beauteous colours, sounds forth their praise, and cherishes them as its most darling

favourites. But, woe! woe! woe! to their opposites!

The jealous husband, the inconstant wife, the cruel father, the abandoned son, the perjured lover, the tyrannical prince, the revolting subject, the hypocritical priest, all become loathsome, and it punishes them to the utmost extent of poetical vengeance.

It was with extreme regret I read Miss Baillie's objection to fashionable comedy, upon the plea of its encouraging disrespect to parents, and weakening the ties of filial obedience. She says, "The moral tendency of it is very faulty; that mockery of age and domestic authority, so constantly held forth, has a very bad effect upon the younger part of an audience."-With all possible

deference to Miss Baillie, I cannot but consider this objection inadmissible. Foolish, weak and wicked parents, are held up to derision and contempt; and so are obstinate, perverse and wilful children. They are equally injurious to the well-being of society, and therefore fair objects for satire. Nor can I conceive the claims of the parents to exemption ; on the contrary, I think they more richly merit exposure and reprobation : for the follies and aberrations of the children are, too frequently, the consequence of the vices and weaknesses of those beings, who expect reverence and esteem in exchange for imbecility and vice. Affection, respect and attention to virtuous parents, can be no where more strongly enforced than on the stage: in fact, it is one of the most imperious ties implanted in the human breast: it would be, therefore, strange indeed, if the dramatic writers, of

:

!

all others, would not avail themselves of a principle capable of producing effect, interest and sympathy. I scarcely remember a play where the filial and parental ties (with the above exceptions) are not placed in the most amiable point of view. If there are harsh, tyranical, passionate, unreasonable, selfish, cruel, parents in nature, why should the mere honour of giving life to their oppressed offspring, shelter them from the indignation of the satirist, or protect them from the punishment due to their errors and absurdities ? Plays would indeed be culpable, if they were to be swayed by such incongruous partialities.

The respect for age, and the veneration for parents, so strongly inculcated and elucidated by numerous instances in the page of history, did not originate in the mere name of sire, or the appearance of silvered

age; but, from the wisdom, virtue, and propriety of the seniors.*

*"If many boys are by the original energy of nature, and the gracious discipline of providence, enabled to outgrow the futile habits of their early years; no thanks to those WICKED or FOOLISH parents, who did every thing to spoil them. Ah, ye mothers of Britain, what a mighty task is yours! Of what superlative importance to the happiness of mankind! How much have those of you to answer for, whose fantastic fondness has, from the very days in which you ought to have laid the foundation of virtue and glory, entailed corruption and dishonour on your offspring. How different from the mothers of antiquity, who, having bred their sons to every thing manly and heroic, were accustomed when they went out to fight for their country,―(that great predominating object to which all others gave way in their affections,)-to charge them either to come back victorious, or to be brought back dead, chusing rather that they should not live than live in shame."

Fordyce's Addresses to Young Men.

That the stage has defects, loud, crying defects, I am willing to acknowledge, but they are only excrescences, they disgrace the trunk, but they cannot vitiate it! It has sufficient strength to permit their eradi. cation, and flourish with ten-fold vigour! But I trust it will be in my power to prove, that even in its present state, it is not composed of the deleterious qualities which bigotry, fanaticisnı, and ignorance, would endeavour to persuade us it is.

I deem a review of the lives of its principal professors to be a fair and justifiable mode of proving its tendency to morality, or its inclination to impurity. If the stage tends to corrupt and debase a nation, the players must, of all people, be the most de. praved and infamous! Probably you will say, “ That the agent merely administer. ing poison, feels none of the effects." True -but if he be obliged to swallow his share