The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor | Page 6

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supported the stage against its enemies; but though he was able to
support the actors in life, he had not power or influence sufficient to
obtain for them consolation in death; the rights of the church and
christian burial being refused to them by the clergy.
In England, where the clouds of religious intolerance were first broken
and dispersed by the reformation, the stage has flourished, and
exhibited a mass of excellence and a constellation of genius
unparalleled in the annals of the world. There it has been encouraged
and admired by men whose authority, as persons deeply versed in
christian theology and learned as it is given to human creatures to be,
we do not scruple to prefer to that of the persons who raise their voices
against the stage. Milton, Pope, Addison, Johnson, Warburton, bishop
of Gloucester, and many others have given their labours to the stage. In
many of his elegant periodical papers Mr. ADDISON has left
testimonies of his veneration for it, and of his personal respect for
players; nay, he wrote several pieces for the stage, in comedy as well as
tragedy; yet we believe it will not be doubted that he was an orthodox
christian. The illustrious POPE, in a prologue which he wrote for one
of Mr. Addison's plays--the tragedy of Cato--speaks his opinion of the
stage in the following lines:
To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to
mend the heart, To make mankind in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er
each scene, and be what they behold: For this the tragic Muse first trod
the stage, Commanding tears to stream through every age. Tyrants no
more their savage nature kept, And foes to virtue wondered how they
wept.
Warburton, the friend of Pope, a divine of the highest rank, wrote notes
to Shakspeare. And an infinite number of the christian clergy of as
orthodox piety as any that ever lived, have admired and loved plays and
players. If in religion doctor Johnson had a fault, it certainly was

excessive zeal--and assuredly his morality cannot be called in question.
What his idea of the stage was, may be inferred from his labours, and
from his private friendships. His preface to Shakspeare--his
illustrations and characters of the bard's plays--his tragedy of Irene, of
which he diligently superintended the rehearsal and representation--his
friendship for Garrick and for Murphy--his letters in the Idler and
Rambler, from one of which we have taken our motto for the Dramatic
Censor, and his constant attendance on the theatre, loudly proclaim his
opinion of the stage. To him who would persist to think sinful that
which the scrupulous Johnson constantly did, we can only say in the
words of one of Shakspeare's clowns--"God comfort thy capacity."
One example more. Whatever his political errors may have been, the
present old king of England can never be suspected of coldness in
matters of divinity, or of heterodoxy in religion. His fault in that way
leans to the other side--for it is doubted by the most intelligent men in
England whether his zeal does not border on excess. He has all his life
too taken counsel from those he thought the best divines; yet he has
done much to encourage the stage, and greatly delighted in scenic
representations--particularly in comedy. But as a much stronger proof
of his esteem for the drama, we will barely mention one fact: When his
majesty first read Arthur Murphy's tragedy of the Orphan of China, he
sent the poet a present of a thousand guineas.
The notion that the theatre should be avoided as a stimulant to the
passions deserves some respect on account of its antiquity; for it is as
old as the great grand-mother of the oldest man living. In good times of
yore, when ladies were not so squeamish as they are now about words,
because they did not know their meaning, but were more cautious of
facts, because the meaning of facts cannot be misunderstood, young
men had a refuge from the temptations of the stage in the reserved
deportment and full clothing of domestic society, we cannot wonder
that the good old ladies who abhorred the slightest immodesty in dress
little, if at all less than they abhorred actual vice, should urge to their
sons the necessity of keeping aloof from the allurements of the theatre.
If at that time the costume of the stage differed essentially from that of
private life, and was the reverse of modest, or if the actresses indulged

in meretricious airs which dared not be shown in domestic society,
there was a very just pretence, or rather indeed there was the most
cogent reason for preaching against the theatre. But at this day, no
hypothesis of the kind can be allowed.