moralists in support of their morality, and censured those indecencies that are unfortunately slightly scattered throughout them, we should have felt ourselves convinced of their impartiality and good intentions; but to describe the productions of our immortal bard in the common mass of plays, "as the common idol and prevailing evil of our dissolute and degenerous age," which " had their rise from hell, yea, their birth and pedigree from the very devil himself," is so false, so base, and so malicious, that Iconfess I am almost ashamed to give the assertions of such an author on other points relating to amusements as worthy of credit from my readers. It may be perceived by many circumstances in Prynne's work, that our old play-wrights were accustomed to derive most of the plots of their representations from the Heathen Mythology. "In all our stage-plays," says this zealot, "we have most usually the parts and persons of devils, gods and goddesses, of Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Venus, Vulcan, Saturn, Cupid, Neptune, Mercury, Esculapius, Hercules, Pluto, Bacchus, Ceres, Minerva, Diana, Juno, Proserpina, Flora, Priapus, and others, with a crowd of muses, nymphs, satyrs," &c. &c.; and, to their credit, they are also said by him to have introduced every description of persons to the notice of their audiences: "There is scarce one devil in hell, hardly a noto rious sin or sinner upon earth, either of modern or antient times, but hath some part or other in stage-plays;" and this perfection he conceived an argument against them, as if the exhibition of wickedness oppressing and destroying the innocent, did not cause a glowing indignation against the aggressor. Who, since the time of Prynne, has beheld the crimes of those fell murderers, Macbeth and Richard III. revived upon the stage, that did not recoil with horror from the view, and retire from the theatre doubly prejudiced against tyranny and usurpation; or who has seen the Venetian Jew seizing upon his victim, and his escaping through the grand scene of justice, administered and exalted by the acts and sentiments of Portia, without feeling all the agitation and triumph of generous benevolence? Surely Prynne never witnessed these scenes, or he must have become a friend to the stage, when thus employed to discountenance vice, and rouse the generous passions of the publick: on the contrary, he whines, "O that our players, our play-haunters, would now seriously consider, that the persons whose parts, whose sins they act and see, are even then yelling in the eternal flames of hell for these particular sins of theirs, even then, whiles they are playing of these sins, these parts of theirs on the stage! Oh that they would now remember the sighs, the groans, the tears, the anguish, weeping and gnashing of teeth, the crys and shrieks that these wickednesses cause in hell, whiles they are acting applauding, committing, and laughing at them in the play-house. And this, if there be any spark of humanity, of Christianity, any fear of God, of sin, of hell, remaining in them, would soon embitter the most sugred stage-plays to their souls, and engage them to detest them (unless they are marked out for hell), for such like torments as those now sustain." I shall only observe upon this quotation, that those persons enduring endless torments should either be totally forgotten, as unworthy of human recollection; or their misconduct should be represented in strong colours, to shew the consequences of vice. Were history to be entirely suppressed, the world would become a dismal blank as to the past, and the probability of the future; if it is to serve as a lesson of experience, the historian who gives it most colouring, or who paints it with most force to the mind, should be admired in proportion; and Mr. Prynne gives a strong proof of his agreeing with me in this particular, by the numerous sombre pictures he has sketched from the antients to prejudice the public against plays. He has, as far as his abilities permitted, personified his arguments; and no poor player ever acted a sin with more pleasure than he has painted those peculiar peculiar to them. As an act of justice to the memory of Shakspeare, and as a just rebuke for the above shocking adjuration, I shall give the following beautiful lines from the former; and thus let the reader judge between the contemporary accuser and accused: Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath All corners of the world, kings, queens, and states, CYMBELINE. The spleen and vehemence of Prynne is sometimes useful in pointing out the actual state of the stage: thus, in his 219th page, he leads us to suppose the dresses of the performers were rich, and, if not superb, they were characteristic. This writer, who would have modelled his countrymen after the antients, and was ready to trample every thing modern under his feet, had been praising the Lacedemonian law, which confined rich clothing to the prostitute: "a law," he continues, "which would well befit our nations, our times, which, Proteus-like, are always changing shape and fashion, and, like the moon, appear from day to day in different forms. The minor is evident VOL. III. G evident by experience, which finds an whole wardrobe of all gaudy pompous vestiments; a confluence of all whorish, immodest, lust-provoking, attires; a strange variety of all effeminate, lewd, fantastic, outlandish, apish, fashions (or disguises rather) at the play-house, sufficient to excite a very hell of noysome lusts in the most mortified actors and spectators bowels." If we accept the above words in their full sense, the theatre must have been supported with liberality by its managers, and the audiences were not disgusted by the confounding of nations and characters, as they were by the representation of female characters by males, and the still more horrid embraces and kisses lavished in almost every scene. The first chorus to the Prophetess by Beaumont and Fletcher, affords further light on this subject, which concludes in these words: "Yet with such art the subject is convey'd, That every scene and passage shall be clear, Ev'n to the grossest understanding here." In the pantomimic part that follows, Delphia is mentioned as having raised a mist, which shews that considerable progress had been made in the deceptions of scenery. The same piece exhibits some other incidents which explain the uses of independent machinery. Diocles and Drusilla are seen near a well, musick is heard, as if from its depth, flowers spring from the surface, and a |