Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

4. The sanction and encouragement which the Stage gives to Profligacy is another of its vices. The libertine is there exhibited, not as a character odious, and to be avoided, but he is represented as the interesting, and the amiable, and the rewarded character; while soberness, virtue and piety are neglected and contemned.*

5. These are the common subjects of the lighter species of Dramas; but they are to be found, likewise, to a considerable degree, in the more serious. "There runs" besides (as it hath 'been admirably remarked) " through the whole web of the Tragic Drama (and indeed to a considerable extent likewise of the Comic) a prominent thread of false principle. It is generally the leading object of the poet, to erect a standard of Honour, in direct opposition to the standard of Christianity. And this is not done subordinately, incidentally, or occasionally; but worldly honour is the very soul and spirit, and life-giving principle of the Drama. Honour is the religion of Tragedy. It is her moral and political law. Her dictates form its institutes. Fear and shame are the capital crimes in her code. Against these all the eloquence of her most powerful pleaders, against these her penal statutes, pistol, sword, and poison, are in full force. Injured honour can only be vindicated

* Note M.

D

at the point of the sword; the stains of injured reputation can only be washed out in blood. Love, jealousy, hatred, ambition, pride, revenge, are too often elevated into the rank of splendid virtues, and form a dazzling system of worldly morality, in direct contradiction to the spirit of that religion, whose characteristics are "charity, meekness, peaceableness, long-suffering, gentleness, forgiveness." "The fruits of the Spirit," and the fruits of the Stage, if the parallel were followed up, as it might easily be, would perhaps exhibit as pointed a contrast as human imagination could conceive."*

"When it is considered how many young men pick up their habits of thinking and their notions of morality from the play-house, it is not perhaps going too far to suspect, that the principles and examples exhibited on the stage, may contribute in their full measure and proportion towards supplying a sort of regular aliment to the appetite (how dreadfully increased!) for duelling, and even suicide.Ӡ

6. Murder, and Suicide, are, indeed, two of the great engines of the Drama; and, it is to be feared, very much tend to diminish the horror and impiety of them to the human mind. One

Mrs. H. More's Preface to her Tragedies. Vol. iii. p. 16. + Ditto, p. 21. Note N.

instance, at least, is upon record of suicide attributed to the example of the Stage. *

7. To these may be added the frequent exhibition of deaths, in which the person departing out of this world into another, is represented with views very different from those, in which a Christian should consider himself; looking back, not like a sinner, penitent for his past sins, and humbly trusting in the merits of a Saviour for his pardon,-but in many cases, without any reference to past sins, or future hopes; or, in others, presuming upon fancied virtue, and going as it were to claim his reward from a Deity of infinite justice and goodness.†

These are a few of the most prominent circumstances wherein the Stage misleads and 66 communicates evil" to its votaries. More particular instances may be seen in that very excellent work, "A short view of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage," published about the end of the seventeenth century, and in another work, published in the beginning of the following century, entitled, "A serious Remonstrance in behalf of the Christian Religion, against the horrid Blasphemies and Impieties By Collier.

* Note O.

+ Note P.

which are still used in the English Play-houses,"* in which nearly seven thousand instances of impiety and immorality are noticed from the plays in use at that time, and some of which (though in rather an amended state) still keep a place upon the Stage.+ Would those who are concerned in the Stage, but seriously consider these, and the principles of the Plays acted in these days, what might not be the happy effects produced? In the mean time, it is the duty of the Christian Minister to warn unthinking persons of their danger in attending these to warn them "not to be deceived," since "evil communications corrupt good manners,' and to exhort them with the Apostle, to " Awake to righteousness, and sin not, for some have not the knowledge of God.-I speak this to your shame." (1 Cor. xv. 33, 34.)

[ocr errors]

From the abuses of the Stage, let us proceed, in the next place, to consider, What are the uses to which it may be applied.

[ocr errors]

III. "The" proper business of Plays (says the Author of one of the works before mentioned) is to recommend virtue and to discountenance vice; to shew the uncertainty of human greatness, the sudden turns of fate,"— or, as, perhaps, it is better expressed elsewhere, + Note Q.

* By Bedford.

the changes and chances of this mortal life, "*" and the unhappy conclusions of violence and injustice: It is to expose the singularities of Pride and Fancy, to make Folly and Falsehood contemptible, and to bring every thing that is ill, under infamy and neglect." (Collier p. 1.) +

"A good Play (says a later writer) is an exact picture of human life. There we see our fellow-creatures placed in a variety of interesting situations, and speaking and acting as those situations would naturally lead them to do. In a well-written Tragedy, we see bad men led by temptation into vice; we see the deepest afflic-tion supported with heroic fortitude, and virtue triumphant in distress. Thus the young man becomes acquainted with the world in which he is to live; he sees the effect of those passions which are his most dangerous enemies; and he learns to shun the errors and vices which are there held up to just detestation."‡

[ocr errors]

"We must learn to distinguish between good and bad conduct, between true and false

* The first of the Collects at the end of the Communion Service. + Shakspeare, in the person of Hamlet, speaking of playing, says, "whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to shew Virtue her own feature, Scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure." Act III. Scene II.

See Observations on the Effect, &c. p. 12.

« AnteriorContinuar »