THE LIBRARY 
 
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THE THEATRE: 
 
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 ITS PEKNICIOUS TENDENCY. 
 
 ADDRESSED TO YOUNG MEN. 
 
 " BB NOT DECEIVED ! EVIL COMMUNICATIONS CORRUPT GOOD MANNERS." 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM KEDDIE. 
 
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 GLASS AND DUNCAN, 78, ARGYLE STREET; 
 
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 LONDON : JAMES NISBET AND CO. 
 
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 PREFACE. 
 
 The following Essay is published in the hope 
 of providing young men with an antidote to 
 the seductive influences with which they are 
 plied in certain quarters, under the specious 
 guise of dramatic reform, for the purpose of 
 inducing them to frequent the theatre. The 
 writer has been at pains to enrich his pages 
 with the opinions of eminent authors, both 
 friendly and adverse to histrionic entertain- 
 ments, as to the demoralizing tendency of the 
 stage. Indeed, nothing but the importance 
 which he attaches to the testimonies quoted 
 from the writings of Dr. Witherspoon, Dr. An- 
 drew Thomson, Mr. J. Angell James, Mr. Todd 
 of Philadelphia, Mr. Macaulay, Sir Archibald 
 
 3 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 Alison, Mr. Charles Mathews, Mr. Thomas Car- 
 lyle, the late Mr. Montague Stanley, and others, 
 would have led to the appearance of this little 
 volume, which owes any value it possesses to its 
 containing an epitome of weighty authorities 
 against the theatre. 
 
SOURCES OF 
 
 RATIONAL AND INNOCENT ENJOYMENT. 
 
 To join advantage to amusement, to gather profit with pleasure, 
 Is the wise man's necessary aim, when he lieth in the shade of recreation; 
 Few, but full of understanding, are the books of the library of God, 
 And fitting for all seasons are the gain and the gladness they bestow. 
 The volume of mystery and Grace, for the hour of deep communings, 
 When the soul considereth intensely the startling marvel of itself : 
 The book of destiny and Providence, for the time of sober study, 
 When the mind gleaneth wisdom from the olive grove of history ; 
 And the cheerful pages of Nature, to gladden the pleasant holiday, 
 W T hen the task of duty is complete, and the heart swelleth high with satis- 
 faction. 
 That which may profit and amuse is gathered from the volume of creation. 
 The cheapest pleasures are the best ; and nothing is more costly than sin. 
 
 Tuppee's Proverbial Philosophy. 
 
 God made all his creatures to be happy. When 
 he looked upon the finished works of creation, 
 He pronounced them to be " very good;" and 
 happiness was the consequence of goodness. If 
 we inquire into the nature of the lower animals, 
 we discover that enjoyment is the result of the 
 suitableness of their organization to the condi- 
 
 A 
 
Z SOURCES OF EXJOYMEXT. 
 
 tions in which they are placed. This holds true 
 of the minutest and meanest animalculae re- 
 vealed to sight by the microscope ; and the capa- 
 cities and means of enjoyment are observed to 
 increase the higher we rise in the scale of organ- 
 ized being. The principle of goodness or be- 
 nevolence, which reigns without an exception 
 throughout the realms of animated nature, at- 
 tains its highest manifestation in the structure, 
 the functions, and the external conditions of 
 man ; to whose use and enjoyment, as the last 
 and best of the works of God upon earth, all 
 the kingdoms of nature have been subordinated. 
 Created in the image of his Maker, and endowed 
 with faculties of thought and feeling, qualifying 
 him, in his pristine state, for holding high com- 
 munion with God, the spirit of man, immortal, 
 though fallen, still bears uneffaced the impress 
 of his heavenly original, in his faculties of ob- 
 servation and reflection, and his exquisite sus- 
 ceptibilities of emotion and affection. In the 
 rightly-directed exercise of his mental powers, 
 in the regulated indulgence of his affections, 
 and in the discipline and control of his passions, 
 according to the infallible standard of Divine 
 truth, the Creator has ordained that man's 
 purest enjoyment in this life shall consist; — 
 whilst that which constitutes his truest happi- 
 
CAPACITIES AND MEANS. o 
 
 ness here, is also the means of his preparation 
 for the future condition of his being, when dis- 
 enthralled from the bondage of ignorance and 
 sin, and re-created after the image of God, in 
 knowledge, righteousness, and holiness — with 
 all the faculties of his soul elevated, expanded, 
 purified — his spirit shall attain to the perfec- 
 tion of his existence, and his happiness shall be 
 as boundless as his duration. In order to form 
 an estimate of his capacities and means of en- 
 joyment, look at man, even in this the infancy 
 and imperfection of his being. He is placed in - 
 a world which, if its structure and arrangements 
 were not all contrived with a special and ex- 
 clusive regard to his welfare, is not the less 
 suitable to his wants, and conducive to his 
 pleasures. He is endowed with senses, fitting 
 him to maintain intercourse and communion 
 with the outer world. Through these chan- 
 nels his mind is stored with the materials of 
 improving thought, and his heart receives the 
 most grateful impressions. The eye which con- 
 veys to him the intimations of visible things, 
 and directs him through the daily routine of 
 useful occupation, is capable of being trained to 
 the perception and appreciation of beauty of 
 form and diversity of colour. The ear conveys 
 information to him in the accents of articulate 
 
4 SOUECES OF ENJOYMENT. 
 
 speech ; and its mysterious cavities vibrate to 
 melodious successions of sweet sounds, — 
 
 " Untwisting all the chains that tie 
 The hidden sonl of harmony." 
 
 From these, and the other senses, the mind is 
 supplied with those informations, upon which 
 the judgment and the imagination are exer- 
 cised ; and the exercise is itself a source of 
 refined and exalted pleasure. It thus appears 
 that God has endowed us with faculties of body 
 and mind susceptible of the highest enjoyment, 
 and surrounded us with means and opportunities 
 for the moderate and pleasurable use of them. It 
 would not have been consistent with the Divine 
 benevolence to have conferred these faculties 
 on his rational creatures, without at the same 
 time bestowing upon them the means of their 
 gratification ; nor, on the other hand, would it 
 have been in accordance with the wise economy 
 of creation to have furnished the world which 
 we inhabit with the materials of earthly hap- 
 piness, without also giving us the capacities for 
 enjoying them. Creative skill has filled the 
 world with objects to be studied and admired 
 for their infinite contrivance and design. Crea- 
 tive beneficence has lavished upon us means of 
 delight, fitted to our nature as moral, intellec- 
 
SIMPLE TASTES. 
 
 tual, and sensitive beings. To be happy is our 
 privilege and our duty. To neglect the inno- 
 cent pleasures which God has scattered around 
 us in bountiful profusion, is to treat his good- 
 ness with ingratitude and contempt. To abuse 
 them, is to turn the common blessings of Pro- 
 vidence into instruments of rebellion against the 
 Giver of every good and perfect gift. To use 
 them aright, is to guard against their usurping 
 the place in our affections that is due to God 
 alone — to "use the world as not abusing it," 
 seeing that "the fashion thereof passeth away/' 
 The materials of human happiness, at least 
 as large a share of them as it would be safe to 
 trust us with on this side of eternity, are within 
 the reach of all of us, to a far greater extent 
 than we are willing to acknowledge. Notwith- 
 standing all the imperfections of our lapsed 
 and fallen world, there are boundless resources 
 of moral and intellectual gratification left to 
 us, from which we are only excluded by our 
 own innate perversity. But in order to enjoy 
 them, we must cultivate simple tastes, and 
 cherish pure affections, and be content 
 
 " To drink with gratitude the crystal stream 
 Of unreproved enjoyment ;" — 
 
 and so our pleasures and amusements will leave 
 
b SOURCES OF ENJOYMENT. 
 
 no aching void in the heart, and bring no com- 
 punctious visitings to the conscience ; they will 
 be taken up to refresh the mind in the intervals 
 of employment, and laid down again, without 
 regret, when we bend our attention anew to 
 the sober realities of life. 
 
 Such pleasures are accessible to us, whatever 
 place we may occupy in the social scale ; and 
 the more simple, natural, improving, and bene- 
 ficent they are in their own nature, the less 
 will our enjoyment be contingent on external 
 circumstances. The further we recede from 
 the artificial, unwholesome, and seductive gra- 
 tifications of man's contrivance, and yield to the 
 loftier impulses of our moral and intellectual 
 being, the nearer we approach to the sources of 
 true and lasting happiness. One of the most 
 thoughtful and sympathetic of our poets dis- 
 courses thus on the equality of our means of 
 
 enjoyment : — 
 
 — "The sun is fixed, 
 And the infinite magnificence of heaven 
 Fixed, within reach of every human eye ; ] 
 The sleepless ocean murmurs for all ears ; 
 The vernal field infuses fresh delight 
 Into all hearts. Throughout the world of sense, 
 Even as an object is sublime or fair, 
 That object is laid open to the view 
 Without reserve or veil ; and as a power 
 Is salutary, or an influence sweet, 
 
COMMON BLESSINGS. 7 
 
 Are each and all enabled to perceive 
 
 That power, that influence, by impartial law. 
 
 $ % i * * # * 
 
 The primal duties shine aloft — like stars ; 
 
 The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless, 
 
 Are scattered at the feet of Man — like flowers. 
 
 The generous inclination, the just rule, 
 
 Kind wishes, and good actions, and pure thoughts — 
 
 No mystery is here ! Here is no boon 
 
 Eor high, yet not for low; for proudly graced — 
 
 Yet not for meek of heart. The smoke ascends 
 
 To heaven as lightly from the cottage hearth 
 
 As from the haughtiest palace. He, whose soul 
 
 Ponders this true equality, may walk 
 
 The fields of earth with gratitude and hope." * 
 
 These general observations are intended to 
 guard the object of the following pages from 
 prejudice and misconception. The writer is 
 well aware, that in stigmatising theatrical 
 amusements, as immoral in their tendency, he is 
 exposing himself to the charge of being nar~ 
 row-minded, illiberal, and austere. He is not 
 careful to defend himself from hard words. 
 Strike ! but hear. He owns, however, that he 
 feels particularly anxious at the outset that he 
 may not be considered as inimical to harmless 
 amusements. Addressing himself primarily to 
 young men, he would express a decided prefer- 
 ence for recreation in the form of some useful 
 
 * Wordsworth's Excursion, 
 
S SOURCES OF ENJOYMENT. 
 
 study in literature, science, or art, thus combin- 
 ing rational amusement with self-cultivation. 
 It is a fine remark of Sir John HerschelTs — 
 "Every young man should have a pursuit; a 
 useful one, if possible, but at all events an 
 innocent one/' Private and systematic study 
 in the leisure of the evening is not incompa- 
 tible with laborious and engrossing occupation 
 throughout the day, and in most cases will 
 serve all the purposes of recreation. The alter- 
 nation of study with work affords an agreeable 
 relief to the mind, to which it restores vigour 
 and animation, and prevents it from sinking 
 into lassitude or idle repose. But in order to 
 be useful, the study must be systematic ; for 
 nothing is less instructive and improving 
 than irregular and unconnected mental efforts, 
 to whatever subject directed. That which is 
 worth doing at all, is worth doing well. The 
 temptation of our time is light and desultory 
 reading. Our literature is dwindling down 
 into reviews, and magazines, and newspapers ; 
 things that people can read while they are 
 whirled along in railways, as if the railroad 
 were the royal road to knowledge. Our habits 
 of reflection are becoming as rapid as our loco- 
 motion, and the literature of the rail symbolises 
 the intellectual characteristics of the age. Su- 
 
LITERATURE. 9 
 
 perficial reading produces superficial thinking. 
 Men are content to acquire their knowledge at 
 the smallest possible expenditure of time and 
 labour ; and the worst feature of all, because 
 the most hopeless, is that they are content. 
 Popular literature, popular science, and philo- 
 sophy "for the million/' are well enough in 
 their place ; but what they are gaining in dif- 
 fusiveness, they are losing in depth. That 
 which the men of a former generation acquired 
 by toiling through massive volumes, the smat- 
 terers of our day are satisfied with obtaining in 
 penny pamphlets. But it is nevertheless true 
 that toil is the condition of acquiring even a 
 moderate share of accurate information ; and if 
 any young man is so fanciful as to suppose 
 that knowledge worth being possessed, is to be 
 obtained without labour, and hard labour too, 
 he will find himself at last in the predicament 
 of those who, in the insane paroxysms of mer- 
 cantile speculation, resign themselves to the idle 
 and mischievous hope of making money with- 
 out working for it. The young man who would 
 shun the self-deception and avoid the certain 
 disappointment of such a course, should give him- 
 self to the reading of books. Magazines and 
 pamphlets will occupy their appropriate place, 
 when perused by him as a literary pastime, 
 
10 SOURCES OF ENJOYMENT. 
 
 in which lie unbends his mind from severer 
 studies, and from which he can turn without 
 reluctance to the productions of the earnest 
 thinkers and solid writers who still illumine 
 the path of knowledge, and more especially to 
 the works of the great intellects of former times. 
 Let him choose friends amongst books ; they 
 will never fail him in the time of perplexity 
 and distress. It is one of the prerogatives of 
 a taste for useful and improving literature, 
 that a sympathy grows up betwixt the reader 
 and a favourite author, by which he is en- 
 abled to hold communion with the illustrious of 
 every age ; and the companionship elevates his 
 thoughts, his feelings, and his self-respect. 
 
 Perhaps many self-improving young men 
 will, in the first instance, prefer science to lite- 
 rature. Be it so ; the study of science will, in 
 due time, bring the love of literature in its 
 train ; for every science has its own literature, 
 and some of the most eloquent and pleasing, 
 not to say poetical productions of the day, belong 
 to the literature of science. The age is scientific. 
 Its greatest discoveries — its most useful im- 
 provements — the development and application 
 of its material resources — the principles of its 
 arts and manufactures — its facilities of transit 
 and travel — its marvellous methods of commu- 
 
SCIENCE. 11 
 
 nication, literally " annihilating space and time," 
 are all based upon science ; and undoubtedly 
 that man's education falls short of fulfilling one 
 of the prime obligations of the age, which leaves 
 him ignorant of the principles involved in these 
 improvements. Besides, it does seem incongru- 
 ous that an inquiring mind should be satisfied to 
 remain unacquainted with the constitution of the 
 material tenement which it inhabits, so " fear- 
 fully and wonderfully made/' and challenging 
 investigation, both as a department of our self- 
 knowledge — "the proper study of mankind is 
 man" — and with a view to the physical train- 
 ing and treatment of an organism so delicately 
 strung, and so liable to go out of tune. The 
 science of chemistry presents another attractive 
 subject of inquiry, — teaching us in one of its 
 departments that Infinite Wisdom has impressed 
 the ultimate particles of matter, weighing less 
 than the millionth part of an atom of dust, 
 with laws so exact as to give something like a 
 literal significance to the declaration of the 
 inspired writer, that the Creator " compre- 
 hended the dust of the earth in a measure, 
 weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills 
 in a balance" — whilst from another department 
 we learn that the elementary substances with 
 which we become familiar in the mineral kino;- 
 
12 SOURCES OF ENJOYMENT. 
 
 dom, contribute, under new modifications, to 
 the support and nourishment of plants; and 
 these, in their turn, are made to minister to the 
 sustenance of animals. Still further, the inves- 
 tigations of the chemist demonstrate, that of 
 fifty-five so-called elementary bodies, presented 
 to us by nature, only four are employed in ela- 
 borating the mysterious creations of living 
 matter ; thus showing how the Almighty can 
 work by few as well as by many agencies, 
 and that his greatest operations are conducted 
 by means of the simplest instruments. Or, 
 once more, how many charming and instruc- 
 tive objects of study are offered to the inquirer 
 in the science of astronomy, penetrating the 
 amplitudes of space, telling the number of the 
 stars, and calling them by their names ; or 
 in geology, occupied with the structure and early 
 conditions of the globe which we inhabit ; and 
 in the kindred sciences of botany and zoology, 
 describing the plants and animals which are con- 
 temporary with man upon the surface of the 
 earth, and carrying us back to strange forms of 
 animal and vegetable life, which existed in the 
 successive eras preceding the appearance of the 
 human race. For these and other means of 
 rational recreation and mental improvement, 
 there are abundant facilities provided even for 
 
ECONOMY OF TIME. 13 
 
 the working-classes, in cheap books and acces- 
 sible lecture-rooms. The excessive prolonga- 
 tion of the hours of labour is indeed a sad 
 obstacle to self-improvement amongst the popu- 
 lation of a manufacturing city. But those who 
 have the most time at their command do not 
 always make the best use of it ; and the young 
 man who resolves to save and improve the frag- 
 ments of time, will, in the long-run, find himself 
 not far behind men of greater leisure. Long 
 hours do not preclude opportunities for frivo- 
 lous amusement. The hardest worker can 
 equally find time for self-improvement if he 
 has the will. The old proverb says — "Take 
 care of the pence, and the pounds will take care 
 of themselves/' In like manner, economise the 
 minutes, and the hours will take care of them- 
 selves. 
 
 te Small sands the mountain, moments make the year." 
 
 "If it is asked (said Dr. Channing, in an 
 address to a mechanics' institute), how can the 
 labouring man find time for self-culture? I 
 answer, that an earnest purpose finds time, or 
 makes time. A man who follows his calling 
 with industry and spirit, and uses his earnings 
 economically, will always have some portions 
 of the day at command. And it is astonishing 
 
14 SOURCES OF ENJOYMENT. 
 
 how fruitful of improvement a short season 
 becomes, when eagerly seized and faithfully 
 used. A single hour in the day, steadily given 
 to the study of some interesting subject, brings 
 unexpected accumulations of knowledge/' In 
 the same spirit was the resolution of the ancient 
 painter — "No day without a line/' And to 
 cite one other authority, that of Dr. Oiinthus 
 Gregory, who says — "With a few exceptions 
 (so few indeed, that they need scarcely be 
 taken into a practical estimate), any person may 
 learn anything upon which he sets his heart. 
 To insure success, he has simply so to discipline 
 his mind as to check its vagrancies, to cure it 
 of its constant proneness to be doing two or 
 more things at a time, and to compel it to 
 direct its combined energies simultaneously to 
 a single object, and thus to do one thing at 
 once. This I consider as one of the most diffi- 
 cult, but one of the most useful, lessons that a 
 young man can learn/' The youth who is 
 alive to the importance of self-education, and 
 seizes every opportunity of prosecuting it, is 
 independent of frivolous amusements. The 
 pursuit of knowledge, with its pleasant toils 
 and grateful rewards, will leave him neither 
 time nor inclination for them ; and he will 
 derive fresh incentives to effort from the invit- 
 
INSTKUCTIVE EXHIBITIONS. 15 
 
 ing fields of inquiry constantly opening up be- 
 fore him, from the shortness of the period allotted 
 for their cultivation, and the urgent calls of 
 active duty and social usefulness addressed to 
 him by the momentous age in which we live. 
 
