from Moses down to Josephus, it is but a melancholy catalogue of the base qualities I have enumerated. A people possessing all the brutal vices of the ancients, without the display of their virtues, or the adornment of their elegancies. A people whom neither mercy could conciliate, nor miracles convince*.

A people, that of all others, required a theatre to improve their morals, and ame

liorate their manners.

shage, abt. You or the Decalogue Blogs hing texalls the

Let their own writers speak for them: "And they tempted God in their heart, "by asking meat for their lusts."

"How shall I pardon thee for this? Thy

* God's pamper'd people, whom, debauch'd with ease, No King could govern, and no God could please. DRYDEN.

"children have forsaken me, and sworn by "them that are no Gods; when I have fed "them to the full, then they committed adultery and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots houses. They were

66

as fed horses in the morning, and every "one neighed after his neighbour's wife."

"Hear the word of the Lord, ye chil"dren of Israel, for the Lord hath a contro"versy with the inhabitants of the land, "because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor

knowledge of God in the land. By 66 SWEARING, and LYING, and STEALING, " and COMMITTING ADULTERY, they "break out, and, BLOOD toucheth BLOOD!"

Now, Madam, I will give you two happy specimens of downright stupid puri

tanism.

"A remarkable judgment followed on Herod Agrippa, who appearing on THE STAGE in a silver robe of admirable workmanship, and being received by the acclamations of the people as a GOD, because of the beams which darted from his apparel, by the reflection of the sun, was immediately smitten with a grievous disease, by something that appeared in the shape of AN OWL, hovering over his head ; and being tormented for five days with an intollerable pain in his bowels, was at last miserably devoured by worms!" The Lord presarve us !!!

great and holy men.-No-their characters are too exalted to be the subject either of my panegyric or satire. I speak only of the nation at large.

This will only excite your laughter; the next will most sensibly call forth your indignation and reprobation!It is a liberal opinion proclaimed from the pulpit, in one of the churches of Kingston-uponHull, in the year 1792. I take it verbatim, from Mr. Wilkinson's Wandering Patentee, (the late manager of the York and Hull theatres.)

"NO PLAYER or any of his CHILDREN ought to be intitled to a CHRISTIAN BURIAL, or even to lie in a CHURCH YARD! Not ONE of them can be saved? And THOSE who ENTER a play-house, are equally certain with the players of DAMNATION!—No player can be an honest

man!!"

ETERNAL

It is utterly undeserving of any comment; if the man should be now living and capable of reflection, I leave him to

the comforts of his own consolation.-If he has departed, it is my duty to forgive him, and leave the above on record, as a memento of his crime!

I cannot in justice close my retrospective examination, without registering the opinion of Jeremy Collier upon the drama. The praise of an enemy, Madam, must be ever valuable.-Collier was our severe accuser, yet he says, "The business of plays, is to commend virtue, and discountenance vice; to show the uncertainty of human greatness, the sudden turns of fate, and the unhappy conclusions of violence and injustice; 'tis to expose the singularities of pride and fancy, to make folly and falsehood contemptible, and to bring every thing that is ill under infamy and neglect." He further says, "The wit of man cannot invent any thing more conducive to virtue and destructive of vice than the drama, and I grant