The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor | Page 4

the end of each year, into a separate volume.
The work will be embellished with elegant engravings by the first artists.

THE MIRROR OF TASTE,
AND
DRAMATIC CENSOR.
Vol. I. JANUARY 1810. No. 1.

HISTORY OF THE STAGE.
Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem Quam qu? sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et qu? Ipse sibi tradit spectator.[2] Hor. de Arte Poetica.
[Footnote 2: What we hear With weaker passion will affect the heart Than when the faithful eye beholds the part. --Francis. ]
CHAPTER I.
OBJECTIONS TO THE STAGE CONSIDERED AND REFUTED.
That amusement is necessary to man, the most superficial observation of his conduct and pursuits may convince us. The Creator never implanted in the hearts of all his intelligent creatures one common universal appetite without some corresponding necessity; and that he has given them an instinctive appetite for amusements as strong as any other which we labour to gratify, may be clearly perceived in the efforts of infancy, in the exertions of youth, in the pursuits of manhood, in the feeble endeavours of old age, and in the pastimes which human creatures, even the uninstructed savage nations themselves, have invented for their relaxation and delight. This appetite evinces a necessity for its gratification as much as hunger, thirst, and weariness, intimate the necessity of bodily refection by eating, drinking, and sleeping; and not to yield obedience to that necessity, would be to counteract the intentions of Providence, who would not have furnished us so bountifully as he has with faculties for the perception of pleasure, if he had not intended us to enjoy it. Had the Creator so willed it, the process necessary to the support of existence here below might have been carried on without the least enjoyment on our part: the daily waste of the body might be repaired without the sweet sensations which attend eating and drinking; we might have had the sense of hearing without the delight we derive from sweet sounds; and that of smelling without the capability of enjoying the fragrance of the rose: but He whose wisdom and beneficence are above all comprehension, has ordained in another and a better manner, and annexed the most lively sensations of pleasure to every operation he has made necessary to our support, thereby making the enjoyment of pleasure one of the conditions of our existence. This is an unanswerable refutation of one of the most abominable doctrines of the atheists--the overbalance of evil; and as such, that wise and amiable divine, doctor Paley, has made use of it in his Natural Theology. It is true, that yielding to the tendency of our frail, overweening nature to push enjoyment of every kind to its utmost verge, men too often overshoot the mark, and frustrate the object they have most at heart, by eagerness to accomplish it. For though to a reasonable extent and in certain circumstances, all enjoyments are harmless, they degenerate into crimes, when excessively indulged, and particularly when the imagination is overstrained to improve their zest, or to refine or exalt them beyond the limits which Nature and sobriety prescribe. But this can no more be alledged as a reason for renouncing the moderate use of the enjoyment, than the excesses of the drunkard or glutton for the rejection of food and drink.
That man must have amusement of some kind, "Nature speaks aloud." He, therefore, who supplies society with entertainment unadulterated by vice, who contributes to the pleasure without impairing the innocence of his fellow-beings, and above all, who instructs while he delights, may justly be ranked among the benefactors of mankind, and lays claim to the gratitude and respect of the society he serves. To that gratitude and respect the dramatic poet, and those who contribute to give effect to his works, are richly entitled. Accordingly history informs us that in all recorded ages theatrical exhibitions have been not only held in high estimation by the most wise, learned, and virtuous men, but sedulously cultivated and encouraged by legislators as matters of high public importance, particularly in those nations that have been most renowned for freedom and science.
In the multitude and diversity of conflicting opinions which divide mankind upon all, even the most manifest truths, we find some upon this subject. Many well-meaning, sincere christians have waged war against the enjoyment of pleasure, as if it were the will of God that we should go weeping and sorrowing through life. The learned bishop of Rochester, speaking of a religious sect which carries this principle as far as it will go, says: "their error is 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