 But whilst recommending intellectual pur- 
 suits and amusements to youth, we admit the 
 necessity for occasional relaxation, in the form 
 of mere recreation or diversion. The bow will 
 lose its tension if kept constantly on the strain. 
 All that we contend for is, that the amuse- 
 ment shall still be innocent. The paucity in 
 our large towns of popular entertainments of 
 an unobjectionable description, is certainly to 
 be regretted. It is not enough to suppress such 
 corrupting haunts as the cheap theatres, or to 
 discourage attendance on those where vice and 
 folly are presented in a guise suitable to the 
 tastes of their more refined frequenters. There 
 is a felt and acknowledged want of a class of 
 pure and elevating popular amusements ; and 
 although this is no excuse in the meantime for 
 tolerating or countenancing those of a perni- 
 cious description, it affords a strong reason why 
 efforts should be employed to put entertainments 
 of at least a harmless nature in their place. 
 The growing taste and avidity for exhibitions 
 of paintings and sculpture, and of objects of 
 
16 SOURCES OF ENJOYMENT. 
 
 natural history, point in a direction from which 
 substantial improvements in the habits of the 
 people might be expected, were our museums, 
 botanic gardens, and picture galleries thrown 
 open on accessible terms, and some pains taken 
 by the friends of the working-classes to render 
 them instructive and inviting. Properly regu- 
 lated entertainments of music of the higher 
 class might also conduce to refine the tastes and 
 manners of the people, and withdraw them 
 from pursuits of a debasing tendency. But the 
 most desirable improvement of all, is one which 
 must be left to the slow and silent influence of 
 education. It is that which will render home 
 the centre of attraction, and train even the 
 common people to tastes and habits which may 
 be gratified at their own firesides, and in the 
 bosom of their families, without either the 
 desire or necessity for seeking their pleasures in 
 great public assemblies. We would earnestly 
 counsel the youthful reader to cultivate as- 
 siduously home habits and home affections. If 
 he is removed, as many young men in our 
 great cities are, from the parental roof, let him 
 people the solitude of his lodgings by making 
 companions of his books ; and when he invites 
 the intercourse of friends, let them be "few 
 and well chosen." It is at home we must study 
 
HOME HABITS. 17 
 
 the principles of action which we reduce to 
 practice in the business of life. It is in the 
 privacy of home that we receive our daily 
 portion of the bread of life, to fit us for daily 
 toil and temptation ; and the " closet " is pre- 
 eminently the place where man enjoys his 
 most exalted privilege on earth, that of holding 
 communion with his Maker. It is there where 
 the youth must first acquire the habit of con- 
 trolling his passions and directing the processes 
 of his mind ; and learn to " keep his heart 
 with all diligence, for out of it are the issues 
 of life" — "out of the heart proceed evil 
 thoughts/' It is in the retirement of home 
 that we are in the most advantageous circum- 
 stances for reading and reflection ; and the love 
 of knowledge there cultivated for its own sake, 
 is a far more wholesome incitement to mental 
 exertion and self-denial, than the love of appro- 
 bation, or the desire of fame, which the poet 
 affirms to be — 
 
 " The spur that the clear spirit doth raise 
 To scorn delights and live laborious days." 
 
 The best and greatest of men have acknow- 
 ledged their obligations to the moral influences 
 of home for all their public usefulness. It was 
 a fine feature in the character of the late Sir 
 
 B 
 
18 SOURCES OF ENJOYMENT. 
 
 Thomas Fowell Buxton, whose memoirs are 
 replete with valuable lessons to young men, 
 that his natural robustness of mind was tem- 
 pered with a manly tenderness, derived from 
 the affections of home ; and that although it 
 was his " the applause of listening senates to 
 command/' he ever found the strongest en- 
 couragement to the faithful and fearless dis- 
 charge of public duty — next to the favour of 
 God and the approbation of conscience — in the 
 love which cheered him on in the domestic 
 circle. There is no love so unselfish, — no sym- 
 pathy so true, — no human approval so grateful 
 and encouraging, as the love, and the sympathy, 
 and the approbation of home. Let home be 
 the scene of our pleasures and the sanctuary of 
 our hearts. Amidst its calm seclusion from a 
 jarring world, — its " intimate delights/' "fire- 
 side enjoyments/' and " homeborn happiness/' 
 — let us quietly prosecute our self-improve- 
 ment, preparing ourselves for usefulness in this 
 life, and for the moral and spiritual activities 
 of the life that is to come ; and it will add a 
 charm to every attainment, and an impulse to 
 every effort, — it will associate the dearest 
 affections of earth with the hopes of heaven's 
 high felicity, — to blend all our pursuits with 
 the charities of Home. 
 
PERNICIOUS TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 The Theatre was, from the very first, 
 
 The favourite haunt of siu, though honest men, 
 
 Some very honest, wise, and worthy men, 
 
 Maintained it might be turned to good account ; 
 
 And so, perhaps, it might, but never was. 
 
 From first to last, it was an evil place; 
 
 And now such things were acted there, as made 
 
 The devils blush ; and from the neighbourhood 
 
 Angels and holy men, trembling, retired. 
 
 Pollock's Course of Time. 
 
 *»N!3SSCai*t« 
 
 We proceed to show that the stage cannot be 
 included in the category of innocent amuse- 
 ments. With the question of what it might 
 become under proper regulation, it is needless 
 to encumber the present inquiry. Our busi- 
 ness is with the stage as it is, and as it ever 
 has been. Probably, in deference to the out- 
 ward decorum of the times, theatrical amuse- 
 ments are upon the whole less characterized by 
 the grosser forms of vice and profanity in our 
 day, than at any former period. We may 
 therefore assume that we see the stage at pre- 
 
20 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 sent in its most favourable aspect ; and if, 
 under the restraints of public opinion and a 
 higher tone of moral feeling than heretofore, 
 we shall still find the theatre objectionable in 
 itself and its concomitants, we may very well 
 dispense with the consideration of what it 
 might possibly become, in circumstances which 
 have never existed, and in a state of society to 
 which there is little prospect of our speedily 
 attaining. Let it only be remarked in passing, 
 that those advocates of the stage who press-this 
 view of the case, admit to a certain extent that 
 the theatre is not at present what it ought to be. 
 The manager of a play-house in Glasgow, in 
 closing the dramatic amusements of the season, 
 assured his audience, " that the theatre was 
 a powerful instrument for good or bad, and 
 with the support of the moral, it was less likely 
 to conform itself to the immoral/' According 
 to this statement, the moral tendency of the 
 theatre depends very much upon the character 
 of the people who frequent it ; and if it be . 
 found that a large proportion of these are 
 not persons, whom, in the eye of Christian 
 charity, we are entitled to regard as exem- 
 plifying the morality of the Bible, which we 
 adopt as our standard, but that, on the con- 
 trary, theatrical audiences consist mainly — for 
 
MORAL PLAYS WILL NOT PAY. 21 
 
 it is not to be denied that there are occasional 
 exceptions — of the gay and giddy votaries of 
 pleasure, of the dissipated, the profane, the 
 idle, the frivolous, the debauched and profli- 
 gate of both sexes, then it becomes a grave 
 question, what possible inducement any man, 
 or any manager, can have, balancing his in- 
 terests with the tastes of his patrons, to make 
 this " powerful instrument" preponderate on 
 the side of the " good" rather than the " bad/' 
 Is it not to be apprehended that in such cir- 
 cumstances its power will be chiefly exerted on 
 the wrong side ? We affirm, and undertake to 
 prove, that it is even so in point of fact. It is 
 the character of the assembly that determines 
 that of the amusement. The dramatic author, 
 the actor, and the manager, must take their 
 cue from the play-goer. The ruling motive is 
 not what will morally benefit the audience, 
 but what will remunerate the manager, and 
 maintain his company. Moral plays will not 
 pay. In the words of Dr. Johnson — 
 
 "They who live to please, must please to live." 
 
 Whether we try the stage by the only true 
 standard of morality- — that of the Bible — or by 
 the practical test of its social effects, we shall 
 find it indefensible. We shall, in the first 
 
22 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 place, briefly examine the morality of stage 
 literature. There is of course nothing inhe- 
 rent in the structure of a drama, any more than 
 in that of an epic poem, or in a dialogue, more 
 than in a monologue or discourse — to prevent 
 it from being made the vehicle of sound prin* 
 pie and healthful sentiment. But the morality 
 of stage plays is not sound, and their sentiment 
 is forced and unnatural. The higher the moral 
 tone of the drama, the more unpalatable would it 
 become to the frequenters of the play-house. 
 The lovers of histrionic amusements would not 
 crowd to the theatre to witness a representa- 
 tion of the moralities and charities of the Bible 
 — purity of heart, poverty of spirit, meekness, 
 gentleness, long-suffering, forgiveness, patience, 
 goodness, temperance, sound speech that cannot 
 be condemned, and whatsoever is true, honest, 
 just, lovely, and of good report. Were the 
 advocates of the stage content to rest its claims 
 merely upon its being a place of amusement, 
 this is a test which, we frankly admit, it would 
 be unfair to apply. In that case, all we should 
 require would be that the entertainments be 
 innocent in themselves, and be enjoyed in 
 moderation. But because the amusements are 
 open to serious objections on both these grounds, 
 the friends of the drama feel themselves con- 
 
STAGE MORALITY NOT SCRIPTURAL. 23 
 
 strained to change their position, and attempt to 
 elevate the theatre to the higher level of a 
 school of virtue. We accept the issue, and go 
 to proof upon it. We try this school of virtue 
 by the only standard of morality to which we 
 can appeal, and find it wanting. The mora- 
 lity of the Divine law would be the death of 
 the play-house. Play- writing, according to a 
 much lower standard of morality than this, but 
 still of a higher type than that of the common 
 literature of the stage, has been tried and proved 
 abortive. Johnson, Hannah More, Young, 
 Addison, and a few other authors of note, have 
 made honest endeavours to raise the tone of 
 histrionic morality ; but the annals of the stage 
 record no more conspicuous instances of failure 
 than those of their well-meant efforts. We do 
 not, of course, involve all plays, or all play-goers, 
 or all play-houses, in the same indiscriminate 
 censure. " Some plays are better than other 
 plays ; and there may be a very few compara- 
 tively pure. Some actors are better than other 
 actors ; and a few are in private life compara- 
 tively moral men. Some theatres are much 
 worse than other theatres, so as to be compara- 
 tively outcasts even from their own class. Some 
 audiences are more select than other audiences ; 
 so that the same amount of evil may not be 
 
24 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 tolerated by them as by many others. Some 
 spectators may go to the play from mere curio- 
 sity, and not from satisfaction, and therefore 
 they are not to be called play-goers; — and 
 some qualities may characterize a whole mass 
 which may not be found in every single part/'** 
 Whilst we grant all this, with one writer 
 against the stage, and admit, with another, t 
 that " as it cannot be affirmed of every one who 
 keeps away from the theatre that he is a true 
 Christian, so neither can it be alleged that 
 every one who goes to it, however seldom, for- 
 feits all title to that character," — we are bound, 
 nevertheless, speaking of the system as a whole, 
 to avow our solemn conviction that it is radi- 
 cally unsound — unscriptural in its morals, and 
 unsafe in its tendency ; and that to resort to 
 the theatre is incompatible with the Christian 
 profession. 
 
 Take the writings of Shakspere, who, in the 
 words of Dry den, " created the stage among 
 us/' Shakspere was the greatest master of 
 human passion that perhaps ever existed, and 
 but for his matchless productions the dramatic 
 literature of England would be comparatively 
 
 * Rev. John M 'Donald, Calcutta, 
 f Dr. Andrew Thomson. 
 
IMMOEALITY OF SHAKSPERE. 25 
 
 meagre and jejune. It is admitted that Shaks- 
 pere was one of the purest writers of the times 
 in which he lived ; and this is no mean dis- 
 tinction, for it was an age of loose maxims and 
 looser morals. But having made this state- 
 ment, we must add most emphatically, that 
 there is not a single play of this great drama- 
 tist in which the principles of scriptural mo- 
 rality are not traversed by opinions and senti- 
 ments of a directly opposite description, or by 
 profaneness and irreverence shocking to every 
 pious feeling, and not unfrequently by passages 
 of low ribaldry and loathsome impurity, which 
 no man of right principle and proper feeling 
 dare read audibly in the ears of a sister, a 
 daughter, or a wife. Shakspere wrote for 
 popular amusement. He made no pretensions 
 to the office of a teacher of morals. His own 
 character would not have sustained such a pro- 
 fession. To this fact Mr. J. Payne Collier, in 
 his History of English Dramatic Poetry and 
 Annals of the Stage,be&r$ a reluctant testimony, 
 as follows : — " If we may believe the plain import 
 of his 60th sonnet, he was at one period in love 
 with a female who was not very chary of her 
 reputation ; . . . and he over and over 
 again laments the disgrace brought upon him- 
 self by his misconduct; .... so that 
 
26 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 although it may be very true that no imputa- 
 tion upon his moral character had been dis- 
 covered from extraneous sources, when Steevens 
 or when Boswell wrote, yet, if we are to believe 
 himself, although a married man, with a wife 
 and family at Stratford, he was not immacu- 
 late. The difficulty of reconciling much that 
 is contained in the sonnets, has arisen from an 
 amiable desire to think Shakspere's moral 
 and poetical character equally perfect. If, in 
 the course of my inquiries, I have been un- 
 lucky enough (I may perhaps say) to find 
 anything which represents our great dramatist 
 in a less favourable light, as a human being 
 with human infirmities, I may lament it, but 
 I do not therefore feel myself at liberty to con- 
 ceal and suppress the fact/' The moral blem- 
 ishes in Shakspere's plays are usually ascribed 
 to the age which produced them, rather than 
 to the principles and feelings of their author. 
 Be it so, — although after the unsuspicious tes- 
 timony of Mr. Collier, this apology must be 
 received with some deduction ; but if they 
 were the product of a corrupt age, what makes 
 them still acceptable in ours ? for they are not, 
 except in their grosser forms, excluded from 
 the expurgated versions prepared for represen- 
 tation on the stage. What if, on the other 
 
OPHELIA. 27 
 
 hand, some of the least objectionable of the 
 writings of Shakspere are seldom or never 
 brought on the stage at all ? — what if their 
 comparative purity be the chief reason of their 
 exclusion from it ? We must not allow our 
 admiration of the genius which conceived and 
 pourtrayed the characters and events depicted 
 in plays still so popular as the two parts of 
 Henry IV., Hamlet, Othello, the Merry Wives 
 of Windsor, the Winter's Tale, Romeo and 
 Juliet, &c, to blind our moral perceptions to 
 the objectionable features discernable in all of 
 them, not excepting even the characters of 
 Hamlet and Ophelia, perhaps amongst the 
 most generally cherished of the dramatist's 
 creations. Dr. Johnson speaks of Ophelia as 
 "the young, the beautiful, the harmless, and 
 the pious/' whose " mournful distraction fills 
 the heart with tenderness/' And yet this 
 attractive character is repeatedly exhibited in 
 an aspect far from justifying this indiscriminate 
 eulogy on the part of a professed moralist. A 
 quaint writer, at the close of the seventeenth 
 century, contrasting the dramatic authors of 
 antiquity with those of the English stage, 
 observes that the Phaedra of Euripides " keeps 
 her modesty even after she has lost her wits ; " 
 adding, " Had Shakspere secured this point for 
 
28 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 his young virgin Ophelia, the play had been 
 better contrived. Since he was resolved to 
 drown the lady like a kitten, he should have 
 set her a-swimming a little sooner. To keep 
 her alive only to sully her reputation, and dis- 
 cover the rankness of her breath, was very 
 cruel/' * 
 
 One of the principal characters in Henry IV. 
 is Sir John FalstafF. None is a greater fa- 
 vourite of play-goers. Sir John is represented 
 as a coward, a knave, a lecherous, treacherous, 
 swagbelly sensualist, with the language of pro- 
 fanity and lasciviousness continually on his 
 lips : but then he is a mirth-inspiring humour- 
 ist — " a wit himself, and the cause of wit in 
 others/' The grosser features of his conduct 
 are either softened and shaded, so as not to 
 prove repulsive, or rendered absolutely attrac- 
 tive by the merriment they excite. Sir John 
 is the most diverting of vagabonds, the most 
 passable of lechers, the drollest in his cups, and 
 the most endurable in his knaveries. To re- 
 present him successfully before admiring audi- 
 ences of men and women, who, it is to be 
 presumed, would not endure in private life a 
 
 * View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English 
 Stage. By Jeremy Collier, 1698. 
 
SIR JOHN FALSTAFF. 29 
 
 person stained with any one of his vices, has 
 made the celebrity of many players. Sir 
 John was so great a favourite with Queen 
 Elizabeth* (who, after all, was no paragon of 
 virtue), when represented in the first and se- 
 cond parts of Henry IV., that she requested 
 Shakspere to introduce him anew in another 
 play. The poet complied by producing the drama 
 of the Merry Wives of Windsor, in which the 
 favourite character figures as the hero. And still 
 further to show the lingering interest both of the 
 dramatist and the play-goers of his day in that 
 singular delineation of character, after exhibiting 
 Falstaff at the close of Henry IV., by way of 
 moral retribution, as falling into disfavour with 
 his sovereign and former boon companion, who 
 pensions off the worn-out debauchee, and for- 
 bids him to come within ten miles of him, the 
 poet, in Henry V., makes a profligate female 
 companion, who survives the knight, tell, with 
 a strange mixture of folly and tenderness, how 
 
 * The first plays exhibited before lier Majesty were of 
 such a questionable character, and abounded with such 
 coarse and impure allusions, that it is a matter of wonder 
 that even, in that day, a maiden Queen could sanction 
 them by her presence. Some of these productions are 
 still extant, but they are quite unfit for modern perusal. 
 — The Stage, Ancient and Modern, by Mr. Close, of 
 Cheltenham. 
 
30 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 fine his end was, " parting at the turn of the 
 tide/' wandering in his wits, laughing at his 
 finger-ends, and " babbling of green fields/' 
 We select this astonishing conception of the 
 poet's genius, as illustrating the seductive charm 
 with which he has contrived to invest a char- 
 acter which, viewed in the abstract, is one of 
 loathsome, earthliness and impurity. Hence 
 its reproduction in these successive works of 
 an author, who, of all men that ever wrote for 
 public amusement, was the least necessitated 
 by an unfertile fancy to reproduce his ideas 
 and characters, seeing that when he " exhausted 
 worlds/' he had but to " imagine new ;" and 
 hence also the undiminished avidity for the 
 representation of Sir John Falstaff amongst 
 the play-goers of the present day. We make 
 no account of the horde of odious and abandoned 
 reprobates, men and women, who are intro- 
 duced as the associates of the jovial knight, nor 
 of the lewd and irreverent conversations in 
 which it is their habit to indulge. But we 
 ask, what moral benefit can be derived from 
 our being brought into contact with represen- 
 tations of this base description of character and 
 conduct, even supposing that these are put on 
 the stage for a moral purpose, which nobody will 
 believe who has perused the plays in question ? 
 
FAMILIARITY WITH VICE. 31 
 
 Or, leaving out of view the moral considera- 
 tions, can we safely indulge in the amusements 
 of a place where familiarity with such repre- 
 sentations is the primary attraction ? Let us 
 beware lest, in our admiration of the genius of 
 Shakspere, we become insensible to the value 
 of those eternal principles of moral truth and 
 duty, which it is but too manifest are seldom 
 regarded in the productions of that noble and 
 brilliant intellect. Is it argued in defence of 
 the representation of degraded characters, that 
 vice is rendered abhorrent by such delinea- 
 tions? The instance just quoted proves the 
 reverse, and it is by no means a solitary case. 
 Familiarity with vice does not breed contempt 
 for it. It loses its natural repulsiveness by 
 repetition : — 
 
 "Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
 As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; 
 Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
 We first endure — then pity — then embrace." 
 
