The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor | Page 9

whether if it were proposed to act one of Wycherly's, Dryden's, or Otway's offensive plays in its original state, a set of players could be found who would prostitute themselves so far as to perform it.
From the offences of mankind arise despotic restrictions and penal laws of every kind. From the licentiousness of the stage in England, arose the licensing law which still continues to hold a heavy hand over all the dramatic productions that are acted; and which has too often been perverted to corrupt purposes.
But if the abuses of the stage in the times alluded to, serve to show its power to do mischief, the general reformation in the public taste, which followed that of the dramatic writings, equally show its competency to effectuate good. Rousseau, who had little less dislike to plays and players than Jeremy Collier, says, in a letter to D'Alembert, "Let us not attribute to the stage the power of changing opinions or manners, when it has only that of following and heightening them. An author who offends the general taste may as well cease to write, for nobody will read his works. When Moliere reformed the stage he attacked modes and ridiculous customs, but he did not insult the public taste; he either followed or explained it." So far Rousseau was right. It is the public that gives the stage its bias--necessarily preceding it in taste and opinion, and pointing out the direction to its object. In return the stage gives the public a stronger impulse in morals and manners. Wherever the stage is found corrupted with bad morals, it may be taken for granted that the nation has been corrupted before it; when it labours under the evils of a bad taste, it may safely be concluded that that of the public has been previously vitiated. The truth is evident in the wretched state of dramatic taste in England at this moment, where, corrupted by the spectacles and mummery of the Italian opera, by the rage for preternatural agency acquired from the reading of ghost novels and romances, and by the introduction of German plays or translations, the people can relish nothing but melo-drame, show, extravagant incident, stage effect and situation--goblins, demons, fiddling, capering and pantomime, and the managers, in order to live, are compelled to gratify the deluded tasteless multitude at an incalculable expense.
What the advantages are which could be derived from abolishing the stage can only be judged from a view of the moral state of those countries in which the drama has been for ages discouraged and held in disrepute, compared with that of countries where it has been supported and cultivated. Spain comes nearest to a total want of a regular drama of any Christian country in Europe; and if there be any person who prefers the moral state of that country to the moral state of Great Britain or America, we wish him joy of his opinion, and assure him that we admire neither his taste, his argument, nor his inference.
We have thus far entered into a vindication of the stage, not with the slightest hope of changing the opinion of its enemies, nor with the least desire to increase the admiration of its friends; but to awaken public opinion to a sense of its vast importance, and of the advantages which society may derive from giving full and salutary effect to its agency, by generous encouragement, and vigilant control--by directing its operations into proper channels, and fostering it by approbation in every thing that has a tendency to promote virtue, to improve the intellectual powers, and to correct and refine the taste, and the manners of society. This desirable end can only be attained by making it respectable, and sheltering its professors from the insult and oppression of the ignorant, the base-minded, and the illiberal. None will profit by the precepts of those whom they contemn; and the youth of the country will be very unlikely to yield to the authority of the instructor whom they see subjected to the sneers and affronts of the very rabble they themselves despise. Besides, if actors were to be treated with injustice and contumely, young gentlemen of talents and virtue would be deterred from entering into the profession; and the stage would soon become as bad as it is falsely described to be by fanatics--a sink of vice and corruption: but the wisdom and liberality of the British nation, after the example of old Rome, having, on the contrary, given to the gentlemen of the stage their merited rank in society, and raised actors and actresses of irreproachable private character, to associate with the families of peers, statesmen, legislators, and men of the highest rank in the nation, the profession is filled with persons eminently respectable for talents, learning