The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor | Page 7

That beautiful young women
ornamented with every decoration which art can lend to enhance their
charms will perhaps excite admiration and licentious desires, is true;
but that those arts are more generally practised, or those incitements
more strongly or frequently played off on the boards of the theatre than
in respectable private life, our eyes forbid us to believe. He who looks
from the ladies on the stage to those seated on the benches, and
compares their dress and artificial allurements must have either very
strong nerves or very bad sight, if he persist in saying that there is more
danger to be apprehended from the former than the latter. He knows
very little of modern manners and must be a very suckling in the ways
of the world who imagines that a young man has any thing to fear from
the actresses on the stage, who has gone through the ordeal of a
common ball-room, or even walked of a fine day through our streets.
The ladies of London, Dublin, New-York, Philadelphia and Baltimore,
have thrown those of the stage quite into the back ground in the arts of
the toilet. Nor is this qualification confined to those of the haut-ton, but
has descended to tradesmen's wives and daughters; to chambermaids,
laundresses, and wenches of the kitchen white, yellow, and black,
coloured and uncoloured.
Familiarity with impressive objects soon robs them of their influence;
and if our natural disgust and anger at the shameful innovations in the
female costume for which Great Britain and America stand indebted to
the virtues of France, be blunted by the constant obtrusion of them on
our sight, it is to be hoped that the pernicious influence of them upon
public morals will be diminished also. In those regions where a tropical
sun renders clothing cumbersome, and the costume of the ladies of
necessity exceeds a little that of ears in transparency and scantiness,
familiarity renders it harmless; little or nothing is left for the
imagination to feed upon; cheapened by their obviousness, the female
charms are rejected by the fancy which loves to dwell on what it only
guesses at, or has but rarely seen, and the youthful heart finds its
ultimate safety in the apparent excess of its danger. Thus the stage, if it

ever possessed, has lost its vitious allurements, as a bucket of water is
lost in the ocean. To test this reasoning by matter of fact we appeal to
the general feeling, and have no fear of being contradicted when we
assert that, with reference to their comparative numbers, more
mischievous throbs have been excited in every theatre in London,
New-York, and Philadelphia for some years past before, than behind
the curtain.
We are aware that there are some who will object, as a thing taken for
granted, the greater licentiousness of a player's life; but this, before it
can be admitted in argument, must be proved, and the proof of it would
be very difficult indeed. From a long and attentive consideration of the
subject, founded upon a perfect knowledge of the private characters of
the stage, and the general complexion of society off of it, we are
persuaded that in point of intrinsic virtue the players stand exactly on a
par with the general mass of society. That there are offenders against
the laws of morality and religion among them is certain; but it must be
remembered that they labour in this respect under great disadvantages,
from the publicity of their situation. There, they stand exhibited to
public view, every turn of their conduct, private and public, becomes a
subject of general scrutiny. Ten thousand eyes are rivetted upon them,
for one that is fixed upon individuals in private life. And though it often
happens that some of them are suspected whose lives are perfectly pure,
none who have deviated from the paths of virtue can long keep their
fall concealed. Can the same be said of the other departments of life?
No. Now and then indiscretion, accident, or a total abandonment of
decency brings to light the misconduct of an individual; but in general
the irregularities of private life either escape detection or are hushed up
by pride. Sometimes indeed one vitious purpose occasions the detection
of another, and family disgrace is revealed to pave the way to a divorce,
with a view to another marriage, and perhaps to another divorce. Were
the private conduct of individuals in other stations as well known as
that of the people of the stage, the former would have no cause to exult
at the superiority of their morals; and in truth if a candid review be
taken individually of the actresses of the English stage, by which we
mean every stage where the English language is spoken, it will appear