 From the plays of Shakspere we pass on to 
 other dramatic writings, and avail ourselves of 
 the strictures of the late Dr. Andrew Thomson * 
 
 * The Sin and Danger of being Lovers of Pleasures more 
 than Lovers of God. By Rev. Andrew Thomson, D.D., 
 of St. George's, Edinburgh. 
 
32 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 on several comedies which have long enjoyed a 
 high degree of popularity on the stage. Speak- 
 ing of the "School for Scandal/' he observes — 
 "Impurity is carried so far, that not only are 
 there many jocular allusions to criminal passion 
 and conjugal infidelity, but in one scene (Act 
 iv., scene 2) a gentleman is represented as 
 making dishonourable proposals to a married 
 lady, in terms equally Intelligible and unprin- 
 cipled ; and the lady as listening to him with 
 marvellous patience and good humour/' We 
 interrupt the quotation to remark, that this is 
 one of the features in which the modern stage 
 contrasts unfavourably with that of the ancients. 
 It has been observed, to the credit of the latter, 
 that neither in the plays of Plautus, of Terence, 
 nor of Aristophanes, are there any instances of 
 debauched married women being introduced, 
 upon the stage. In one respect, however, the 
 modern theatre agrees with the ancient, and 
 that is in holding up religious character to 
 public contempt, in the guise of imbecility and 
 hypocrisy. On the Greek stage, says a learned 
 writer, "Gods and men were travestied, gross 
 and obscene language was employed, and viru- 
 lent invectives and ridicule were cast upon the 
 noblest and best of men/' It was thus that 
 the venerable and virtuous Socrates was lam- 
 
beggar's opera. 33 
 
 pooned in the "Clouds" of Aristophanes; and 
 the profession of religion is still exhibited to 
 the derision of the profane in the odious Tar- 
 tuffes, Mawworms, and Joseph Surfaces, of 
 modern comedy. But to return, — What is the 
 moral teaching of the "School for Scandal?" 
 " Sobriety, prudence, outward decorum — all that 
 we have from the author in the form of religion 
 — is connected with vile and hardened hypo- 
 crisy, in the person of Joseph Surface ; while his 
 brother Charles, who defrauds tradesmen, calls 
 justice an 'old, lame, hobbling beldam/ is c ex- 
 travagant/ ' loves wine and women/ c games 
 deep/ and, in short, is a thorough-paced de- 
 bauchee — is held out as amiable, and made 
 quite fascinating to the female heart, because 
 he has something of a generous temper." The 
 "Beggar's Opera," another popular piece fre- 
 quently performed, Dr. Thomson characterises 
 as surpassing the greater part of the drama 
 in the objectionable nature of its character, 
 sentiment, and language. " Robbers, pick- 
 pockets, and women of the most abandoned 
 description, constitute the gang that figures in 
 this performance. The whole piece has not one 
 trait of virtue in it to relieve the uniformity of 
 its pollutions." It was a guarded remark of the 
 same writer respecting this play, that he would 
 
34 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 not affirm that it had "actually sent young- 
 men to the highway, who would not have gone 
 there at any rate/' But no such caution is 
 necessary in describing the tendency and effects 
 of a recent piece, dramatized from the story of 
 Jack Sheppard, by Mr. Ainsworth. If the 
 play contains, as doubtless it does, the leading 
 features of that pestilent tale, which professes 
 to depict the life of a highwayman, and the 
 habits of the thieves of London a century or 
 more ago, it is impossible to imagine anything 
 more pernicious to public morals, or more de- 
 serving the reprobation of all honest men. And 
 yet Jack Sheppard dramatized was performed 
 on every stage in the kingdom ; it had what 
 is called "a run/' even at the best conducted 
 theatres in London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow ; 
 and one of the songs introduced in the piece, 
 was the favourite of the drawing-rooms for 
 more than one season, although it was expressed 
 in the detestable slang of London pickpockets 
 and courtezans. What effect Jack Sheppard pro- 
 duced on the educated and moral classes of the 
 people, who flocked to see him tricked out as a 
 stage-hero, we cannot tell ; what moral lesson 
 they received from his burglaries, his highway 
 robberies, and his prison-breakings, is best 
 known to themselves; but the testimonies of 
 
JACK SHEPPARD. 35 
 
 jail chaplains, and judges in criminal courts, 
 and the confessions of numerous convicts, have 
 over and over again proved that this single pro- 
 duction, especially when represented on the stage, 
 has done more to demoralise the lower classes, 
 and send young men to the highway, than any 
 tale or play of modern times, Yet Jack Shep- 
 pard continues to keep his popularity on the 
 stage ; and has, within the last few months, 
 figured in the play-bills of the first theatres. 
 
 The following strictures of the vigorous 
 writer already quoted, on the impurity of the 
 stage, offers a salutary warning to the youth ot 
 both sexes: — " Licentious characters, both male 
 and female (observes Dr. Thomson), are brought 
 before us with daring effrontery; language is 
 made use of that would not be endured in a pri- 
 vate company ; scenes of indelicate humour are 
 exhibited, at which we are expected to laugh ; 
 lascivious maxims, double entendres, and wanton 
 gestures, are every now and then introduced , 
 as if they were not only allowable, but highly 
 p conducive to the interest and effect of the repre- 
 sentation ; and sometimes an illicit amour, 
 with all its vile and polluted accompaniments, 
 constitutes its very essence and character. This 
 may seem incredible, when it is recollected that 
 every audience at a theatre contains a vast 
 
36 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 proportion of females, who are both intelligent 
 and virtuous. But it is nevertheless the fact — - 
 and this is the marvel — that females of that 
 honourable description should go where their 
 feelings are to be so rudely insulted by every 
 shabby fellow, and by every infamous woman, 
 who may happen to be a player. When any- 
 thing of this kind occurs, indeed, they look very 
 grave and simple, and appear to be quite 
 ignorant of its meaning. But do they really 
 imagine that they get credit for this grimace? 
 that we have such a low opinion of their acute- 
 ness, as to believe that they do not understand 
 what is going on ? — that if we admit their want 
 of penetration, we can also admit their want of 
 suspicion, which is the same thing, in such 
 cases, to a chaste and delicate mind ? — that we 
 do not consider their behaviour, on these occa- 
 sions, as a mere compromise between regard to 
 appearances, and passion for amusement ? And 
 if we are convinced that the coarse joke, or the 
 unchaste innuendo^ is perfectly intelligible to 
 them, though they pretend otherwise, what are 
 we to think of the real state of their principles 
 and feelings ? Leaving religion out of view, 
 are they such as every good man must always 
 wish the fair sex to be, when they voluntarily 
 put themselves in the way, and passively submit 
 
IMPURITY. 37 
 
 to the affronts that are publicly offered to them, 
 merely because thej wish to have an evening's 
 diversion ? But if the influence of the gospel 
 be permitted to operate, which of them that 
 feels and cherishes that influence, can suffer 
 what it so pointedly condemns, and against 
 which it so earnestly cautions believers ? If they 
 truly love God, will not they have respect to 
 all His commandments ? And has He not ex- 
 pressly prohibited c filthiness, and foolish talk- 
 ing, and jesting, which are not convenient?' . . . 
 Nor is the argument to be limited to the female 
 sex. It applies itself "with perfect justice to the 
 other sex also/' And again, "I put it to every 
 candid and consistent moralist to say, what 
 pretensions our sex can have to Christian pro- 
 priety, or the fair sex to virtuous sentiment, 
 when they consent to place their feelings for the 
 time, under the sway of a profligate or a kept- 
 mistress, and to derive their amusement from 
 the tragic or the comic efforts of persons who 
 are utterly destitute of all that should command 
 esteem ; who are flagrantly bloated with all 
 that should excite aversion and abhorrence/' 
 
 The tendency of the literature of the stage 
 to run into dangerous excess, is illustrated by 
 the remarkable fact, that it is the only litera- 
 ture in this country which is placed under a 
 
38 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 legal censorship. Every play, before being put 
 upon the stage, is licensed by the Lord Cham- 
 berlain, whose duty it is to see that it does not 
 transgress the bounds of moral or political pro- 
 priety. The surveillance is not very searching, 
 as the moral state of the drama proves. To 
 exercise such a power too faithfully would be 
 fatal. Its existence, however, evinces a salu- 
 tary distrust on the part of the law, of a species 
 of amusement which is peculiarly liable to 
 abuse ; and the same prudent caution is shown 
 in the limitation of the number of play-houses, 
 each of which also requires a special license. 
 
 In France, where the censorship is still more 
 lax, so far as morality is concerned, although 
 stringent enough politically, the most unblush- 
 ing abominations and horrid blasphemies are 
 exhibited on the stage. Of late years, notices 
 have repeatedly appeared in the public prints, 
 of representation sin the theatres of Paris, of some 
 of the most solemn events recorded or foretold in 
 the sacred Scriptures. The death of Christ, 
 and the last judgment, have been performed by 
 French players, before audiences calling them- 
 selves Christian, for the purpose of gratifying 
 an unhallowed appetite for excitement. During 
 the late revolutionary changes in that country, 
 the fall of man, and the expulsion of our first 
 
IMPIETY OF THE PARIS STAGE- 39 
 
 parents from paradise, formed the theme of a 
 political farce in Paris, got up for the purpose 
 of satirising the Socialist maxim of the noto- 
 rious Proudhon, — " La propriete c'est le vol," — 
 Property is robbery. An angel was represented 
 with a flaming sword, driving our first parents 
 out of Eden, which they were seen leaving with 
 grotesque and wanton gestures ; and the appear- 
 ance of the serpent, wearing a hat and spectacles, 
 like Proudhon's, gave piquancy to the political 
 allusions of the play.* The moral condition of 
 the French stage has been described in a candid 
 manner, by Mr. Charles Mathews, manager of 
 the Lyceum Theatre, London, in a letter pub- 
 lished in August last, and addressed to the 
 dramatic authors in France.! Anticipating 
 that the new international copyright law 
 will have the effect of opening a market for 
 their productions in this country, Mr. Mathews 
 warns the French dramatists to be more cir- 
 cumspect than heretofore in the style of their 
 compositions, and to write in a manner more 
 
 * Erom an eye-witness. 
 
 f Lettre cle M. Charles Mathews anx Auteurs Dra- 
 matiques de la France : with a translation according to 
 the terms of the international Convention. — Letter from 
 Mr. Charles Mathews to the dramatic authors of France. 
 Translated from himself by himself. 
 
40 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 becoming the refinement of the English taste, 
 if they wish to reap any benefit from the new 
 act. It is certainly creditable to the London 
 stage as compared with that of Paris, that out 
 of 263 new pieces produced in Paris, in the year 
 1851, only eight were adopted and translated 
 for the London houses ; the rest being "too full 
 of indecency, anachronism, immorality, and 
 dirt/' to be acceptable to an English audience. 
 It is not every day that a player bears testi- 
 mony to the immorality of the stage ; and here 
 is Mr. Mathews' account of the general charac- 
 ter and reception of the dramas that entertain 
 the most play -loving people in the world: — 
 " The curtain rises. In walks a pretty woman 
 — a woman of rank and fashion — into an elegant 
 boudoir. 'Ah, ah!' you say, f now we are all 
 right!' Are you, my good friend? Wait a 
 moment. It soon comes out that the lady is the 
 affianced bride of one worthy man, the wife of 
 another, in love with a third, and with a child 
 by a fourth ; notwithstanding all which, she is 
 just as much beloved by indulgent audiences, 
 who invariably contrive to find some mitigat- 
 ing circumstance to justify her interesting little 
 irregularities. 
 
 " We may try our fortune at the other 
 theatres, but it is everywhere the same. Milli- 
 
THE LONDON STAGE. 41 
 
 ners' girls and lawyers' clerks, living together 
 in the most unceremonious manner. Actresses 
 talking openly, and unblushingly, of their nu- 
 merous lovers. Ballet-girls, with accidental 
 children by unknown fathers. Interesting 
 young ladies, ... in short, nothing but mis- 
 tresses, accoucheurs, ... in every direction/' 
 
 But Mr. Mathews gives us, in passing, a 
 glance at some of the London theatres also. 
 Drury Lane is abandoned to English operas and 
 ballets — "it is the mausoleum of Shakspere." 
 Covent Garden is given up to Italian operas. 
 Twelve theatres in the outskirts of London, viz., 
 Surrey, Astley's, Victoria, Queen's, Marylebone, 
 Sadler's Wells, City, Standard, Pavilion, Grecian 
 Saloon, Britannia Saloon, and Bower Saloon, 
 " have an audience of their own, and a jolly 
 one it is . . . with the digestion of an 
 ostrich — always ready to bolt the raw material 
 provided for it." To descend to particulars, we 
 have the following graphic description of the 
 Victoria: — "The Victoria is a model house, 
 the type of a school to which it gives its name. 
 It is the incarnation of the English c domestic 
 drama,' or rather of the drama of English do- 
 mestics. There you will always find the truest 
 pictures of virtue in rags, and vice in fine linen. 
 There flourish the choicest specimens of all the 
 
42 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 crimes that make life hideous — robbery, rape, 
 murder, suicide. It is a country abounding in 
 grand combats of four — a region peopled with 
 angelic maid servants, comic house-breakers, 
 heroic sailors, tyrannical masters, poetical clod- 
 hoppers, and diabolical barons. The lower 
 orders rush there in mobs, and in shirt sleeves, 
 applaud frantically, drink ginger beer, munch 
 apples, crack nuts, call the actors by their 
 Christian names, and throw them orange peel 
 and apples by way of bouquets/' Again, " The 
 City is the natural son of the Victoria, and 
 inherits its parent's tastes. It has the same 
 task to fulfil. It is a sort of Newgate Calendar 
 dramatised — an Apotheosis of the seven deadly 
 sins — a chapel of ease to the Old Bailey. 
 
 a At the Pavilion, the shipping interest is 
 represented ... As you enter you smell the 
 ' distempered sea/ The object of the manage- 
 ment is to ' hold the mirror up' to sailors. An 
 eternal tide of marine melo-dramas and nautical 
 novelties ebbs and flows in this dry Naumachia, 
 where 'life afloat' is depicted by fresh-water 
 seamen before an audience of real tars. I leave 
 you to judge whether the pieces are not likely 
 to be pitched tolerably strong to suit the web- 
 footed connoisseurs who roll in at half price, 
 who help to whistle the act music, and . . . 
 
FEMALE ACTORS. 43 
 
 whose sides are only to be tickled with points 
 like pikes, quips like quids, and jokes like junk/' 
 Dramatic exhibitions, in the age of Shak- 
 spere, wanted one fertile source of vice and cor- 
 ruption to which subsequent times gave rise. 
 At that period women were not allowed to 
 appear upon the stage. In this respect the 
 English theatre followed the example of that of 
 ancient Greece, which, heathen as it was, ex- 
 cluded female actors from the stage. This was 
 felt to be due to the character of woman, and 
 to the interests of public morality. Whatever 
 tends to degrade woman from her feminine 
 delicacy, sentiment, and purity of heart, must 
 deteriorate social morality. It is admitted that 
 amongst the females who have chosen theatri- 
 cals as a profession, instances have not been 
 rare of high dramatic genius combined with 
 irreproachable moral character ; and sorry 
 should we be to deny to humbler talent the 
 possession of a virtuous safeguard against the 
 temptations to which the actress is exposed 
 from her habits and companionships ; but after 
 making every allowance which the utmost 
 charity can demand, the mournful fact still 
 remains, that woman has but too frequently 
 become first the victim and then the instru- 
 ment of theatrical immorality. The presence 
 
44 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 of profligate women in the theatre, whether on 
 the stage or in the audience — and we doubt 
 if there be any play-house without them — 
 adds momentous importance to the objections 
 against histrionic amusements derived from 
 the general tenor and tendency of dramatic 
 literature ; and justifies the following solemn 
 and pointed admonitions of Mr. Todd of Phila- 
 delphia, addressed to young men :* — " I may 
 here say, and I wish it to be remembered, that 
 the Bible is not merely a book of religion. It 
 is a book of philosophy also. You will recol- 
 lect how frequently, how earnestly, and how 
 emphatically that book warns the young man 
 against the enticements, the words even, of 
 abandoned women. Others may tempt and 
 draw away, but she casts down her thousands, 
 and her strong men are slain. The philosophy 
 of it is, that one impure look from woman's 
 eye, and one impure word from woman's lips, 
 will do more towards polluting the imagina- 
 tion, and destroying the heart of a young man, 
 than any amount of temptation from his own 
 sex. We look for purity in women, and there 
 we generally find it ; and when we do not, her 
 words are death. It is this fact in the consti- 
 
 * Lectures on Great Cities y by Rev. John Todd. 
 
