The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor | Page 5

not heterodoxy, but excessive,
overheated zeal." Thus we find that the stage has ever been with many
well-meaning though mistaken men, a constant object of censure. Of
those, a vast number express themselves with the sober, calm
tenderness which comports with the character of christians, while
others again have so far lost their temper as to discard in a great
measure from their hearts the first of all christian attributes--charity.
We hope, for the honour of christianity, that there are but few of the
latter description. There are men however of a very different
mould--men respectable for piety and for learning, who have suffered
themselves to be betrayed into opinions hostile to the drama upon other
grounds: these will even read plays, and profess to admire the poetry,
the language, and the genius of the dramatic poet; but still make war
upon scenic representations, considering them as stimulants to vice--as
a kind of moral cantharides which serves to inflame the passions and
break down the ramparts behind which religion and prudence entrench
the human heart. Some there are again, who entertain scruples of a
different kind, and turn from a play because it is a fiction; while there
are others, and they are most worthy of argument, who think that
theatres add more than their share to the aggregate mass of luxury,
voluptuousness, and dissipation, which brings nations to vitious
refinement, enervation and decay.
In all reasoning of this kind, authority goes a great way, and therefore
before we proceed any further, we will enrol under the banners of our
argument a few high personages, whose names on such an occasion are
of weight to stand against the world, and enumerate some great nations
who reverenced and systematically encouraged the drama. If it can be
shown that some of the most exalted men that ever lived--men eminent
for virtue, high in power and distinction, and illustrious for talents, in
different countries and at different times, have countenanced the stage
and even written for it; nay, that some of that description have
themselves been actors, further argument may well be thought
superfluous: yet we will not rest the matter there, but taking those along
with us as authorities, go on and probe the error to which we allude,

even to the very bone.
It might not be difficult to prove by inference from a multitude of facts
scattered through the history of the world, that a passion for the
dramatic art is inherent in the nature of man. How else should it happen
that in every age and nation of the world, vestiges remain of something
resembling theatrical amusements. It is asserted that the people of
China full three thousand years ago had something of the kind and
presented on a public stage, in spectacle, dialogue and action, living
pictures of men and manners, for the suppression of vice, and the
circulation of virtue and morality. Even the Gymnosophists, severe as
they were, encouraged dramatic representation. The Bramins, whose
austerity in religious and moral concerns almost surpasses belief, were
in the constant habit of enforcing religious truths by dramatic fictions
represented in public. The great and good PILPAY the fabulist, is said
to have used that kind of exhibition as a medium for conveying
political instruction to a despotic prince, his master, to whom he dared
not to utter the dictates of truth, in any other garb. In the obscurity of
those remote ages, the evidences of particular facts are too faintly
discernible to be relied upon: All that can be assumed as certain,
therefore, is that the elementary parts of the dramatic art had then been
conceived and rudely practised. But the first regular play was produced
in Greece, where the great Eschylus, whose works are handed down to
us, flourished not only as a dramatist, but as an illustrious statesman
and warrior.
Without dwelling on the many other examples afforded by Greece, we
proceed to as high authority as can be found among men: we mean
Roscius the Roman actor. That extraordinary man's name is
immortalized by Cicero, who has in various parts of his works
panegyrized him no less for his virtues than for his talents. Of him, that
great orator, philosopher and moralist has recorded, that he was a being
so perfect that any person who excelled in any art was usually called A
ROSCIUS--that he knew better than any other man how to inculcate
virtue, and that he was more pure in his private life than any man in
Rome.

In the Roman catholic countries the priesthood shut out as far as they
could from the people the instruction of the stage. For ages the fire of
the HOLY inquisition kept works of genius of every kind in
suppression all over the south of Europe. In France the