decision, were it uniform, would demand some consideration; and from it Presumption itself would not venture to appeal. But this is not practicable, nor is it necessary; their sentiments on this subject are upon record. There is scarcely a distinguished name among the Philosophers, Legislators and Moralists of the world, but is hostile to the Theatre: and they have left, by their historians, or in their writings, an imperishable protest against the Stage." p. 39.

I, too, can, on my side, bring together a strong host of opinions in favour of the Stage, to be used comformably to Christian morality, and for the possibility of so regulating it. It must, however, be observed, that whatever were the opinions of the Philosophers, Legislators and Moralists quoted by Mr. S. on the subject of the abuses of the Stage, many of them certainly were frequenters of the Theatre; the moral and the amiable SOCRATES certainly was.

Mr. CUMBERLAND in his account of the Rise and Progress of the English Stage, prefixed to Cooke's select British Drama, says, "It is well known to the learned, at what expence the Athenians supported their Theatres, and how often from among their poets, they chose governors of their provinces, generals of their armies, and guardians of their liberties. Who were more jealous of their liberties than the Athenians?-who better knew, that corruption and debauchery are the greatest foes to liberty?-who better knew, than they, that the freedom of the Theatre (next to that of the Senate) was the best support of liberty, against all the undermining arts of those who wickedly might seek to sap its foundation?" SoCRATES assisted Euripides in his compositions. The wise SOLON frequented plays, even in his decline of life; and PLUTARCH informs us, he thought

plays useful to polish the manners, and instil the principles of virtue."

"As arts and sciences increased in Rome, when learning, eloquence, and poetry flourished, LELIUS improved his social hours with Terence; and SCIPIO thought it not beneath him to make one in so agreeable a party. CÆSAR, who was an excellent Poet as well as Orator, thought the former title an addition to his honour; and ever mentioned Terence and Menander with great respect. AUGUSTUS found it easier to make himself sovereign of the world, than to write a good Tragedy: he began a play called Ajax, but could not finish it. BRUTUS, the virtuous, the moral Brutus, thought his time not misemployed in a journey from Rome to Naples, only to see an excellent troop of Comedians; and was so pleased with their performance, that he sent them to Rome, with letters of recommendation to CICERO, to take them under his patronage:—this too was at a time when the city was under no small confusion from the murder of Cæsar; yet, amidst the tumults of those times, and the hurry of his own affairs, he thought the having a good company of actors, of too much consequence to the public to be neglected. And in such estimation was Roscius held by CICERO, that in pleading the cause of the poet Archias, he makes the most honourable mention of that actor." p. iii-v.

Dr. OWEN, (p. 14.) quotes the opinion of ST. CHRYSOSTOM against the Stage; but BISHOP WATSON (in his Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, see Sermons and Tracts, p. 409.) informs us, that he " is said to have slept with even an Aristophanes under his pillow."

But, to descend to the sentiments of those nearer our time, we will begin with MILTON, whose religious and political opinions, were by no means of a relaxed nature, and whose piety, as the Author of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes, (though I shall have occasion afterwards to censure another of his pieces) certainly entitles him to a hearing on the present occasion. In his Preface to the last mentioned work, he says:

"Tragedy, as it was anciently composed, hath ever been held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable, of all other poems: therefore said by Aristotle to be of power by raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions; that is, to

temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, stirred up by reading or seeing those passions well imitated.-Hence philosophers and other gravest writers, as Cicero, Plutarch and others, frequently cite out of tragic poets, both to adorn and illustrate their discourse.-Seneca, the philosopher, is by some thought the author of those Tragedies (at least the best of them) that go under his name. This is mentioned to vindicate tragedy from the small esteem, or rather infamy, which, in the account of many, it undergoes at this day with other common interludes; happening through the' poet's error of intermixing comic stuff with tragic sadness and gravity; or introducing trivial and vulgar persons, which by all judicious. hath been accounted absurd; and brought in without discretion, corruptly to gratify the people."

SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE, in his Essay upon Wit, says, "No doubt a Comedy may be so contrived, that it may at once become delightful, and promote prudence and sobriety of manners; that is, when the characters are well chosen, justly delineated, and every where distinguished; when the various manners are exactly imitated and carried on with propriety and uniformity; when the principal action contains an instructive moral, and all the parts in a regular connection, dependance and proportion, illustrate and support each other, and have a manifest influence on the main event; --and when the diction is pure, proper and elegant, as well as chaste and inoffensive to the modest and virtuous hearers. So regular and beautiful a piece as this cannot but greatly please and divert, as well as instruct an audience." Essays, vol. i. p. 219.