MIDNIGHT TEMPTATIONS. 45 
 
 tution of our nature, that makes the presence 
 of abandoned females so dangerous at the 
 theatre, and which leads the Bible to place 
 such stress upon their influence/' 
 
 It is observable also that theatrical amuse- 
 ments in the Shaksperian period took place in 
 broad day- light, at three o'clock in the after- 
 noon, and it was customary for ladies and gen- 
 tlemen, after attending the play, to take their 
 walks in the public gardens. The performances 
 in the ancient Athenian theatre were likewise 
 exhibited in daylight and in the open air, in a 
 vast uncovered amphitheatre. Whatever other 
 faults may have been chargeable against these 
 amusements, they were free from the moral 
 and physical evil of late hours, an unwhole- 
 some atmosphere, and prolonged emotional ex- 
 citement, stimulating without invigorating, and 
 deleterious alike to mind and body ; and also 
 from the lures spread for youth in the silence 
 and obscurity of midnight, by those " whose 
 house is the way to hell, leading down to the 
 chambers of death." The histrionic scene and 
 its accessories, inflaming the passions, and giv- 
 ing a loose rein to a prurient imagination, have 
 prepared many a young man for becoming the 
 prey of those who "sleep not, except they 
 have done mischief, and their sleep is taken 
 
46 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 away, unless they cause some to fall/' The 
 haunts of drunkenness, debauchery, and infamy, 
 which in every city are observed to cluster 
 round the theatre as its natural parasites, 
 afford fearful evidence of the connection sub- 
 sisting betwixt the love of this amusement and 
 dissoluteness of manners. With what con- 
 sistency can a frequenter of the theatre pray — 
 (if he prays) — "Lead me not into temptation?" 
 The plays of Shakspere are further open to 
 censure on account of their profanity. That 
 law of the decalogue which says, " Thou shalt 
 not take the name of the Lord thy God in 
 vain," is violated with painful frequency both 
 in the tragedies and comedies of the great dra- 
 matist. But profane swearing is a fault com- 
 mon to most plays ; and where oaths are 
 awanting in the originals, they are supplied 
 by the players ad libitum. This is technically 
 called " spicing." And so habitually has this 
 vice been indulged in by players, in all periods 
 of stage history, that so early as the reign of 
 James VI., an act was passed " for the prevent- 
 ing and avoiding of the great abuse of the holy 
 name of God in stage-plays, interludes, &c." 
 It was remarked of some one that when he had 
 nothing to say, he swore ; and many stage 
 jokes owe their piquancy solely to the oath 
 
HISTORY OF THE STAGE. 47 
 
 with which they are pointed. " Swearing 
 (says Jeremy Collier, speaking of the profane- 
 ness of the stage), is no ordinary relief. It 
 stands np in the room of sense, gives spirit to 
 a flat expression, and makes a period musical 
 and round. In short, 'tis all the rhetoric some 
 people are masters of/' 
 
 From the time of Shakspere, in the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth, to that of Charles II., the 
 English stage became more and more gross and 
 debasing. It is described by Jeremy Collier 
 as being " superlatively corrupt/' and u exceed- 
 ing the liberties of all times and countries." 
 For most evils, he remarks, some precedents 
 may be pleaded, but here was fresh discover}^ 
 " a new world of vice found out, and planted 
 with all the industry imaginable." To such 
 an extent did irreligion prevail in the reign of 
 Charles L, that plays were usually acted on 
 the Lord's-day ; and Mr. J. P. Collier, the 
 annalist of the English stage, relates that the 
 Bishop of London had Shakspere's " Midsummer 
 Night's Dream" represented in his house in the 
 metropolis, on Sunday, September 27, 1631. 
 The Puritans applied a temporary check to the 
 progress of the evil, by closing the theatres 
 and suppressing histrionic entertainments ; but 
 the restoration of Charles II. was the signal 
 
48 TEXDEXCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 for the introduction of universal depravity, and 
 the theatre, which was immediately revived, 
 partook of the licentiousness and profanity of 
 the time. Mr. Macaulay does great injustice 
 to the character and motives of the Puritans in 
 the following extract from his history, but it is 
 quoted here as embodying an important testi- 
 mony to the condition of stage morality in the 
 middle of the seventeenth century: — "From the 
 day on which the theatres were re-opened they 
 became seminaries of vice; and the evil propa- 
 gated itself. The profligacy of the representa- 
 tions soon drove away sober people. The frivolous 
 and dissolute who remained, required every year 
 stronger and stronger stimulants. Thus the artists 
 corrupted the spectators, and the spectators the 
 artists, till the turpitude of the drama became 
 such as must astonish all who were not aware 
 that extreme relaxation is the natural effect 
 of extreme restraint, and that an age of hypo- 
 crisy is, in the regular course of things, followed 
 by an age of impudence/' It may be added, 
 that it was before the stage had reached this 
 degree of dissoluteness, that female characters 
 in plays were first performed by women, an 
 innovation which no doubt tended powerfully 
 to aggravate the demoralising influence of the 
 system, and land it in that lowest depth of 
 
HISTORY OF THE STAGE. 49 
 
 degradation which the historian here laments. 
 The first women who appeared on the boards 
 of an English theatre, belonged to a French 
 company who visited London in 1629, and, 
 according to Prynne, a contemporary writer, 
 u attempted to act a French play at the play- 
 house, in Blackfriars, an impudent, shameful, 
 unwomanish, and graceless attempt/' Another 
 writer of the time says — " Those women did at- 
 tempt, thereby giving just offence to all ver- 
 tuous and well-disposed persons in this town, to 
 act a certain lascivious and unchaste comedy e, 
 in the French tonge, at the Black-fryers. Glad 
 I am to saye they were hissed, hooted, and 
 pippin-pelted from the stage/' In 1663 the 
 names of English actresses appear in the play- 
 bills. 
 
 The condition of the stage during the reign 
 of Queen Anne, the golden age of English 
 literature, when Ave might look for some im- 
 provement corresponding to the refined senti- 
 ments of the times, is described in the Spec- 
 tator, by Addison and Steele, warm admirers 
 of the drama, to the authorship of which they 
 both contributed. First, as regards the state 
 of public taste, Addison, in a paper on the 
 artifices resorted to by play- writers to excite 
 terror and pity in the minds of an audience, 
 D 
 
50 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 points out as the most absurd and barbarous, 
 "that dreadful butchering of one another, 
 which is very frequent upon the English 
 stage/' " To delight (he says) in seeing men 
 stabbed, poisoned, racked, or impaled, is cer- 
 tainly the sign of a cruel temper/' " It is, 
 indeed, very odd (he adds, referring to the 
 better feelings manifested by the French in 
 this respect) to see our stage strewed with car- 
 cases in the last scenes of a tragedy ; and to 
 observe in the wardrobe of the play-house 
 several daggers, poniards, wheels, bowls for 
 poison, and many other instruments of death/' 
 But this is nothing compared to the testimony 
 of Steele on the moral abuses of the stage at 
 this time, which, it is to be remembered, was 
 not preceded by " an age of hypocrisy," but one 
 of unbounded libertinism. The Spectator hav- 
 ing received from a female correspondent a 
 remonstrance against an unchaste allusion in 
 one of Sir Richard Steele's plays, that writer 
 made the letter the subject of the moral stric- 
 tures from which we are about to quote, and 
 afterwards expunged from his comedy all its 
 obnoxious passages. He ascribes the immodest 
 character of many plays to dearth of invention 
 on the part of authors, and a depraved taste on 
 that of audiences. He pleads ironically on 
 
HISTORY OF THE STAGE. 51 
 
 behalf of a writer who has to keep up a 
 sprightly dialogue for five acts together, that 
 he may be allowed, "when he wants wit, and 
 cannot please any otherwise, to help it out 
 with a little smuttiness/' " When the author 
 cannot strike out of himself any more of that 
 which he has superior to those who make up 
 the bulk of his audience, his natural recourse 
 is to that which he has in common with them ; 
 and a description which gratifies a sensual 
 appetite will please, when the author has no- 
 thing about him to delight a refined imagina- 
 tion/' " This expedient to supply the deficien- 
 cies of wit, has been used more or less by most 
 of the authors who have succeeded on the 
 stage ; though I know but one who has profess- 
 edly writ a play upon the basis of the desire 
 of multiplying our species, and that is the polite 
 Sir George Etheridge ; if I understand what 
 the lady would be at, in the play called c She 
 would if she could/ Other poets have here 
 and there given us intimation that there is this 
 design, under all the disguises and affectations 
 which a lady may put on ; but no author, ex- 
 cept this, has made sure work of it, and put 
 the imaginations of the audience upon this one 
 purpose from the beginning to the end of the 
 comedy. It has always fared accordingly ; for 
 
52 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 whether it be that all who go to this piece 
 would if they could, or that the innocent go to 
 it, to guess only what she would if she could, 
 the play has always been well received!' 
 Again, " It lifts an heavy empty sentence, 
 when there is added to it a lascivious gesture 
 of body ; and when it is too low to be raised 
 even to that, a flat meaning is enlivened by 
 making it a double one/' " When a poet flags 
 in writing lasciviously, a pretty girl can move 
 lasciviously, and have the same good consequence 
 for the author/' And not to multiply similar 
 testimonies from the same writer as to the dress 
 (or the want of it) of females on the stage, and 
 other corrupting influences, for which refer- 
 ence must be made to the paper itself,* Sir 
 Eichard winds up his description of the drama- 
 tic writings of the same popular class, hy female 
 as well as male authors, in the following terms : 
 — " As the male wit gives his hero a great for- 
 tune, the female gives her heroine a good gal- 
 lant at the end of the play. But, indeed, there 
 is hardly a play we can go to, but the hero or 
 fine gentleman of it struts off upon the same 
 account, and leaves us to consider what good 
 office he has put us to, or to employ ourselves 
 
 * Spectator, No. 51, April 28, 1711. 
 
SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON. 53 
 
 as we please. To be plain, a man who frequents 
 plays will have a very respectful notion of him- 
 self, were he to recollect how often he has been 
 used as a pimp to ravishing tyrants, or success- 
 ful rakes. When the actors make their exit on 
 this good occasion, the ladies are sure to have 
 an examining glance from the pit, to see how 
 they relish what passes ; and a few lewd fools 
 are very ready to employ their talents upon 
 the composure or freedom of their looks. Such 
 incidents as these make some ladies wholly 
 absent themselves from the play-house ; and 
 others never miss the first day of a play, lest 
 it should prove too lascivious to admit their 
 going with any countenance to it on the 
 second/' 
 
 Sir Archibald Alison, in his new volume, 
 occupied with contemporary history,* bears a 
 regretful testimony to the declining prospects 
 and degraded character of "the noble and 
 bewitching art" of the drama at the present 
 time. Sir Archibald has not thought it beneath 
 the dignity of history, or unbecoming the gra- 
 vity of his judicial character, to devote a page 
 of the History of Europe to a panegyric on the 
 
 * History of Europe, from the Fall of Napoleon in 1S15, 
 to the Accession of Lotas Napoleon in IS 5 2. By Sir 
 Archibald Alison, Bart., vol. i. 1352. 
 
54 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 dramatic genius, "the dark raven locks/' and 
 "fine figure/' of Miss Helen Faucit, an actress 
 of tragedy. If powers of the very highest order, 
 he remarks, united to "fascinating beauty/' 
 and "the most lofty conceptions of the dignity 
 and moral objects of her art, could have arrested 
 the degradation of the stage" this actress would 
 have done so. But she " arose in the decline of 
 the drama/' and was " unequal to the task of 
 supporting it in the days of corrupt taste/' The 
 eulogy on her high conceptions of the dignity 
 and moral capabilities of her art, is repeated 
 with its extravagant superlatives, after the 
 lapse of a few lines; "but it is all in vain," 
 adds the learned historian, with touching de- 
 spondency ; " she has appeared in the days of 
 the decline of taste, and, notwithstanding 
 her great genius and celebrity, is unable to 
 arrest it. The drama here, as elsewhere, has 
 been in a certain stage of society succeeded by 
 the melo-drama ; the theatre by the amphi- 
 theatre. Co vent Garden has become an Italian, 
 Drury Lane an English, opera-house. Singing 
 and dancing, stimulants to the senses, splendour 
 for the eye, have come to supplant the expres- 
 sion of passion, the display of tenderness, the 
 grandeur of character." Sir Archibald considers 
 this change in the public taste to be due to 
 
CORRUPT TASTE. 55 
 
 " the ascendancy of a middle class in society, 
 the minds in which are not so cultivated as to 
 enable them to enjoy intellectual or moral 
 pleasures, while their senses are sufficiently 
 excited to render them fully alive to the enjoy- 
 ments of the physical. Disguise it as you will 
 (he continues), that is the real principle. 
 When that class, which is ever a vast majority 
 of mankind, becomes, in the progress of opulence, 
 so rich and powerful that its patronage forms 
 the main support of the theatre, the ruin of 
 the drama is inevitable and at hand/' This 
 statement is scarcely compatible with the well- 
 known fact that the Italian opera in London, 
 which Sir Archibald deplores as having 
 usurped the place of the drama, is almost ex- 
 clusively supported by the aristocracy. But 
 it is inconsistent with the still more remark- 
 able and important fact, that the decline of the 
 drama synchronizes with a wider diffusion of 
 intelligence and moral principle amongst the 
 middle class, than ever characterized it at 
 any former period; and just because this 
 class has become more susceptible than here- 
 tofore of intellectual and moral enjoyments, 
 and therefore more independent of triflitig 
 amusements, it has in great measure with- 
 drawn from the theatre ; abandoning it, on the 
 
56 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 one hand, to the luxurious and sensual of the 
 upper, and, on the other, to the gross and 
 degraded of the lower ranks of the community. 
 The middle rank has alwaj^s been the most 
 favourable for the cultivation and development 
 of those intellectual and moral habits to which 
 the theatre is most inimical. Without depre- 
 ciating the excellencies which adorn many of 
 the British aristocracy of the present day, it 
 may be affirmed that the talent, the education, 
 the science, the religion, the active philan- 
 thropy, the political influence, the mental and 
 moral energy, and the robust virtues which 
 form the stamina of a state, and " the cheap 
 defence of nations/' are mainly concentrated 
 in the middle class of the community. 
 
 But Sir Archibald Alison goes a step farther, 
 and affirms that " this change was accelerated, 
 and perhaps prematurely brought on in this 
 country, by the well-meant and sincere, but un- 
 fortunate prejudices of a large and respectable 
 portion of society, which withdrew altogether 
 from our theatres, from a natural feeling of in- 
 dignation at the immorality of some of its 
 [their] dramas, and the license of many of its 
 [their] accessories/' We venture respectfully, 
 but firmly, to demur to this extraordinary 
 dictum of judicial wisdom. For what does it 
 
WHO CORRUPTED THE STAGE? 57 
 
 amount to but an attempt to make the reli- 
 gious and the moral of society accountable, 
 in some degree, for the deterioration of the 
 stage? The learned Sheriff seems to take it 
 for granted, that at some period or other the 
 theatre was a place frequented by the Christian 
 and virtuous of the community. We have 
 sought in vain for such an era. It was not, as 
 as has been shown, in the age of Shakspere and 
 Elizabeth, or of the Stuarts, or of Queen Anne ; 
 and for the modern character of plays and the 
 play-house, we are well content to receive 
 the testimony of Sir Archibald Alison. But 
 admitting, for the sake of argument, that the 
 amusements of the stage were once such as could 
 be witnessed with pleasure and profit by Chris- 
 tian men and their families — for it must be their 
 u unfortunate prejudices" which are chiefly in 
 the author's view — we have to ask, why did 
 the stage become corrupt in spite of their pre- 
 sence, unless there be some inherent defect in 
 its constitution? And why are good men to 
 be held responsible for its having sunk to a 
 lower depth in their absence, when it was "the 
 immorality of some of its dramas, and the 
 license of many of its accessories/' that drove 
 them away with " a natural feeling of indig- 
 nation V If they were wrong, as our author 
 
58 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 thinks, in abandoning the theatre, it must 
 clearly be their duty to return to it. But how, 
 and when, is the derelict amusement to be raised 
 out of the mire of moral pollution, and rendered 
 fit for the participation of the pure and virtuous? 
 The statement of the historian virtually confirms 
 a previous remark, that it is the character of 
 the spectators which determines the nature of 
 the entertainment. Before a thorough reform 
 can be introduced into the theatre, therefore, 
 the great proportion of its audiences must con- 
 sist of the moral and religious of the community. 
 And in order that even a beginning may be 
 made, men and women, of this high character, 
 must be found animated with a zeal for theatri- 
 cal reform, which will induce them to divest 
 themselves of " unfortunate prejudices/' to re- 
 press " natural feelings of indignation/' to dis- 
 regard appearances, to brave temptations, to 
 outface the indecencies of the ballet and melo- 
 drama, and the licentiousness of many of the 
 frequenters of the playhouse, in the hope (a 
 somewhat vague one, it must be confessed) of 
 giving to the theatre a moral purity which will 
 repel the dissolute and profligate from its walls ! 
 Let the friends of the drama "call such spirits 
 from the vasty deep ; but will they come when 
 they do call for them?" We are less concerned 
 
THE STAGE INCORRIGIBLE. 59 
 
 with the historian's reasons than his facts ; but 
 they are inextricably interwoven, and we, there- 
 fore, quote the remainder of his remarks on this 
 subject: — "There can be no doubt/' he con- 
 tinues, "it would be well if these abuses could 
 be corrected ; and it would also be well if cor- 
 ruption could be banished from literature, vice 
 from the world. Unfortunately the one is not 
 more likely to happen than the other. Both 
 spring from the universal corruption of our 
 nature, and will cease when we are no longer 
 children of Adam ; but not till then/' The 
 fallacy of the illustration here employed is ap- 
 parent. We do not attempt to purify litera- 
 ture of a vicious and demoralizing description, 
 by recommending respectable people to read it ; 
 nor do we censure those who, for moral reasons, 
 have discontinued its perusal, as having been 
 instrumental, from their "unfortunate preju- 
 dices/' in rendering it more debasing than it 
 was before. And sure we are that, in his judi- 
 cial capacity, our respected Sheriff does not illus- 
 trate his own argument, by encouraging the 
 practice of vice as a means of "banishing it 
 from the world." Yet he contends that the 
 stage has become degraded because good men 
 would not stand by it, despite their indignation 
 at its immoralities and licentiousness. Once 
 more — "The only effect of this portion of society 
 
60 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 withdrawing from our theatres has been, that 
 their direction has fallen into the hands of the 
 unscrupulous. Their support of the profli- 
 gate, and the licentious characters of their 
 representations, have, in consequence, been 
 greatly increased. We cannot destroy the art 
 of iEschylus, Shakspere, and Schiller, but we 
 may alter its character, and degrade its direc- 
 tion ; and the unhappy result of the respect- 
 able classes withdrawing from the theatre, has 
 been too often to convert what might be, at 
 least occasionally, the school of virtue, into the 
 academy of vice." There is nothing new in 
 this method of reasoning the question. A 
 writer in support of the stage, half a century 
 ago, fell upon much the same line of argument 
 as Sir Archibald Alison has adopted in his his- 
 tory; but instead of merely reproaching the 
 respectable classes for neglecting or relinquish- 
 ing the theatre, he boldly took up positive 
 ground, and made it "matter of duty" to attend 
 plays, and to " do good in the face of prejudice." 
 To this argument the celebrated Dr. Wither- 
 spoon, in a treatise on the stage,* — now less 
 known than it deserves to be — replied thus 
 
 * A Serious Inquiry into the Nature and Effects of the 
 Stage. By John Witlierspoon, D.D., sometime minister 
 of the gospel at Paisley, and late President of Princeton 
 College, New Jersey, 1805. 
 
SYLLOGISM, 61 
 
 pointedly: — "But how shall we refute this new 
 and wonderful doctrine, of its being necessary 
 that good men should attend the theatre ? I 
 cannot think of a better way of doing it, than 
 tearing off some of the drapery of words with 
 which it is adorned and disguised, and setting 
 his own assertions together in the form of a 
 syllogism : — 
 
 "The manager of every theatre must suit his 
 entertainments to the company, and if he is 
 not supported by the grave and sober, he must 
 suit himself to the licentious and profane : 
 
 " We know that in every nation there must 
 be amusements and public entertainments, and 
 the stage has always made one in every civilized 
 and polished nation. We cannot hope to abo- 
 lish it : 
 
 "Ergo, according to this author, it is the duty 
 of good men to attend the stage. 
 
 " But I leave the reader to judge whether, 
 from the first of his propositions, which is a cer- 
 tain truth, it is not more just to infer, that till 
 the majority of those who attend the stage are 
 good; its entertainment cannot be fit for the 
 Christian ear ; and because that will never be, 
 no Christian ought to go there. And what a 
 shameful begging of the question is his second 
 proposition, 'That we cannot hope to abolish 
 
62 TENDENCY OF THE STAGE. 
 
 it/ It is hard to tell what we may hope for in 
 this age, but we insist that it ought to be 
 abolished. Nay, we do hope to abolish it just 
 as much as other vices. We cannot hope to 
 see the time" when there shall be no gaming, 
 cheating, or lying ; but we must still preach 
 against all such vices, and will never exhort 
 good men to go to gaming tables, to persuade 
 them to play fair, and lessen the wickedness of 
 the practice/' 
 
THE SCHOOL OF VIETUE; 
 
 ITS SCHOLARS AND TEACHERS. 
 
