The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor

The Mirror of Taste, and
Dramatic Censor, by

Stephen Cullen Carpenter This eBook is for the use of anyone
anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You
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Title: The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor Volume I, Number 1
Author: Stephen Cullen Carpenter
Release Date: September 2, 2007 [EBook #22488]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Transcriber's Note:
Typographical errors are listed at the end of the text. No attempt was
made to regularize the use of quotation marks.

The printed book contained the six Numbers of Volume I with their
appended plays. The Index originally appeared at the beginning of the
volume; it has been relocated to the end of the journal text, before the
play. Pages 1-108 refer to the present Number.]

THE MIRROR OF TASTE,
AND
DRAMATIC CENSOR.
Neque mala vel bona quæ vulgus putet. --Tacitus.

PROSPECTUS.
The advantages of a correct judgment and refined taste in all matters
connected with literature, are much greater than men in general imagine.
The hateful passions have no greater enemies than a delicate taste and a
discerning judgment, which give the possessor an interest in the virtues
and perfections of others, and prompt him to admire, to cherish, and
make them known to the world. Criticism, the parent of these qualities,
therefore, mends the heart, while it improves the understanding. The
influence of critical knowledge is felt in every department of social life,
as it supplies elegant subjects for conversation, and enlarges the scope,
and extends the duration of intellectual enjoyment. Without it, the
pleasures we derive from the fine arts would be transient and imperfect;
and poetry, painting, music, and that admirable epitome of life, the
stage, would afford nothing more than a fugitive, useless, pastime, if
not aided by the interposition of the judgment, and sent home, by the
delightful process of criticism, to the memory, there to exercise the
mind to the last of life, to be the amusement of our declining years, and,
when all the other faculties for receiving pleasure are impaired by old
age and infirmity, to cast the sunshine of delight over the last moments
of our existence.

In no age or country has the improvement of the intellectual powers of
man made a larger share of the business of life than in these in which
we live. In the promotion of this spirit the stage has been an instrument
of considerable efficacy, and, as such, lays claim to a full share of
critical examination; yet, owing to some cause, which it seems
impossible to discover, that very important subject has been little
attended to in this great commonwealth; and in Philadelphia, the
principal city of the union, has been almost totally neglected. No
apology, therefore, can be thought necessary for offering the present
work to the public.
The utility of miscellanies of this kind has been sometimes called in
question; nor are those wanting who condemn the whole tribe of light
periodical productions, as detrimental to the advancement of solid
science and erudition: yet, in the most learned and enlightened nations
of Europe, magazines and periodical compilations have, for more than
a century, been circulated with vast success, and, within the last twenty
years, increased in price as well as number, to an extent that shows how
essentially the public opinion, in that quarter of the world differs from
that of the persons who condemn them.
Taking that decision as a decree without appeal, in favour of such
works, the editors think themselves authorized in offering the present
without any formal apology. If the perusal of such productions had a
tendency to prevent the youth of the country from aspiring to deep and
solid erudition, or to divert men of talents from the prosecution of more
important studies, the editors would be among the last to make any
addition to the stock already in circulation; but, convinced that, on the
contrary, works of that kind promote the advancement of general
knowledge, they have no scruple whatever in offering this to the
American people; and so firm do they feel in the conviction of its
utility, that they let it go into the world, unaided by any of those arts, or
specious professions which are sometimes employed, in similar cases,
to excite the attention, enlist the partialities, and seduce the judgment of
the public.
Of those who possess at once the talents, the leisure, and the inclination

to hunt erudition into its deepest recesses, the