The opinion of ADDISON, the moral and the pious Addison, the reformer of the manners of his times by his elegant and pious writings in the Spectator, and the author of the Evidences of Christianity, hath been cited before p. 99. from the Spectator, No. 93. and, again in No. 446. he says, "Were our English Stage but half so virtuous as that of the Greeks or Romans, we should quickly see the influence of it in the behaviour of the politer part of mankind. It would not be fashionable to ridicule religion, or its professors; the man of pleasure would not be the complete gentleman; Vanity would be out of countenance; and every quality which is ornamental to human nature, would meet with that esteem which is due to it.

"If the Stage were under the same regulations the Athenian was formerly, it would have the same effect that had, in recommending the religion, the government and public worship of its country. Were our plays subject to proper inspections and limitations, we might not only pass away several of our vacant hours in the highest entertainments; but should always rise from them wiser and better than we sat down to them."

If it be acknowledged that the Stage at Athens, at one time, subsisted in a pure state, so far as their notions of religion and morality extended, shall Christians deny the possibility of its existing in a pure state in a Christian Country? To say this, is to deny the purifying principle of the Gospel. But, if any persons, through prejudice shall deny the possibility of purifying it; or, through vice, or indolence, neglect to attempt it, The Men of Athens SHALL RISE UP

IN THE JUDGMENT AGAINST THIS GENERATION AND CON

DEMN IT. (Matt. xii. 41, 42.)

COLLIER, although the great scourge of the abuses of the Stage, yet allows that "the abuse of a thing is no argument against the use of it." (p. 5.) His ideas respecting the proper business of the Stage, have been before quoted, (See Sermon II. p. 36.) and he says, "Our Poets write with a different view, and are gone into another interest. 'Tis true, were their intentions fair, they might be serviceable to this purpose. They have in a great measure the springs of thought and inclination in their power. Show, Music, Action, and Rhetoric, are moving entertainments; and rightly employed, would be very significant." (p. 1.)*

* After seeing these passages, I am surprised to find Mr. DIRDIN, in his History of the Stage, saying of Collier, that "Nothing would content him but rooting out the evil, by abolishing the Stage itself." Voliv. p. 217. Indeed Mr. D. himself appears to have thought more favourably of Collier's Work at a subsequent period; for in his Professional Life, vol. ii. p. 85. he says, "As to Dryden's Amphytrion, it was one of those things that drew on the Stage the indignation of Collier, certainly with too much reason, whose strictures having honest moral, and fair truth on their side, completely triumphed over the weak and inadequate defence held out by all the wits of that time. They had the good effect of restoring decency to the Stage."

The

Again, speaking of Comedy, he says, "To laugh without reason is the pleasure of fools, and against it, of something worse. exposing, and making lewdness ridiculous, is a much better occasion. for laughter. And this with submission I take to be the end of Comedy. And therefore it does not differ from Tragedy in the end, but in the means. Instruction is the principal design of both. The one works by terror, the other by infamy. 'Tis true, they don't move in the same line, but they meet in the same point at last. For this opinion I have good authority, besides what has been cited already.

1. Monsieur RAPIN affirms, That delight is the end that poetry aims at, but not the principal one. For poetry being an art, ought to be profitable by the qualities of its own nature, and by the essential subordination that all arts should have to polity, whose end in general is the public good. This is the judgment of Aristotle and of Horace his chief interpreter.' (Rapin, Reflect. &c. p. 10.) Ben Jonson in his dedicatory Epistle of his Fox, has somewhat considerable upon this argument, and declaims with a great deal of zeal, spirit and good sense, against the licentiousness of the Stage. He lays it down for a principle, That 'tis impossible to be a good poet, without being a good man. That he (a good poet) is said to be able to inform young men to all good discipline, and enflame grown men to all great virtues, &c. That the general complaint was that the writers of those days had nothing remaining in them of the dignity of a poet, but the abused name." (Collier p. 156—8.)

BEDFORD, another powerful writer against the Stage, in ch. xxi. of his Serious Remonstrance, (see p. 35. of this work) quotes the opinions of Archbishop Tillotson, Collier, and Sir Richard Bluckmore, retaining those passages which admit of the possibility of a pure Stage.

DR. WATTS, in his Discourse on the Education of Children and Youth, says, "It is granted, that a dramatic representation of the affairs of human life is by no means sinful in itself: I am inclined to think, that valuable compositions might be made of this kind, such as might entertain a virtuous audience with innocent delight, and even

Mr. Cumberland, too, in his Rise and Progress of the Stage, calls Collier, "an enemy to the very toleration of Dramatic entertain ments." p. xxv.