 Slight those who say, amidst their sickly healths, 
 " Thou livest by rule." What doth not so hut man? 
 Houses are built by rule, and Commonwealths. 
 Entice the trusty sun, if that you can, 
 From his ecliptic line ; — beckon the sky. 
 Who lives by rule, then, keeps good company. 
 
 By all means use sometimes to be alone. 
 Salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear. 
 Dare to look in thy chest — for 'tis thine own, — 
 And tumble up and down what thou fiud'st there. 
 Who cannot rest till he good fellows find, 
 He breaks up house, turns out of doors his mind. 
 
 George Hekbeet. 
 #>## 
 
 Rejoice, young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the 
 days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of 
 thine eyes : but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee 
 
 INTO JUDGMENT. ECCLESIASTES. 
 
 The defenders of dramatic amusements main- 
 tain that the stage is a school of morality. We 
 have seen some of the lessons which it teaches. 
 Let us next examine the scholars and the 
 teachers as to the soundness of this claim. In 
 the first place, does the general character of 
 the frequenters of the theatre indicate that 
 
64 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 their purpose in attending it is to receive moral 
 instruction ? and do they really derive moral 
 benefit from the lessons it inculcates, and the 
 examples it displays? None stand more in 
 need of such influences than many of both sexes 
 who are nightly within its walls. Sir Walter 
 Scott, who was no enemy to the drama, writ- 
 ing to Southey, describes a London theatrical 
 audience in the following terms : — " One-half 
 come to prosecute their debaucheries, so openly 
 that it would degrade a bagnio. Another set, 
 to snooze off their beef-steaks and port wine ; a 
 third, are critics of the fourth column of the 
 newspaper/' A part of most theatres is appro- 
 priated for the accommodation of females of 
 abandoned character. In Drury Lane a saloon 
 is set apart expressly for the purpose of intro- 
 ducing the licentious of either sex to each other. 
 When Mr. Macreacly, whom we name with re- 
 spect, as the most earnest dramatic reformer of 
 the clay, became the lessee of Drury Lane, 
 some years ago, he resolved to purge the stage 
 of low and immoral plays, and replace the 
 melo-drama with the tragedies of Shakspere 
 and the higher dramatists. He determined fur- 
 ther to exclude from the house all females of an 
 improper character. He made known his mo- 
 tives and intentions in a published prospectus, 
 
MR. MACREADY's EXPERIMENT. 65 
 
 and invited the support of a moral and respec- 
 table class of play-goers. Many, in common 
 with ourselves, watched the progress of this 
 instructive experiment on the taste and moral 
 feeling of play-goers. The sock was displaced 
 for the buskin. Shakspere was produced in 
 his least obnoxious aspects ; frivolous melo- 
 dramas, profane and impure interludes, and 
 wanton and indecent dancing, were discarded. 
 Profligate women were refused admittance. 
 What was the consequence ? The legitimate 
 drama, as it was termed, failed to attract the 
 moral class of society ; the habitues of the place 
 withdrew, when their gross appetites were no 
 longer gratified with garbage ; and the licen- 
 tious of one sex having been ejected, those of the 
 other sex had no longer any inducement to fre- 
 quent the house. The plan notoriously proved a 
 complete failure, and was abandoned in despair, 
 after involving Mr. Macready in serious loss. 
 The theatre in question reverted to the prac- 
 tice from which few or none can afford to de- 
 viate, that of admitting improper characters — of 
 furnishing special accommodation for them, — 
 and of providing fitting amusements for them. 
 If the play-house be a school of morals, and not 
 " an academy of vice/' what inducement have 
 the vicious and the vile to frequent it ? And 
 E 
 
66 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 if its entertainments are adapted to their tastes, 
 what effect are they calculated to produce upon 
 the pure and virtuous? Is the moral atmo- 
 sphere of the place such as the two classes 
 ought to breathe together ? Trom amusements 
 which the one can enjoy with as much zest as 
 the other, it is worse than idle to talk of deriv- 
 ing moral instruction. It is not denied that 
 moral lessons are occasionally inculcated on the 
 stage in its present state ; but its whole history 
 warrants the affirmation, that were this the 
 usual character and tendency of its teaching, 
 nothing would be so distasteful and unattrac- 
 tive to the great majority of its friends and 
 admirers. Neither " the many-headed monster 
 of the pit/' nor the dii minores of the gallery, 
 would long be gratified with that description 
 of pleasure, which, according to Seneca, the 
 gods enjoy when they look upon a virtuous 
 man struggling with misfortunes ; and moral 
 precepts and virtuous examples on the stage 
 would speedily show " a beggarly account of 
 empty boxes/' 
 
 There is something ineffably fulsome in this 
 cant about the virtue of the theatre, as if the 
 attractiveness of the stage culminated in the 
 representation of a moral piece, and the appear- 
 ance of a moral player ; whereas it is well known 
 
UNCHRISTIAN MORALS. 67 
 
 that there are not in existence, in the English 
 language, or in the whole literature of the stage, 
 as many moral plays as would stock a theatre, 
 and render it independent of objectionable 
 pieces ; and as for the players, whilst we desire 
 to bring no railing accusation against them as 
 a class, it is not to be denied, that if their pro- 
 fession and aims are virtuous, they exhibit a 
 marvellous inaptitude for learning their own 
 lessons. The virtues of the stage are not the 
 virtues of Christianity ; and not being Christian, 
 they are anti-Christian ; for here there is no 
 middle term, and no neutrality. " He that is 
 not with me, is against me/' was the declaration 
 of the Great Teacher. It is equally true, that 
 natural feelings and emotions are not repre- 
 sented on the stage. The pure pathos and ten- 
 derness of common life could not be acted with- 
 out revolting an audience. Pathetic feeling must 
 therefore be mingled with ingredients of a more 
 exciting kind. Hence immoderate love, disap- 
 pointment, jealousy, revenge, pride, ambition, 
 suicide, and murder, form the prominent features 
 in tragedies; and gallantry and intrigue, pro- 
 digality in the guise of generosity, profanity 
 dignified with the name of spirit, and vice 
 in the garb of wit and humour, furnish the 
 chief materials of comedies. In such represent 
 
68 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 tations the simple feelings of nature are out- 
 raged, human life and experience are shown 
 through a false and deceptive medium, moral 
 principle is distorted, religion is insulted, and its 
 professors are turned into ridicule. " How often/' 
 says Mr. Angell James,* "is some profligate rake 
 introduced to the spectators, furnished with a 
 few traits of frankness and generosity, to interest 
 them by his vicious career, and who so far recon- 
 ciles them all to his crimes, as to tolerate his 
 atrocities, for the sake of his open-hearted, good- 
 humoured virtues. Who can wonder that young 
 women should be prepared by such stuff, for any 
 intrigue with a bold and wily adventurer ? or 
 that young men should be encouraged to play the 
 good-natured heroic rake, which they have seen 
 such a favourite with the public on the stage? 
 Besides, how saturated are both tragedies and 
 comedies with irreverent appeals to heaven, 
 profane swearing, and all the arts of equivoca- 
 tion, and falsehood, and deception ! What lasci- 
 vious allusions are made, what impure passages 
 are repeated ! What a fatal influence must 
 this have upon the delicacy of female modesty ! 
 .... Little will go down with the public in 
 
 * The Christian Father's Present to his Children. By 
 J. A. James. 
 
DEPRAVED TASTE. 69 
 
 the shape of comedy, farce, or opera, but what is 
 pretty highly seasoned with indelicate allusions. 
 Hence it is, that even the newspaper critics, 
 whose morality is, in general, not of the most 
 saintly character, so often mention the too- 
 barefaced indecencies of new plays/'* Again, 
 " How many sentiments are continually uttered 
 on the stage, how many indelicate allusions are 
 made, which no man who had any regard to the 
 virtue of his sons, or the feelings of his daughters, 
 
 * The following notice of a popular farce of the current 
 season is not quoted as a case in point, for it indicates an 
 indelicacy without rebuking it, but as affording an unde- 
 signed testimony to the depraved tastes of London play- 
 goers: — "A short dramatic tale, in which some new adven- 
 tures of the celebrated Messrs. Box and Cox are set forth, 
 is the successful novelty at the Haymarket. Box and 
 Cox are, as the bills inform us, now supposed to be 
 "married and settled; 5 ' and the dramatic happiness of 
 Cox receives a transient interruption through the suspicion 
 that too great an intimacy has existed between Mrs. Cox 
 and Box. However, the cloud blows over, and the friend- 
 ship of the modern Orestes and Pylades is more firmly 
 cemented than ever. Those little circumstances of dra- 
 matic discomfort which particularly delight a London 
 audience are plentifully introduced ; and who could refrain 
 from laughter when Mesdames Box and Cox fall out at 
 breakfast, and Mr. Cox gets into a street row on the sub- 
 ject of an umbrella ? Much as the Englishman reveres 
 the domestic hearth, he [the play-goer] is never more 
 amused than when he- sees it converted into a field of 
 battle."— Spectator, Oct. 16, 1852. 
 
70 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 would allow to be uttered at bis table ? Are not 
 whole passages repeatedly recited, which no 
 modest man would allow to be read before the 
 family ? Nothing but the countenance of num- 
 bers could induce many females to sit and listen 
 to that which they hear at the theatre. Were 
 any man to quote, in company, some of the 
 expressions which are in constant iteration at 
 the play-house, would he not be regarded as a 
 person most dangerous to the virtue of others ? 
 And yet these nauseating exhibitions are heard 
 with pleasure, when they are heard with the 
 multitude. Can this be friendly to modesty, 
 to virtue, to piety ? Must there not be an in- 
 sensible corrosion going on under such an influ- 
 ence upon the fine polish of female excellence, 
 and upon the moral principle of the male sex? 
 Is this avoiding the appearance of evil V 
 
 To the above testimony may be added that 
 of Mr. Binney* on the same point : — " The 
 countenance and encouragement which the 
 theatre gives to vice ; the stimulus applied to the 
 passions by the nature of the performances, and 
 the excited emotions, the language, the ges- 
 tures, the dress of the performers themselves ; the 
 
 * Objections to Theatrical Amusements. A discourse by 
 the Rev. Thomas Binney, London. 
 
SOCIAL INEXPEDIENCY. 71 
 
 nature of the audience, composed for the most 
 part of the doubtful and the bad ; the facilities 
 afforded to prostitutes to mingle with the com- 
 pany in every part of the house (or almost every 
 part), and the perfectly understood and recog- 
 nised arrangement by which from some parts of 
 the house the modest and virtuous of the sex, the 
 wives and sisters of gentlemen, are systemati- 
 cally excluded, — these are things that constitute 
 our reasons for condemning the theatre, even 
 when we take no higher ground than a becom- 
 ing regard to the morals of the people. Exclud- 
 ing religion altogether — leaving out of view the 
 peculiar views and professions of piety — reason- 
 ing as if there were no such book as the New 
 Testament in the world, with its spiritual 
 functions and unearthly demands on the habits 
 and the heart — feeling and thinking, if you 
 please, as mere moral philanthropists, the friends 
 and advocates of decency and decorum, the 
 protectors of youth, the guardians of man's 
 innocence, and of woman's imagination, — on 
 this ground, independently of all others of a 
 higher character, it is our deep and solemn 
 conviction, that theatres deserve nothing from 
 the thoughtful and the pure but unmitigated 
 and unequivocal condemnation/' 
 
 The late Mr. Macdonald of Calcutta, a man of 
 
72 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 eminent talent and piety, was, in his youth, de- 
 votedly fond of theatrical amusements, and his 
 testimony to their pernicious effects is the result 
 of personal experience and observation. He 
 speaks of evils which he has seen and known, 
 and with touching humility and frankness meets 
 in his own person the argument usually em- 
 ployed by the defenders of the theatre, when 
 instances are pointed out to them of the demora- 
 lising influence of the stage, upon the character 
 of individuals. Referring to his own experience 
 of this malignant influence, he anticipates the 
 reply, that this arose from the peculiar badness 
 of his own heart. u Be it so/' is the rejoinder — 
 " his heart was bad ; very bad. But here lies 
 the question again in its turn, ' Why did so bad 
 a heart find such delight in the play-house V" 
 The evidence of such a witness is invaluable, 
 and here is his description of the average cha- 
 racter of the frequenters of the play in London : 
 — "What class of the rich habitually occupy 
 the boxes ? Let West-end tradesmen say — let 
 Tattersal and Crockford tell. Do you want the 
 scum of vicious poverty? You will find it in the 
 gallery. Do you want the froth of vicious me- 
 diocracy ? You will find abundance in the pit. 
 Why does the swindler love the play? Why 
 does the gambler love the play ? Why does 
 
AVERAGE CHARACTER OF PLAY- GOERS. 73 
 
 the forger love the play? Why does the horse- 
 jockey love the play? Why does the scoffer at 
 religion love the play ? Why does the back- 
 slider from the worship of God love the play ? 
 Why does the man that never prays love the 
 play? Why does the apostate love the play? 
 Why do fashionable swearers love the play? 
 Why do shameless adulterers love the play? 
 Why do embezzling clerks love the play? Why 
 do those that never enter a church love the 
 play? Why is it, in short, that all the very 
 worst classes of society delight to frequent the 
 theatre ? Is it because it is good, or because it 
 is evil ? That there are moral persons who also 
 go there on select occasions, we admit ; but it 
 is undeniable that actors do not expect their 
 benefits from them ; they would distrust their 
 largest payers, and .be ashamed of their best 
 attendants/' Speaking of the uniformly bad 
 character of the precincts of the London play- 
 houses, the same writer says: — " Ministerial 
 duties compelled us to pass through certain 
 theatrical neighbourhoods, and the scenes which 
 we saw prevented our doubting, what at least 
 one large portion of a London population judged 
 even its best theatres to be. We remember 
 once discussing the merits of the stage with a 
 gentleman of liberal profession, and a native 
 
74 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 of London, who endeavoured to take up the 
 ground that the stage was moral in its ten- 
 dency ; but when asked why, if theatres were 
 so moral, their immediate localities were sinks 
 of vice, and their porticoes thronged by the 
 expectants of iniquity, he replied, ' I acknow- 
 ledge the difficulty, and I cannot account for 
 the fact according to my views/ Nor could 
 he ; but we can, in the trite old adage, ' Where 
 the carcass is, there also shall the vultures be 
 gathered together/" 
 
 From a statement in a work on Fashionable 
 Amusements, it appears that Mr. Macready's 
 experiment was not the only attempt to purify 
 the "school of morality" in Drury Lane. When 
 the theatre was under a numerous proprietary, 
 it was remitted to the Committee of Manage- 
 ment (including several distinguished senators 
 of both Houses of Parliament), to consider a 
 proposal to exclude females of a certain charac- 
 ter from the house; but in the Committee's 
 report, " the measure was over-ruled, under the 
 conviction that, if adopted, the institution could 
 not be supported !" A similar result followed an 
 effort to reform the Tremont Theatre in Boston. 
 The trustees protested even against an order 
 of council prohibiting intoxicating liquors to 
 be sold on the premises, alleging that it was 
 
THE PRESS AND THE STAGE. 75 
 
 impossible to maintain the theatre without it. 
 In the United States, as in our own country, 
 a reformed theatre could not exist, were it 
 practicable. 
 
 Some years ago, the Literary Gazette raised a 
 powerful protest against the licentious tenden- 
 cies of the dramatic representations popular on 
 the London boards, lamenting that, as the true 
 drama declined, meretricious attractions were 
 multiplied. The writer says, " The liberal and 
 wanton exhibition of the female person became 
 common, was tolerated, applauded, sapped the 
 public taste, and now revels in triumphant 
 impurity/' " The saloons have long been in- 
 famous : the representations behind the curtain 
 are now pretty much on a par with the saloons. 
 If you seat yourself or family in a public box, 
 the chances are, that you are mixed up with 
 a class whose manners and conversation shock 
 every sense of decency." This was in February, 
 1834. In the following month, a theatrical 
 fund anniversary meeting was held, and the 
 drama lauded as the great engine of morality, 
 and handmaid of genuine religion : the " Puri- 
 tans " were denounced for discouraging the 
 stage, and the aid of the press was invoked on 
 behalf of the theatre. The same periodical 
 responded to the appeal, by demanding, as a 
 
76 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 condition to its support, that the drama should 
 no longer " retrograde into licentiousness, and 
 take the lead in corrupting public morals ; ". 
 adding, that the age of Charles II. was ex- 
 ceeded in grossness by the exposures in such 
 pieces as the " Revolt of the Harem/' and the 
 " Masked Ball/' "It may not be expedient 
 for the pulpit to notice this foul and corrupting 
 tone which now prevails so entirety in theatres, 
 that it is hardly possible for a modest woman 
 to visit one of them without having her feel- 
 ings exposed to outrage ; but it would, in our 
 judgment, be a still greater breach of its trust 
 in the press to uphold it. The bishop of Lon- 
 don has foiled one attempt to travesty the 
 Scripture ; but he cannot stem the tide of 
 obscenity and pimping which make our na- 
 tional drama a national obloquy/' — (Lit Gaz., 
 March, 1834.) Should any friend of the drama 
 consider it unfair to implicate the theatres of 
 the present day in the vices which stamped 
 them eighteen years ago, we must refer him 
 to the testimony of Sir A. Alison to the con- 
 tinued decline of dramatic taste, of which, also, 
 Mr. C. Mathews has furnished some instructive 
 examples in his letter. But we have yet 
 another witness to call, whose evidence, from 
 recent personal observation, identifies, in the 
 
RECENT PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS. 77 
 
 present condition of the stage, all the vicious 
 and repulsive features which writers have de- 
 scribed since the time of Sir John Hawkins 
 (the biographer of Dr Johnson), who charac- 
 terized the play-house, and the region about it, 
 as " the hot-beds of vice/' Mr. Samuel James 
 Button, who furnished Mr. Binney of London 
 with some illustrations of the present state of 
 the stage, affirms that all the enormities de- 
 tailed by earlier and later writers, and many 
 others which had escaped their notice, had 
 fallen under his own observation. "Though 
 never officially connected with the stage in 
 any capacity whatever, yet peculiar circum- 
 stances gave me, for several years, free access, 
 by day arid night, to both before and behind 
 the curtain of our principal winter and summer 
 metropolitan theatres, and also threw me into 
 intimacy with many of their authors, managers, 
 and chief performers ; consequently, there is no 
 part of stage economy with which I am unac- 
 quainted. And it is my personal, complete 
 knowledge of that economy, which forces upon 
 me the conviction, that, were another Ezekiel 
 to arise, and another angel to descend to exhibit 
 to him the c greater ' and c greater abomina- 
 tions ' of this land, he would reserve, for the 
 astonished and indignant prophet, a display of 
 
78 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 the iniquities of a London theatre, as the last 
 and most fearful c chamber of imagery/ " 
 
 There must be something radically defective 
 in a system which, in all ages, has been re- 
 garded by wise and good men as a source of 
 danger to the bests interests of society. Plato 
 described plays as exciting the passions, and 
 perverting the use of them. Aristotle suggested 
 that young people should be forbidden by law 
 to witness comedies. Tully denounced licen- 
 tious plays and poems as the bane of society. 
 Livy remarked that plays were introduced 
 amongst the Romans to pacify the gods and 
 remove a mortality, but that the remedy proved 
 worse than the disease. Tacitus reproached 
 Nero for having hired decayed gentlemen for 
 the stage, observing that it was a prince's part 
 to relieve their necessity, and not to tempt it. 
 He also observes that the German women pre- 
 served their honour by having no theatres 
 amongst them. Plutarch spoke of plays as the 
 corrupters of youth. Solon, Xenophon, Cicero, 
 Seneca, and Cato, are also amongst the vene- 
 rable names of antiquity arrayed against the 
 stage. The Athenians had a law that no judge 
 of the Areopagus should degrade himself by 
 writing a play. The Lacedaemonians would 
 not tolerate the stage in any form. The Ro- 
 
TESTIMONY OF THE WHOLE MOEAL WORLD. 79 
 
 mans counted plays discreditable and scan- 
 dalous, and held players to be degraded and 
 denationalized. When Csesar compelled Libe- 
 rius to recite some of his own works on the 
 stage, " Alas ! " said the aged man, " I have 
 lived one day too many. I left my house this 
 morning a Roman knight ; I return to it this 
 evening an infamous stage-player/' To the 
 testimonies of the heathen world against the 
 stage, which are stated more at large by Jeremy 
 Collier, we add those, of the Christian world, as 
 summed up by William Prynne, in his Histrio- 
 mastix, the Players' Scourge, published in 
 1633. This venerable writer made a catalogue 
 of authorities against the stage, which contains 
 every name of eminence in the heathen and 
 Christian worlds; comprehends the united tes- 
 timony of the Jewish and Christian churches 
 — the deliberate acts of fifty-four ancient and 
 modern, general, national, and provincial coun- 
 cils and synods, both of the Eastern and West- 
 ern churches — the condemnatory sentence of 
 seventy-one ancient fathers, and one hundred 
 and fifty modern authors, Popish and Protes- 
 tant — the hostile endeavours of philosophers, 
 and even poets — with the legislative enact- 
 ments of a great number of Pagan and Chris- 
 
80 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 tian states, nations, magistrates, emperors, and 
 princes. 
 
 After this accumulation of testimonies against 
 the stage, we are surely warranted in affirming, 
 that it is not from this boasted school of morals 
 that society derives any of those impulses which 
 elevate and improve men in the social scale, 
 restrain vice, stimulate to virtue, and excite to 
 generous efforts to do good ; or which prompt 
 youthful and ingenuous minds to enter upon 
 the path of self-education, to cultivate habits 
 of manly thought and feeling, to cherish pure 
 and simple tastes, and exercise vigorous self- 
 control. From the " relaxing, sentimentalizing, 
 dreamy, passion-stirring atmosphere of a thea- 
 tre/' — from weeping over scenes of fictitious 
 misery, what man or woman has ever gone 
 forth into the hovels of the poor, and lent a 
 helping hand to raise their inmates from their 
 wretchedness, to educate the ignorant, to re- 
 claim the wandering, to relieve the sick, to 
 cheer the sorrowing, and, were it but by a 
 loving and sympathizing word, to take a single 
 atom from the heap of human suffering, and 
 add it to the sum of human happiness ? Oh ! 
 no. Selfishness is at the bottom of theatrical 
 sentiment, and its tenderness melts into thin 
 
THE TEACHERS. 81 
 
 air when brought into contact with the stem 
 realities of life. The tree is known by its fruit. 
 " Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of 
 thistles?" 
 
 If this is all that the theatrical school of 
 morality does for its scholars, let us take a peep 
 behind the scenes, and inquire what it does 
 for its teachers. In a school where the pupils 
 choose their own lessons, it is not to be ex- 
 pected that the teachers will be very rigid in 
 enforcing or exemplifying a high degree of 
 moral principle. The influences of the system 
 are indeed all against the poor player. If he 
 maintains his integrity amidst such a scene of 
 temptations, it is not because of the lessons of 
 the theatre, but in spite of them ; and it is to 
 be feared that the instances are rare and ex- 
 ceptional, in which actors possess firmness and 
 fortitude to resist the moral contamination of 
 the place. We shall not go the length of some 
 writers, and maintain that, by identifying 
 themselves with the bad characters they enact, 
 histrionic performers come to lose the percep- 
 tion of moral distinctions ; but it is unquestion- 
 able that many of them conduct themselves as 
 if it were really true, that on the stage, as well 
 as in the world, " example strikes all human 
 F 
 
82 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 hearts — a bad example more." Garrick once 
 boasted to Dr. Johnson, that he entered into 
 the assumed vicious character as if it were his 
 own. " Then/' replied Johnson, " if you really 
 believe yourself such a monster, you ought to 
 be hanged every time you perform it/' A simi- 
 lar sentiment, as to the influence of the lessons 
 upon the teachers in the dramatic school of 
 morals, led an old writer on this subject to 
 remark, that to send young people to the 
 theatre to form their manners, is to expect 
 " that they will learn virtue frpm profligates, 
 and modesty from harlots/' Did the reader 
 ever hear of a pious actor or actress ? of a reli- 
 gious tragedian or religious comedian ? Why, 
 the very terms are contradictory. We shall 
 demonstrate presently, by a memorable ex- 
 ample, that Scriptural piety is incompatible 
 with the profession of an actor. Nor is it 
 a condition of their being acceptable to the 
 frequenters of the theatre, that they should be 
 either religious or moral. Cases are not infre- 
 quent where they have maintained their popu- 
 larity, notwithstanding their living in notorious 
 disregard of the laws of chastity, or in open 
 violation of the decencies of society. Sir Archi- 
 bald Alison has honoured the elder Kean with 
 
EDMUND KEAN. 88 
 
 a niche in the contemporary History of Europe, 
 already quoted.* This is what the Times jour- 
 nal said of him on one occasion : — " The con- 
 duct of persons who appear on the stage has 
 never been the most irreproachable ; and it 
 may be doubted whether such a mass of living 
 vice, as the actors and actresses but too gene- 
 rally present in their private lives, is not more 
 injurious to public morals, than the splendid 
 examples of virtue which they exhibit in their 
 theatrical characters are useful. It appears, 
 however, that Kean, the defendant in the cause 
 which was tried yesterday, is advanced many 
 steps in profligacy, beyond the most profligate 
 of his sisters and brethren of the stage. Some 
 of Kean's letters are of so filthy a description 
 that we cannot insert them. Yet have the 
 managers of Drury Lane Theatre the effrontery 
 to present, or to attempt presenting, such a 
 creature to the gaze of a British audience, on 
 Thursday next."— {Times, Jan. 18, 1825.) 
 
 * The learned Sheriff has lately given a flattering letter 
 of recommendation to the manager of a Glasgow theatre, 
 expressing approval of his efforts to "exclude all the 
 objectionable characters, whose presence have [sic] done 
 so much to injure the cause of the pure and legitimate 
 drama." The manager's circular, containing Sir Archi- 
 bald's letter, holds out to the play-going public the pros- 
 pect of an engagement with Lola Monies/ 
 
84 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 We are desirous that the character of the 
 profession should be judged of, not from the 
 opinions of religious writers, but from the tes- 
 timonies of dramatic and other authors, and 
 of players themselves. Jean Jacques Rousseau 
 will not be suspected of prejudice against the 
 players, from any inclination to favour religion 
 and virtue ; yet this is what he wrote when it 
 was proposed to rear a theatre in Geneva, with 
 the intention of sapping the simple morality of 
 former times : — " The situation of an actor is a 
 state of licentiousness and bad morals ; the men 
 are abandoned to disorder, the women lead a 
 scandalous life ; the one and the other, at once 
 avaricious and profuse, are overwhelmed with 
 debt, and ever prodigal, and as unrestrained in 
 their disposition as they are void of scruple in 
 respect to the means of providing for it. In 
 all countries their profession is dishonourable/' 
 
 In the memoir of Montague Stanley, to be 
 subsequently quoted, occurs the following letter 
 from a dramatic writer, who was no doubt dis- 
 posed to take rather a favourable view of the 
 theatre, on the occasion of a young lady being 
 about to adopt the stage (in Edinburgh) as a 
 profession : — " I must give you a caution about 
 Miss L. She will find the theatre a dangerous 
 place for a young person. Many of the women 
 
WARNING BY A DRAMATIC AUTHOR. 85 
 
 with whom she must associate are of the worst 
 principles and conduct, and many of the men 
 are insolent and depraved to an excess. If, 
 therefore, she has anything to do with the 
 theatre, you ought to take care of providing 
 some elderly and discreet woman to accompany 
 her there and protect her ; otherwise, however 
 good may be her principles, and regular her 
 conduct, she will be constantly exposed to a 
 thousand insults. A theatre is, in fact, a place 
 into which no woman of delicacy ought to set 
 her foot (behind the scenes, I mean), unless pro- 
 tected by the presence of a husband. I hope 
 you will find this kind of life answer for Miss 
 L. ; but I fear the contrary very much. For 
 a man, the case is far different/' 
 
 We gladly avail ourselves of the opportunity 
 of enriching our pages with the following vigo- 
 rous and pungent strictures on opera-singers, 
 ballet-dancers, and their audiences, from the 
 pen of Mr. Thomas Carlyle :"* — 
 
 " Of the Haymarket Opera my account, in 
 fine, is this : Lustres, candelabras, painting, 
 gilding at discretion; a hall as of the Caliph 
 Alraschid, or him that commanded the slaves 
 of the Lamp ; a hall as if fitted up by the 
 
 * Keepsake for 1852. 
 
86 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 genies, regardless of expense. Upholstery and 
 the outlay of human capital, could do no more. 
 Artistes, too, as they are called, have been got 
 together from the ends of the world, regardless 
 likewise of expense, to do dancing and singing, 
 some of them even geniuses in their craft. One 
 singer in particular, called Coletti, or some such 
 name, seemed to me, by the cast of his face, by 
 the tones of his voice, by his general bearing, 
 so far as I could read it, to be a man of deep 
 and ardent sensibilities, of delicate intuitions, 
 just sympathies ; originally an almost poetic soul, 
 or man of genius, as we term it ; stamped by 
 nature as capable of far other work than squall- 
 ing here, like a blind Samson, to make the 
 Philistines sport ! 
 
 " Nay, all of them had aptitudes, perhaps, of 
 a distinguished kind ; and must, by their own 
 and other people's labour, have got a training 
 equal or superior in toilsomeness, earnest assi- 
 duity, and patient travail, to what breeds men 
 to the most arduous trades. I speak not of 
 kings' grandees, or the like show-figures ; but 
 few soldiers, judges, men of letters, can have 
 had such pains taken with them. The very 
 ballet girls, with their muslin saucers round 
 them, were perhaps little short of miraculous ; 
 whirling and spinning there in strange mad 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE AT THE OPERA. 87 
 
 vortexes, and then suddenly fixing themselves 
 motionless, each upon her left or right great- 
 toe, with the other leg stretched out at an 
 angle of ninety degrees ; — as if you had sud- 
 denly pricked into the floor, by one of their 
 points, a pair, or rather a multitudinous cohort, 
 of mad, restlessly jumping and clipping scis- 
 sors, and so bidden them rest with open blades, 
 and stand still, in the Devil's name ! A truly 
 notable motion ; marvellous, almost miraculous, 
 were not the people there so used to it. Motion 
 peculiar to the opera ; perhaps the ugliest, and 
 surely one of the most difficult, ever taught a 
 female creature in the world. Nature abhors 
 it ; but art does at least admit it to border on 
 the impossible. One little Cerito, or Taglioni 
 the Second, that night when I was there, went 
 bounding from the floor as if she had been 
 made of Indian -rubber, or filled with hydrogen 
 gas, and inclined by positive levity to bolt 
 through the ceiling; perhaps neither Semiramis 
 nor Catherine the Second had bred herself so 
 carefully. 
 
 " Such talent and such martyrdom of train- 
 ing, gathered from the four winds, was now 
 here, to do its feat and be paid for it. Regard- 
 less of expense, indeed ! The purse of Fortu- 
 natus seemed to have opened itself, and the 
 
88 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 divine art of musical sound and rhythmic 
 motion was welcomed with an explosion of all 
 the magnificences which the other arts, fine 
 and coarse, could achieve. For you are to 
 think of some Rossini or Bellini in the rear of 
 it, too ; to say nothing of the Stanfields, and 
 hosts of scene-painters, machinists, engineers, 
 enterprisers; — fit to have taken Gibraltar, 
 written the History of England, or reduced 
 Ireland into industrial regiments, had they 
 so set their minds to it ! 
 
 " Alas, and of all these notable or noticeable 
 human talents, and excellent perseverances 
 and energies, backed by mountains of wealth, 
 and led by the divine art of music and rhythm, 
 vouchsafed by Heaven to them and us, what 
 was to be the issue here this evening ? An 
 hour's amusement, not amusing either, but 
 wearisome and dreary, to a high-dizened select 
 Populace of male and female persons, who 
 seemed to me not much worth amusing ! 
 Could any one have pealed into their hearts 
 once, one true thought, ancT glimpse of Self- 
 vision : c High-dizened, most expensive persons, 
 Aristocracy so called, or Best of the World, 
 beware, beware what proofs you give of bet- 
 terness and bestness !' And then the salutary 
 pang of conscience in reply : c A select Populace, 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE AT THE OPERA. 89 
 
 with money in its purse, and drilled a little by 
 the posture - maker : good Heavens ! if that 
 were what, here and everywhere in God's 
 creation, I am? And a world all dying be- 
 cause I am, and show myself to be, and to have 
 long been, even that ? John, the carriage, the 
 carriage : swift ! Let me go home in silence, 
 to reflection, perhaps to sackcloth and ashes f 
 This and not amusement, would have profited 
 those high-dizened persons. 
 
 " Amusement, at any rate, they did not get 
 from Euterpe and Melpomene. These two 
 Muses, sent for, regardless of expense, I could 
 see, were but the vehicle of a kind of service 
 which I judged to be Paphian rather. Young 
 beauties of both sexes used their opera-glasses, 
 you could notice, not entirely for looking at the 
 stage. And it must be owned the light, in this 
 explosion of all the upholsteries, and the human 
 fine arts and coarse, was magical ; and made 
 your fair one an Armida — if you liked her 
 better so. Nay, certain old Improper-Females 
 (of quality), in their rouge and jewels, even 
 these looked some reminiscence of enchantment; 
 and I saw this and the other lean domestic 
 Dandy, with icy smile on his old worn face ; 
 this and the other Marquis Singedelomme, 
 Prince Mahogany, or the like foreign digni- 
 
90 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 tary, tripping into the boxes of said females, 
 grinning there awhile, with dyed moustachios, 
 and macassar-oil graciosity, and then tripping 
 out again ; — and, in fact, I perceived that 
 Coletti, and Cerito, and the rhythmic arts, 
 were a mere accompaniment here. 
 
 " Wonderful to see ; and sad, if you had eyes ! 
 Do but think of it. Cleopatra threw pearls 
 into her drink in mere waste ; which was 
 reckoned foolish of her. But here had the 
 modern aristocracy of men brought the divinest 
 of its arts, heavenly music itself ; and, piling 
 all the upholsteries and ingenuities that other 
 human art could do, had lighted them into a 
 bonfire to illuminate an hour's flirtation of 
 Singedelomme, Mahogany, and these improper 
 persons ! Never in nature had I seen such 
 waste before. Coletti, you whose inborn 
 melody, once of kindred as I judged to 'the 
 melodies eternal/ might have valiantly weeded 
 out this and the other false thing from the 
 ways of men, and made a bit of God's creation 
 more melodious, — they have* purchased you 
 away from that ; chained you to the wheel 
 of Prince Mahogany's chariot, and here you 
 make sport for a macassar Singedelomme and 
 his improper -females past the prime of life ! 
 Wretched spiritual nigger, Oh, if you had some 
 
JENNY LIND AND SHERIDAN KNOWLES. 91 
 
 genius, and were not a born nigger, with mere 
 appetite for pumpkin, should you have endured 
 such a lot ? I lament for you beyond all other 
 expenses. Other expenses are light ; you are 
 the Cleopatra's pearl that should not have 
 been flung into Mahogany's claret-cup. And 
 Rossini, too, and Mozart and Bellini — Oh 
 Heavens, when I think that music too is con- 
 demned to be mad and to burn herself, to this 
 end, on such a funeral pile, — your celestial 
 Opera-house grows dark and infernal to me ! 
 Behind its glitter stalks the shadow of Eternal 
 Death ; through it too I look not • up into the 
 divine eyes/ as Richter has it, ' but down into 
 the bottomless eyesocket' — not up towards God, 
 Heaven, and the Throne of Truth, but too truly 
 down towards Falsity, Vacuity, and the dwell- 
 ing-place of Everlasting Despair/' 
 
 It was, no doubt, from considerations of a 
 moral kind that the celebrated Swedish voca- 
 list, Jenny Lind, was induced, at a great pro- 
 fessional sacrifice, to relinquish the operatic 
 stage. Mr. Sheridan Knowles, also, may be 
 presumed to have renounced the stage, both as 
 an author and an actor, in uniting in church 
 communion with the Baptist denomination, 
 three of whose ablest ministers he formerly 
 
92 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 withstood in a controversy on the immoral 
 tendency of the stage."* 
 
 But there is yet another testimony against 
 the theatre and its evils, given in the most 
 impressive manner, by an actor of no small 
 mark and likelihood, within the last few years. 
 We allude to Montague Stanley.! He was 
 devoted to the stage at an early period of 
 life, and became strongly attached to it. He 
 was first brought into notice in Edinburgh, 
 where he was engaged in the theatre in 1828 ; 
 and from the first exhibited talents which pro- 
 mised to raise him to distinction in his profes- 
 sion. He was a man of lively and generous 
 impulses, a close observer of nature, possessed 
 a poetical taste and temperament, cultivated a 
 talent for drawing, and painted with growing 
 
 * Now that he is a member of the denomination, three 
 among the ablest of whose ministers he withstood, and in 
 place of his old avocations is found delivering lectures on 
 rhetoric at Stepney Baptist College, "chiefly with a view 
 to secure an easy and elegant style of delivery on the part 
 of the students now training in that institution," possibly 
 he looks back upon the contest we have referred to, with 
 feelings different from those with which he entered into it, 
 and with views not precisely similar to those he then so 
 forcibly enunciated. — Devonport Independent. 
 
 f Memoir of Montague Stanley, A.R.S.A. By the Rev. 
 "D. T. K. Drummond. 
 
MONTAGUE STANLEY. 93 
 
 success for the annual exhibition. All the while 
 his popularity on the stage was increasing. 
 After an engagement in Dublin, and another 
 in London, in 1832-3, he returned to Edinburgh, 
 and continued on the boards of the Theatre 
 Royal till 1838, when he closed his histrionic 
 career in the height of his popularity in that 
 city. He had, some years previously, formed a 
 marriage connection with a family of great re- 
 spectability in Edinburgh, which was destined 
 to give a new complexion to his character and 
 life. One member of this family had gone out 
 to India to practise medicine, and there, like 
 many others of our countrymen, in similar cir- 
 cumstances, was brought to seek after the Lord, 
 whom he had neglected in his father-land. His 
 correspondence with the family breathed the 
 spirit and affection of a renewed nature. Out 
 of a large family circle, not one remained un- 
 influenced by his letters. Mr. Stanley alone 
 held out resolutely, characterising the commu- 
 nications of his brother-in-law as the " rhapso- 
 dies of Methodism/' and their writer as "right- 
 eous over much, and as assuming an air of 
 sanctity which was both unreasonable and 
 absurd/' Still there were indications even in 
 the vehemence of his opposition, that a work of 
 momentous importance was beginning in the 
 
94 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 heart of the proud player. Dimly at first, he 
 began to discern that all was not safe betwixt 
 him and his righteous Judge. As his spiritual 
 perceptions cleared up, he sought refuge in a 
 more rigid adherence to moral duties. " The 
 works of the law became paramount — religion 
 was not only respected, but its observances were 
 attended to — family worship was begun in the 
 evening, and every oath or expression of irre- 
 verence was expunged from the parts which he 
 had to commit to memory for the stage. From 
 tolerating, he was led to hate and condemn 
 sin" In 1837 we find him formally resolv- 
 ing, by the grace of God, " to lead a new life, 
 and become a new creature in Christ/' And we 
 are prepared for discovering, in 1838, a struggle 
 going on betwixt his religious principles and 
 his profession as an actor. His biographer, 
 the Rev. Mr. Drummond, of Edinburgh, who 
 was also his pastor, says: — "He had for years 
 devoted himself to the profession of his choice 
 — one which gratified his tastes, which seemed 
 to open an easy and pleasant path to the rea- 
 lizing of his ambitious hopes, and in the pur- 
 suit of which he had been eminently successful. 
 It may be safely affirmed, that, in the thea- 
 trical profession, few indeed ever had brighter 
 prospects than Mr. Stanley had at the period 
 
MONTAGUE STANLEY. 95 
 
 now mentioned. But the last portion of his 
 service in this profession was anything but 
 happy. All was succeeding with him as re- 
 garded worldly things. He had acquired the 
 esteem and confidence of a considerable circle 
 of friends. He was happy in his home. He 
 was beginning to attain to something more 
 than a local celebrity. He was considered one 
 of the most rising in his profession. He was 
 experiencing the intoxicating draught of popu- 
 lar applause. He was in the receipt of a very 
 handsome income from his professional labours ; 
 and yet amidst all this his mind was ill at ease/' 
 In short, the felt incongruity between his Chris- 
 tian character, and his pursuits as an actor, 
 became intolerable. His conscience told him 
 that he could not hold the high and heavenly 
 principles which had been revealed to him, 
 together with the opinions and feelings he for- 
 merly had cherished. " He saw (says his 
 biographer) that he could not serve God and 
 mammon. Yet what was he to do ? His live- 
 lihood, the support of his family, all depended 
 upon his professional exertions. Was he to 
 throw away the only means apparently within 
 his reach of providing for them ? Was he pre- 
 pared to step down at once with them, from a 
 state of comfort to one of straitened means, 
 
96 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 perhaps of penury ?" Although these sentences 
 follow consecutively in his memoir, it is not to 
 be supposed that Mr. Stanley, after he had be- 
 come convinced of the unchristian character of 
 the stage, hesitated for a single moment as to 
 the duty of leaving it at all hazards ; and 
 modern religious biography exhibits no finer 
 example of simple faith, trustful confidence, 
 singleness of purpose, and promptitude of deci- 
 sion. " No sooner (says his biographer) did 
 he, by the grace of God, discover that he was 
 not honouring God by the course he was pur- 
 suing, than c immediately he conferred not with 
 flesh and blood' — he threw aside every other 
 consideration than that of child-like submis- 
 sion and obedience to the Word of God, and 
 at once resigned his situation with all its pre- 
 sent advantages, and all its future hopes/' 
 His Journal contains the following entries : — 
 "February 14, 1838. — Having resolved to 
 quit the theatrical profession, as contrary to 
 
 the will of God, I this evening told Mr. , 
 
 and decided upon a step which I feel assured the 
 Almighty will bless, since it is for his honour 
 and glory that I take it ; trusting entirely in 
 God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen/' 
 
 "April, 28. — Last night of my dramatic 
 career ; and now thanks be to the Lord who 
 
MONTAGUE STANLEY. 97 
 
 hath called me from darkness to light. / am 
 emancipated from a most ungodly profes- 
 sion. May the Lord bless and prosper me in 
 my new one/' 
 
 We cannot help lingering with a mournful 
 interest on the subsequent career of this noble- 
 minded man, which, although not bearing im- 
 mediately on the subject in hand, furnishes 
 some traits of character which give additional 
 weight to his testimony against the stage, and 
 enhance the magnanimity of his self-sacrifice. 
 Montague Stanley had counted the cost, and 
 taken up the cross, soberly, deliberately, and 
 prayerfully. He had cheerfully surrendered 
 his growing emoluments, and what is dearer 
 to the player, his cherished popularity ; and 
 now we find him embarked on the wide sea 
 of life, and buffeting its billows with a brave 
 heart. His fine talents were in the first in- 
 stance devoted to teaching drawing, elocution, 
 fencing, and the flute, whilst his leisure was 
 given to the cultivation of landscape painting, 
 with a view to its becoming his ultimate pro- 
 fession ; and it is remarked as singularly indi- 
 cative of his gifted mind that he taught all 
 these branches well. His success enabled him 
 ere long to confine himself exclusively to his 
 favourite pursuit as an artist, and a teacher of 
 G 
 
98 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 drawing and painting. Whilst giving lessons 
 in elocution, several persons became his pupils 
 who were avowedly preparing themselves for 
 the theatrical profession. We are told that in 
 such cases he never faltered in his duty. He 
 entreated them to re- consider their resolution. 
 He spoke to them as a Christian man upon the 
 principles involved in their choice, and he 
 spoke to them from experience as to the actual 
 state of things in the theatrical profession. He 
 was successful in dissuading no fewer than five 
 of his pupils from their purpose of entering upon 
 that profession. His love of art induced him to 
 spend his first autumnal holidays in painting 
 from nature amongst the old oaks of Cadzow 
 Forest, at Hamilton, " living in the little cot- 
 tage of the keeper of the Duke's white cattle." 
 " While he laboured with his pencil during the 
 day, he did not neglect his higher calling as a man 
 of God. Mr. Stanley formed a little church in 
 the house ; and every morning and evening- 
 did he gather the inmates together, and the 
 Bible was read, and prayer offered up, and the 
 voice of praise was heard ascending from the 
 little band/' And the savour of his faithful 
 warnings, his fervent prayers, and his humble 
 walk, was long after cherished in that rural 
 abode. But his close application and laborious 
 
 
MONTAGUE STANLEY. 99 
 
 efforts, mental and physical, proved too much 
 for his constitution. He removed to the island 
 of Bute, where symptoms of consumption were 
 developed; and died there in May, 1844. We 
 have seen what he sacrificed for conscience' 
 sake, and what was the manner of his life. We 
 add a single quotation more to illustrate the 
 peace of his death. On the last Sabbath that 
 he spent on earth, in his cottage at Ascog, after 
 listening to some passages of the Word of God, 
 upon which his soul fed continually — " Stretched 
 upon his bed, Montague watched the people as 
 they passed along the road on their way to the 
 sanctuary — the house of prayer — where he was 
 never again to worship with them but in spirit, 
 where his voice had been so often heard leading 
 the psalm of praise and thanksgiving, and where 
 he had, Sabbath after Sabbath, spoken to the 
 school children of a Saviour and a God of love. 
 The chapel-bell ceased, and no sound was heard 
 but the ripple of the tide upon the beach, and 
 the carolling of the birds, but these were sounds 
 in harmony with his feelings. Everything in 
 the vegetable world was awaking into life, 
 and nature, after her winter sleep, again sprang 
 forth with renewed vigour and the activity of 
 health ; but our dear brother, before the sum- 
 mer of his life had closed, was withering away 
 
100 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 That liis mind was at this time occupied in 
 dwelling upon the glories that were yet to be 
 revealed to him, I have no doubt ; for, when 
 the Kev. Mr. Monteith called at the close of the 
 morning service, and as he entered, said, ' Well, 
 after all, this is certainly a beautiful world we 
 live in/ Montague placed his finger on his eye 
 and on his ear, and gazed expressively towards 
 heaven. Mr. Monteith interpreted the action, 
 and repeated, 'Eye hath not seen/ &c, whereon 
 Montague smiled, and nodded assent/' Again, 
 " Do you remember " — he wrote, on a subsequent 
 day, when he could scarcely articulate, in con- 
 versation with a brother-in-law — and what a 
 contrast betwixt the enjoyments to which his 
 recollections now turned, and those which he 
 had once derived from the plaudits of the gay 
 and giddy throng — " do you remember the 
 Sabbath-days we used to pass at Ascog church, 
 and the sweet counsel we took together at the 
 school ?" 
 
 An anecdote is quoted by Mr. James, of a 
 noted comedian named Shuter, in Mr. Whit- 
 field's time, showing the unhappy life he led, 
 from the consciousness of following "an ungodly 
 profession/' without the grace which enabled 
 Montague Stanley to emancipate himself from 
 its thraldom. Shuter had trembled under the 
 
SHUTER THE PLAYER. 101 
 
 preaching of Whitfield, while warning his 
 hearers of a judgment to come. He also occa- 
 sionally attended the ministrations of Mr. Kins- 
 man, and sometimes called upon him in Lon- 
 don. After a period of separation, they met 
 at Plymouth, where Mr. Kinsman was now 
 settled. "I am just returned from London/' 
 said he, " where I have preached so often, and 
 to such large auditories, and have been so 
 indisposed, that Dr. Fothergill advised my 
 immediate return to the country for change of 
 air/' " And I/' said Shuter, " have been act- 
 ing Sir John Falstaff so often, that I thought 
 I should have died, and the physicians advised 
 me to come into the country for the benefit of 
 the air. Had you died, it would have been 
 in serving the best of masters ; but had I, it 
 would have been in the service of the devil. 
 ! Sir, do you think I shall ever be called 
 again ? I certainly was once ; and if Mr. Whit- 
 field had let me come to the Lord's table with 
 him, I never should have gone back again. 
 But the caresses of the great are exceedingly 
 ensnaring. My Lord E sent for me to- 
 day, and I was glad I could not go. Poor 
 things ! they are unhappy, and they want 
 Shuter to make them laugh. But, ! Sir, 
 such a life as yours. As soon as I leave you, 
 
102 THE SCHOOL OF VIKTUE. 
 
 I shall be King Kichard. This is what they 
 call a good play, as good as some sermons. I 
 acknowledge there are some striking and moral 
 things in it ; but, after it, I shall come in again 
 with my farce of 'A Dish of all Sorts/ and 
 knock all that on the head. Fine reformers 
 we ! " A Methodist minister, now in India, 
 sometime since published an account of his in- 
 tercourse with Mr. Power the comedian, during 
 their voyage to New York in company. On 
 s their parting, Mr. Power shook his companion 
 by the hand, expressing, with much feeling, 
 and in terms not unlike poor Shuter's, his con- 
 sciousness of the unhappy service in which he 
 was engaged, as compared with that of a mini- 
 ster of the gospel. Power was afterwards lost 
 in the President steamship. 
 
 In relinquishing the stage as a profession, 
 Montague Stanley acted upon a Scriptural 
 principle, which ought to restrain Christians 
 from countenancing it as an amusement — " Be 
 not conformed to this world ; but be ye trans- 
 formed by the renewing of your mind/' The 
 difference between these two conditions is as 
 wide as words can make it. The precept de- 
 scribes a change of heart and habit, of taste 
 and pursuit, nothing short of an entire renewal. 
 It admits of no intermediate state. Conformity 
 
THE TESTING PRINCIPLE. 103 
 
 to the world's maxims and its ways, is one 
 thing ; transformation, after the Christian 
 model of principle and action, is diametrically 
 the opposite. It is a change feebly imaged by 
 the metamorphosis of the creeping caterpillar 
 into the winged and gilded butterfly. The 
 line of demarcation betwixt the two descrip- 
 tions of character is broad and impassable. 
 Christianity is on one side ; on the other, 
 worldly-mindedness. "Ye cannot serve God 
 and mammon/' Let this test be applied to 
 the pleasures and pursuits of Christians and 
 men of the world. " Where the treasure is, 
 there will the heart be also/' A man's cha- 
 racter is evinced by his amusements, as well 
 as by the choice of his friends and books. Tell 
 me what pleasures you indulge in, and I will 
 tell you what you are. The Scriptures, in 
 presenting us with a testing principle for our 
 pursuits and enjoyments, require us to go 
 through with it. No principle is less liable to 
 misconception. It possesses the virtue of Ithu- 
 riel's spear. The true and the false are made 
 apparent by its touch. Apply it to the theatre. 
 It is pre-eminently a worldly amusement. It 
 is indeed fashionable and fascinating, — granted. 
 It might be both, and yet be innocent, except 
 when indulged in to excess. But, reader, it 
 
104 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 must have been established to your conviction, 
 by the accumulated testimonies of the preceding 
 pages, that innocent it cannot be regarded. 
 From the general description of its literature ; 
 from the average character of its frequenters ; 
 from its injurious effects upon the great pro- 
 portion of those who have the misfortune to 
 be connected with it as a profession, it has been 
 proved that it is an immoral amusement. Its 
 boasted morality is not that of the Word of 
 God, which owns no other school of virtue, and 
 proclaims all efforts to supplement its lessons 
 as gratuitous and presumptuous. " The law 
 of the Lord is perfect/' And when the holy 
 Oracles declare that c: the lips of the righteous 
 shall feed many/' it is no breach of charity 
 to aver that stage-players are not included 
 amongst the teachers, nor the frequenters of 
 the theatre amongst the taught. The morals 
 of the stage are lower even than those of the 
 world ; and general society, irrespective alto- 
 gether of that portion of it making a profession 
 of religion, repudiates alike its teachers and its 
 lessons. Is the theatre, then, a place which a 
 Christian can consistently enter, far less fre- 
 quent, for the purpose of amusement? If in 
 the expression a the world/' the inspired writer 
 included frivolous and corrupting amusements, 
 
WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. 105 
 
 surely amongst these the theatre stands in the 
 foremost rank ; and to it, therefore, the precept 
 applies with peculiar emphasis, " Be not con- 
 formed to the world/' " The controversy would 
 be short indeed/' Mr. Wilberforce* has re- 
 marked on this subject, " if the question were to 
 be tried by the criterion of love to the Supreme 
 Being. If there were anything of that sensi- 
 bility for the honour of God, and of that zeal 
 in His service which we show in behalf of our 
 earthly friends, or of our political connections, 
 should we seek our pleasure in that place which 
 the debauchee, inflamed with wine, or bent on 
 the gratification of other licentious appetites, 
 finds most congenial to his state and temper of 
 
 mind? In that place where when 
 
 moral principles are inculcated, they are not 
 such as a Christian ought to cherish in his 
 bosom, but such as it must be his daily endea- 
 vour to extirpate — not those which Scripture 
 warrants, but those which it condemns as false 
 and spurious, .... where, surely, if a Chris- 
 tian shall trust himself at all, it would be requi- 
 site for him to prepare himself with a double 
 portion of watchfulness and seriousness of mind, 
 instead of selecting it as the place in which he 
 
 * Practical View of Christianity . 
 
106 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 may throw off his guard, and unbend without 
 danger \" 
 
 The theatre is a favourite resort of young 
 men. Dear young brother, these pages have 
 been written, and these authorities of the wise 
 and good adduced, in the earnest hope of dis- 
 suading you from ever crossing its threshold, 
 " Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass 
 away/' Eesist the first temptation. No other 
 amusement has been so fertile in corrupted man- 
 ners, and ruined reputations, as this hot-bed of 
 vice and folly. Doubtless, many escape the worst 
 effects of the moral pollution of a play-house, as 
 they might the physical contagion of a pest- 
 house ; but no one has a right to calculate on this 
 immunity, and rashly venture in where others 
 are falling victims to the poisoned atmosphere 
 of the place. " You must eschew, if you would 
 be safe, that accursed casuistry which should 
 dispose you to inquire how near you might go 
 to what is dangerous, and adopt that which 
 will teach you rather to consider at how great 
 a distance you can keep yourselves from what 
 is sinful. Instead of tampering with tempta- 
 tion, and running with open eyes into scenes of 
 peril, deeply conscious of the corruption and 
 manifold deceitfulness of your hearts, you will 
 do well oft to send up to the throne of the 
 
DEATH-BED RETROSPECT. 107 
 
 Eternal, the earnest ejaculation, " Turn away 
 mine eyes from beholding vanity/' * 
 
 Do you make a profession of Christianity, 
 and have you been to the theatre ? You are 
 a member of a Christian congregation ; how 
 should you feel towards your pastor had you 
 seen him witnessing, along with you, a frivolous 
 comedy or a*n indecent ballet ? If you are a Sab- 
 bath-school teacher, how should you like to meet 
 your scholars there ? Yet, if you can attend 
 the theatre consistently with your religious 
 profession, why may not they do the same? 
 But it is a light thing to be tried by man's 
 judgment. The question must be determined 
 at a higher tribunal, and it will be well if it is 
 studied, ere it be too late, in the light of eter- 
 nity. A lady was expatiating to the pious 
 Hervey on the pleasures of the play. " What 
 are those pleasures?" he inquired. a They are 
 three/' replied the lady — " pleasure before the 
 play, pleasure during the play, and pleasure 
 after the play." " You have omitted another 
 pleasure/' rejoined Hervey. "What is that, Sir ?" 
 asked the lady eagerly. " The pleasure which 
 it will afford you on a death-bed." Who does 
 
 * Discourse on Amusements of Youth By Dr. W. 
 Symington. 
 
108 THE SCHOOL OF VIRTUE. 
 
 not shudder at the thought of being suddenly 
 summoned from the voluptuous and impure 
 enjoyments of the theatre, into the presence of 
 the Judge of all the earth \ Who amidst its 
 giddy and delirious pleasures, or after they are 
 over, dare invoke the Divine blessing upon 
 them ? 
 
 They tell us of a valley in a distant island. 
 teeming with vegetable forms of tropical beauty, 
 where an invisible vapour is ever suspended, 
 which the unsuspecting traveller inhales and 
 perishes ; and a scene which, to the observer. 
 is superficially one of attractive loveliness, is 
 strewed below with dead men's bones. Such 
 a scene of seductive and perilous fascination is 
 the stage. The wrecks of youthful purity and 
 promise are there, and the gaunt spectres 
 blighted characters, and the despairing cry ot 
 disappointed hopes. Young brother, you may 
 venture to the theatre, and perhaps remain 
 scatheless. It is a hard battle where none 
 escapes. But your true safety is in flight. 
 " Escape for thy life ; tarry not in all the plain : 
 but flee unto the mountain." As young men 
 form the most numerous class of supporters of 
 the stage, so the moral desolation which it has 
 wrought in society has always fallen principally 
 and primarily upon them ; and all experience 
 
YOUTHFUL WRECKS. 
 
 109 
 
 and observation warrant us in predicating of a 
 large proportion of the youthful votaries of the 
 play, that their doom is as certainly sealed, as if 
 it were written in the language which the poet 
 saw inscribed upon the gloomy portals of the 
 " Inferno "— 
 
 " Abandon hope, all ye who enter here ! " 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 THE CHEAP THEATRES. 
 
 Dr. Griscom of New York, in a report made a few years 
 ago on the sources of vice and crime in that city, says, 
 " Among the causes of vicious excitement in our city, none 
 appear to be so powerful in their nature as theatrical 
 amusements. The number of boys and young men who 
 have become determined thieves, in order to obtain the 
 means of introduction to the theatres and circuses, would 
 appall the feelings of every virtuous mind, could the whole 
 truth be laid before them." 
 
 The Hon. and Rev. H. Montagu Yilliers, in a discourse 
 delivered before the Young Men's Christian Association of 
 London, in 1851, says, " I had occasion to investigate the 
 books of a Penitentiary last year, and 1 was told, without 
 any qualification, that the majority of the inmates, who 
 were seeking to recover their characters in these places, 
 were first seduced from the paths of virtue at theatres, 
 races, or tea-gardens." 
 
 Mr. M c Callum, the respectable Governor of the Glasgow 
 House of Refuge for Boys, has obligingly furnished the 
 writer with the following notes, as average specimens of 
 
112 APPENDIX. 
 
 the cases of youthful delinquents placed under his charge, 
 with a view to their reformation : — 
 
 Jan. 28, 1852. — W. D., aged eleven years, sent here 
 on the 28th of January, by Baillie Mitchell, charged with 
 theft. Was born in Ireland, and came to this country 
 with his father six years ago. Began to go wrong three 
 years ago, by associating with the boys who came about 
 the shows. In his own words, " Stole whatever I could 
 lay my hands upon." Had seen nothing but wickedness, 
 as far back as he can remember, about these shows. 
 
 Feb. 6, 1852. — W. G., aged fourteen years, sent here 
 on the 6th inst., by Baillie M c Gregor, charged with theft. 
 Was born in Liverpool. Parents are both living in South- 
 ampton. Ban away from his parents and came to Glasgow. 
 Has been at sea. Fell in with a gang of bad boys, who 
 reside about Cheapside Street, technically known among 
 thieves as the Barracks. With them he commenced his 
 depredations by stealing iron, copper, lead, rags, ropes, 
 &c, which they sold in rag shops, and spent the money in 
 theatres and shows, which they regularly attended. Was 
 eleven times in the different police-offices, and twice in 
 Bridewell ; once for sixty days, and another time for six 
 weeks. 
 
 Feb, 20, 1852. — W. M'G,, aged fourteen years, sent 
 here on the 20th of February, by Baillie Stewart, charged 
 with theft. Was born in Alloa, and came to Glasgow- 
 five years ago. Father and mother both living. Was 
 some time employed in a rope-work, where he got 3s. a- 
 week ; left that about a year ago, and began to go astray ; 
 first, by associating with bad boys, and then took to steal- 
 ing. First stole two short-gowns from step-mother, which 
 
THE CHEAP THEATRES. 113 
 
 he sold for lOd.y and spent sixpence of it in the shows, 
 and the rest in sweetmeats. Was fond of the shows and 
 theatres, and constantly stole to get to them. Was greatly 
 addicted to lying, swearing, stealing, and Sabbath-breaking. 
 
 May 7, 1852. — D. G., aged thirteen years, recommended 
 here by Baillie Gourlay, and taken up on the 7th of May, 
 by his mother, a widow. Was led astray about two years 
 ago ; first, by bad companions. Began by stealing a shil- 
 ling from his mother, which he spent in sweetmeats and 
 the shows. His father took him there the first time, and 
 afterwards he stole regularly to get to them. 
 
 May 7, 1852. — J. B., aged twelve years, sent here on 
 the 7th of May, by Baillie Bogle, accused of theft. Was 
 born in Ireland, and came to this country when a child. 
 Was four years in the Industrial School ; learned to read 
 and write there, and was at the tailoring trade. Was led 
 astray by bad boys, who were sent from the police-office. 
 Eirst learned to steal pocket handkerchiefs, and on a Sab- 
 bath evening picked sometimes nine, which they sold in 
 the Wynds to the wee pawns, and got from Zd. to Is. for 
 each of them. This money was spent at the shows and 
 theatres, and on sweetmeats, of which he was very fond. 
 
 Mr. M'Callum adds, " I took fifty boys, not selected, 
 but in the order of their admission, and no fewer than 
 forty of them, either began, or were confirmed in their 
 course of crime, by means of the theatres and shows. These 
 places are the most fruitful sources of juvenile delinquency 
 and immorality in the city. They pander to the passions, 
 and supply vicious excitement, in the shape of such plays 
 as " The Pirates," " Jack Sheppard," &c, which have a 
 most demoralizing effect on the youthful community. I 
 H 
 
114 APPENDIX. 
 
 have seen two or three hundred young persons, from ten 
 to twenty years of age, coming out of an evening from 
 one of these places, upwards of three-fourths of whom 
 stole to get there ! The shows and theatres annually 
 enlist a large staff of fresh recruits to supply the places 
 of those whom the vigilance of the police has lodged in 
 the jail, or the judge's sentence expelled the country. 
 In my opinion (and I had some experience during eight 
 years in the City Mission), until the shows, theatres, 
 saloons, &c, are swept away, the Sabbath-school teacher's 
 labour will be greatly retarded, and his sanguine hopes 
 often doomed to the bitterest disappointment. All who 
 have the best interests, temporal and spiritual, of the youth 
 of our city at heart, ought to make a combined and irre- 
 sistible effort to abolish these nuisances without delay." 
 
 ADDITIONAL TESTIMONIES AGAINST THE STAGE. 
 
 Miss Joanna Baillie, though she does not absolutely 
 condemn the stage, is constrained, as a moralist, to pro- 
 test against fashionable comedy. "The moral tendency 
 of it," she observes, " is very faulty ; that mockery of 
 age and domestic authority, so constantly held forth, has 
 a very bad effect on the younger part of an audience; 
 and that continual lying and deceit in the first characters 
 of the piece, which is necessary for conducting the plot, 
 has a most pernicious one." 
 
 The Hon. and Rev. H. M. Yilliers says—" An indivi- 
 
ADDITIONAL TESTIMONIES. 115 
 
 dual can know but little of life in London, who is not 
 aware that the neighbourhood of the theatre is, of all 
 others, the most prolific in sensuality and vice. That 
 neighbourhood cannot be worse naturally. It can only 
 be that it is more suited for that particular trade, owing 
 to the customers being such as are the commonest fre- 
 quenters of the theatre." 
 
 During the progress of the most ferocious revolution 
 which ever insulted the face of heaven, theatres, in Paris 
 alone, multiplied from six to twenty-five. Now, one of 
 two conclusions follows from this: either the spirit of 
 the times produced the institutions, or the institutions 
 cherished the spirit of the times; and this would cer- 
 tainly go to prove, that they are either the parents of 
 vice or the offspring of it. 
 
 In one of the essays published by the Jansenists of the 
 Port Royal in Prance, is the following remark : — " It is 
 so true that plays are almost always a representation of 
 vicious passions, that the most part of Christian virtues 
 are incapable of appearing upon the stage. It would be 
 strange to see a modest and silent religious person re- 
 presented." 
 
 Dr. Witherspoon observes — "Whatever debate there 
 be, whether good men may attend the theatre, there can be 
 no question at all, that no openly vicious man is an enemy 
 to it, and that far the greatest part of them do passion- 
 ately love it." As to the lawfulness of Christians fre- 
 quenting the theatre, the same writer says — "Por many 
 ages there was no debate upon it at all. There were 
 players; but they did not pretend to be Christians them- 
 selves, and they had neither countenance nor support 
 
116 APPENDIX. 
 
 from any who did. Whereas now there are abundance of 
 advocates for the lawfulness, some for the usefulness, of 
 plays, — not that the stage is become more pure, but that 
 Christians are become less so, and have lowered the stan- 
 dard or measure requisite to attain and preserve that 
 character." 
 
 The Rev. William Law remarked, that, "If a person 
 were to make a collection of all the wicked, blasphemous, 
 lewd, impudent, detestable things that are said in the 
 playhouse only in one season, it would appear to be such 
 a mass of sin, as would sufficiently justify any one in say- 
 ing, that the profession of players is the most wicked and 
 detestable in the world. All people, therefore, who ever 
 enter their house, or contribute the smallest mite towards 
 it, must look upon themselves as having been so far 
 friends to the most powerful instrument of debauchery, 
 and to be guilty of contributing to a bold, open, and 
 public exercise of impudence, impurity, and profaneness." 
 "Be not partaker of other men's sins." 
 
 Sir Andrew Agnew, on first going to London, was ac- 
 companied by his elder boys, of the ages of twelve and 
 thirteen; and on their account he once more made an 
 experiment which he had before tried for himself. He 
 thought (says Dr. Thomas M'Crie, his biographer), that 
 they would naturally wish to see and judge for themselves 
 of such places of amusement as Astley's, Sadler's Wells, 
 and Covent Garden ; and he once accompanied them to 
 the latter theatre. One visit was, however, sufficient. He 
 found, as an eminent Christian once said, that " either he 
 was changed, or all the world was changed." Everything 
 appeared in a new light to him ; and he remarked, " I do 
 
ADDITIONAL TESTIMONIES. 117 
 
 not understand how it was, that when I formerly attended 
 such things, they did not strike me in the same way. I 
 must surely have been more occupied with the party that 
 I went with, than with the proceedings on the stage ; for, 
 do you know that actually the main thing in the play I 
 witnessed with my boys was just a low piece of intrigue, 
 most revolting to good taste ; and the attempt at conceal- 
 ment of vice, with the discovery made at last, constituted 
 the whole interest of the piece; while any allusion to 
 morality or better feelings, seemed so out of place as 
 only to make it worse. Of the characteis that frequent 
 such places," he continued, " I was aware, and felt it to 
 be an argument against them ; but I had certainly forgot 
 the depraved and revolting nature of the performances 
 themselves. I shall never go again myself, and far less 
 take my children to such places. 5 ' 
 
 Dr. Samuel Johnson, in his Life of Savage, speaks of the 
 condition of an actor, as that which makes almost " every 
 man, for whatever reason, contemptuous, insolent, petu- 
 lant, selfish, and brutal." 
 
 A modern writer observes : — " I am as sensible as any 
 man of the wonderful talents of that poet, Shakspere ! 
 For force of language, for exhaustless invention, for an 
 insight into human nature, for a power to touch and rend 
 the heart, he is unequalled, and stands amongst dramatists 
 as a diamond among pearls ; but while I honour his intel- 
 lectual capacities, I must deeply lament their miserable 
 abuse. So far from having a moral end before him, he 
 has frequently its opposite, and seems indifferent to moral 
 results. His licentious witticisms, his corrupt allusions, 
 many times repeated, render many parts of his works, 
 
118 APPENDIX. 
 
 in a moral light, the objects of indignation and dis- 
 gust." 
 
 Sir John Hawkins, in his Life of Br. Samuel Johnson, 
 observes : — " Although it is said of plays, that they teach 
 morality, and of the stage, that it is the mirror of human 
 life ; these assertions are mere declamation, and have no 
 foundation iu truth or experience. On the contrary, a 
 playhouse, and the regions about it, are the very hot-beds 
 of vice. How else comes it to pass, that no sooner is a 
 playhouse opened in any part of the kingdom, than it be- 
 comes surrounded by a host of brothels ? Of this truth 
 
 the neighbourhood of has had experience : one 
 
 parish alone, adjacent thereto, having, to ray knowledge, 
 expended the sum of £1300 in prosecutions for the pur- 
 pose of removing those inhabitants, whom, for the instruc- 
 tion in the science of human life, the playhouse had drawn 
 together." 
 
 Archbishop Tillotson characterized playhouses as "devil's 
 chapels," and "schools and nurseries of lewdness and vice." 
 
 It is recorded of Sir Matthew Hale, that "he was an 
 extraordinary proficient at school, and for some time at 
 Oxford ; but the stage players coming thither, he was so 
 much corrupted by seeing plays, that he almost wholly 
 forsook his studies. By this he not only lost much time, 
 but found that his head was thereby filled with vain images 
 of things ; and being afterwards sensible of the mischief 
 of this, he resolved, upon his coming to London, never 
 to see a play again, to which resolution he constantly 
 adhered." 
 
 The American Congress, soon after the Declaration of 
 Independence, -passed the following motion: — ■ 
 
ADDITIONAL TESTIMONIES. 119 
 
 " Whereas, true religion and good morals are the only 
 solid foundation of public liberty and happiness ; 
 
 "Resolved, that it be, and hereby is, earnestly recom- 
 mended by the several States, to take the most effectual 
 measures for the encouragement thereof, and for the sup- 
 pressing of theatrical entertainments, horse-racing, gaming, 
 and such other diversions as are productive of idleness, 
 dissipation, and a general depravity of principles and man- 
 ners." 
 
 THE STAGE HOLDING THE MIRROR UP TO NATURE." 
 
 (From The Races — The Theatre, by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, 
 United States.) 
 
 It is too true. There is scarcely an evil incident to 
 human life, which may not be fully learned at the theatre. 
 Here nourishes every variety of wit — ridicule of sacred 
 things, burlesques of religion, and licentious double-en - 
 tendres. Nowhere can so much of this lore be learned, 
 in so short a time, as at the theatre. There one learns 
 how pleasant a thing is vice ; amours are consecrated ; 
 license is prospered ; and the young come away alive to 
 the glorious liberty of conquest and lust. But the stage 
 is not the only place about the drama where human nature 
 is learned. In the boxes, the young may make the ac- 
 quaintance of those who abhor home and domestic quiet ; 
 of those who glory in profusion and obtrusive display ; of 
 those who expend all, and more than their earnings, upon 
 
120 APPENDIX. 
 
 gay clothes and jewellery; of those who think it no harm 
 to borrow their money without leave from their employer's 
 till ; of those who despise vulgar appetite, but affect 
 polished and genteel licentiousness. Or he may go to 
 the pit, and learn the whole round of villain-life, from 
 masters in the art. He may sit down among thieves, 
 swindlers, broken-down men of pleasure — the coarse, the 
 vulgar, the debauched, the inhuman. Or, if still more of 
 human nature is wished, he can learn yet more ; for the 
 theatre epitomizes every degree of corruption. Let the 
 virtuous young scholar go to the gallery, and learn there, 
 decency, modesty, and refinement, among the women who 
 are regularly to be found there ! Ah ! there is no place 
 like the theatre for learning human nature! A young 
 man can gather up more experimental knowledge here in 
 a week, than elsewhere in half a year. But I wonder 
 that the drama should ever confess the fact ; and yet more 
 that it should lustily plead in self-defence that theatres 
 teach men so much of human nature ! If you would per- 
 vert the taste — go to the theatre. If you would imbibe 
 false views — go to the theatre. If you would efface, as 
 speedily as possible, all qualms of conscience — go to the 
 theatre. If you would put yourself irreconcileably against 
 the spirit of virtue and religion — go to the theatre. If 
 you would be infected with each particular vice in the 
 catalogue of depravity — go to the theatre. Let parents, 
 who wish to make their children weary of home and quiet 
 domestic enjoyments, take them to the theatre. If it be 
 desirable for the young to loathe industry and didactic 
 reading, and burn for fierce excitements, and seek them 
 by stealth or through pilferings, if need be — then send 
 
PRIVATE THEATRICALS. 121 
 
 them to the theatre. Theatres which should exhibit 
 nothing but the classic drama, would exhibit it to empty 
 seats. They must be corrupt, to live; and those who 
 attend them will be corrupted. 
 
 PRIVATE THEATRICALS. 
 (From Lecture on the Stage, by Rev. F. Close, Cheltenham.) 
 
 " Why should we not have our private theatricals ? in 
 which all that is offensive to good taste and the most re- 
 fined delicacy shall be excluded, in which neither improper 
 persons shall act, nor indelicate allusions be tolerated, or 
 improper displays on any account be allowed ?" I reply 
 — that questioning the possibility even of this, and sus- 
 pecting, if I am rightly informed, that there is generally, 
 even here, a mingling of public and private performers 
 which may be very dangerous to the latter ; yet supposing 
 it all possible, and indeed accomplished, I still object to 
 these amusements. And chiefly upon this ground; so 
 favourable an exhibition of the Drama is calculated to 
 create and cherish a taste and an inclination for the art, 
 especially in the minds of the young, many of whom will 
 be allowed by their parents to attend such performances 
 who would not have been suffered to enter a play-house ! 
 Hence the private amateur stage becomes the forerunner 
 of more public and objectionable exhibitions. For it is 
 not in human nature to suppose, that an appetite for 
 theatrical amusements being once created, the occasional 
 
122 APPENDIX. 
 
 and meagre performances of amateurs will satisfy it. The 
 transition from the one to the other, in most cases, will 
 be found natural, easy, and almost certain — just as when 
 children have consumed the apple they eat the peel ! The 
 same principle operates in most things. I remember that 
 when the Scottish novels appeared, hundreds read them 
 who would never have dipped into the common trash of 
 novels ; and I was informed at the time by several book- 
 sellers, that, so far from a purer taste being generated by 
 that very superior class of works of fiction, an appetite 
 for desultory and noxious reading was created, and, when 
 the better ones were devoured, recourse was had to all 
 the garbage of the circulating library, and an actual im- 
 pulse was given to novel reading. Thus I greatly fear it 
 will be with the purified Stage of the Amateurs. They 
 themselves will not contribute directly to the corruption 
 of the stage ; but they will create and foster a theatrical 
 taste, they will be the means of tempting many first in a 
 less criminal and then in a more criminal manner, until 
 those who first imbibed the pleasures of the Drama at the 
 hands of the amateur, will be found night after night in 
 the crowded avenues and abominable purlieus of the me- 
 tropolitan theatres. And since we have proved what 
 these are, we hesitate not to condemn the amusements 
 which naturally lead to them. If we would not have the 
 pollution and abomination of the one, we must take care 
 how we entrap the young in the fascinating meshes of the 
 other ! Again we say, even innocent amusements, sup- 
 posing them to be so, are bought too dearly if they occa- 
 sion, even remotely, such enormous evils. 
 
DEATH OF THE OLD ACTOR. 123 
 
 THE OLD ACTOR. 
 
 (From Blackwood s Magazine.) 
 
 Aloft the rustling curtain flew 
 That gave the mimic scene to view, 
 How gaudy was the suit he wore, 
 His cheeks with red how plastered o'er ! 
 
 Poor veteran ! that in life's late day, 
 With tottering step and locks of gray, 
 Essayest each trick of antic glee ; 
 Oh ! my heart bleeds at sight of thee. 
 
 A laugh of triumph ! and so near 
 The closing act and humble bier ; 
 This thy ambition ! this thy pride ! 
 Far better thou hadst earlier died. 
 
 Though memory long has owned decay, 
 And dim the intellectual ray, 
 Thou toil'st from many an idle page, 
 To cram the feeble brain of age. 
 
 A tear creeps down his cheeks — with pain 
 His limbs the wasted form sustain ; 
 Ay — weep ! no thought thy tears are worth, 
 So the pit shakes with boisterous mirth. 
 
 Dead in his chair the old man lay, 
 His colour had not passed away; 
 Clay-cold the ruddy cheeks declare 
 What hideous mockery lingers there. 
 
 Yes ! there the counterfeited hue 
 Unfolds with moral truth to view, 
 How false his every mimic part, 
 His life, his labours, and his art. 
 
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