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Mr. Talbot. Stop, Sir! I cannot allow this libel to be pronounced on the female sex, without entering my protest against it." Mr. Lewellin. "It is not a libel, Sir. The allusions, and the language, and some of the actions of that play, are more becoming an house of ill-fame, after its inmates are hardened in their crimes, than the school of virtue, as you wish me to believe the Play-house is; and I am conscious that no decent company, in any rank of society, would tolerate such allusions or expressionsor actions in their social circles; and the acknowledged popularity of this play, which no virtuous father could read to his own sons or daughters, is a proof of the vitiating tendency of theatrical amusements. it should be popular amongst the rakes, the libertines, the debauchees, and scoffers of the age, is perfectly natural, because it speaks their language-it breathes their spirit-it employs their polluting imagery of description-it pampers their filthy appetite, and tends to beat down that fence which protects the virtuous female from their demoralizing touch. That it should be popular amongst the females who have lost their virtue, or who are willing to loose it, is equally natural, because it familiarizes them with vice-it teaches them how to practice it-it reconciles them to its obscene phraseology of allusion-and tends to inspire them with an affection for the accomplished rake, in the same degree of proportion, as it induces them to abhor and detest personal piety, which is associated by the dexterity of the writer, and the actors, with the weaknesses, and vulgarities, and hypocrisy of the human character. Allow me to ask one question, What opinion would you form of a female who would consent to read that Comedy in the presence of an indiscriminate assemblage of young people?"

Mr. Talbot. "Of course, Sir, I should not solicit her to do it."

Mr. Lewellin. But suppose she was solicited, and suppose she did it without faultering in her passage through it, and without blushing, what opinion would you form of her modesty, or of the tone of her virtuous feeling? Would you like that female to be either mother, your wife, your sister, or your daughter?"

your

Mr. Talbot. "Why, Sir, I don't know that I should."

Mr. Lewellin.

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Then, Sir, if you should not like them to read that play in the presence of others, how can you attempt to justify your conduct in wishing them to go and hear it repeated, and see it performed?"

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Mr. Talbot. Why, Sir, there is a little difference between the two cases."

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Mr. Lewellin. "Yes, there is a little difference between the circumstances of the two cases, I grant; but, Sir, I appeal to your candour, and to your judgment, if that Comedy, when acted on the stage, can promote the growth of private virtue, which would have a demoralizing effect, if read in a private circle ?”

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Mr. Talbot. Why, Sir, in a theatre, each one is lost in the mass of the audience, and hence no immediate effect is produced."

Mr. Lewellin. "Then, Sir, how can the stage, when it exists in its purity, promote the growth of virtue, and how, when it is abused, does it become the school of vice, if no immediate effect is produced by the sentiments which it delivers, and the actions which it performs ?"

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Mr. Talbot. I mean, Sir, that a female does not sustain that injury in the opinion of others, who goes to see this Comedy performed, which she would, if she read it to a promiscuous assembly."

Mr. Lewellin. "I grant it, Sir, but will her imagination sustain no injury by the polluting impressions which it will receive? will her moral taste sustain no injury by the obscene sentiments and allusions which she will hear? will she retire as pure from all corrupt associations, as when she entered?"

66 Mr.Talbot. But, Sir, when they become familiar with the stage, none of these evil effects are ever felt, which you imagine must be the consequence of their attendance."

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Mr. Lewellin. They may not be felt so sensibly as at first, because by habit, the taste becomes reconciled to them, which proves that the stage lowers the high tone of virtue, and brings it down so softly, and so imperceptibly on a level with impurity, that its more disgusting forms and expressions merely excite the passing smile.

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Vice is a monster of such frightful mein,
As to be hated, need but to be seen:
But seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

But, Sir, can we do this, till the mind has undergone a transformation, from a state of elevated purity, to a state of moral impurity?"

Mr. Talbot. Well, Sir, it is no use to argue against facts. I have gone to the theatre without being injured by it, and I have known many of my friends who have never been injured by it."

Mr. Lewellin. It may be so; but, Sir, would you like a son or a daughter to acquire a passion for theatrical amusements? and would you suffer them, if they had acquired it, to go alone?"

Mr. Talbot. "No, Sir, I should not like my children to become passionately fond of the theatre, though I should not object to their occasional attendance; but I would not suffer them to go alone."

Mr. Lewellin. Not like them to become passionately fond of a source of amusement, which is intended and calculated to promote the growth of their virtues? Surely, good, Sir, you don't wish their virtues to be stunted for want of nutriment; and though I can easily conceive that the expense attending this source of gratification, may form one objection against its repeated indulgence, yet, can money be better laid out, than on the moral improvement of our children ? Suppose, for example, you have a son, who is somewhat inclined to an evil course-one, over whose mind the grave lectures of morality, which the clergy deliver, have lost their controul-who is rather prone to treat parental authority with contempt; would you not wish to see him cherish a passion for theatrical exhibitions, which, according to the opinion of Mr. Proctor, and in which opinion you concur, are designed to recommend virtue, and discountenance vice; and to prove, by an appeal to the senses, rather than by an argumentative process of conviction, that virtue is its own reward, and vice its own tormentor? If he should feel no deep interest in these exhibitions, it is not likely that they will produce any more powerful effect on his mind, than the grave lectures of morality which he instinctively abhors; but if his passions are

strongly excited, and he returns to this school of wisdom, and of virtue, con amore-if he cannot refrain from going, without doing violence to his feelings--if he long for the hour of evening dress, and for the agreeable alterative of mind, which is to divert him from the dull, monotonous duties of his station; if he enter into the spirit of the Comedy, which usually makes a libertine the most attractive hero of the piece, or if the spirit of that hero enter him, do you not suppose that he will soon be reclaimed from vice, and be so smitten with the charm of virtue, as to follow her through evil and through good report? And suppose several such young men should meet in the lobby of a theatre, which you know is not impossible; and suppose they should sit together during the play; and suppose they should retire together, after the curtain falls, and the last charms of the Comic muse have died off from the eye, and the ear, do you not suppose, that they will very naturally begin to resolve on amending their evil course, and as naturally resolve to become chaste, and temperate, and domesticated in their habits? Of course, Sir, you cannot, for a moment, imagine, that they will retire from this school of virtue to the brothel of lewdness, or to the tavern of dissipation! No, Sir! The Comic muse would stand in their way, and dispute their passage, even if they should have a secret predilection for such haunts of impiety; as the dumb ass once reproved the madness of a certain prophet, on whose mind no other agent of persuasion could operate!"

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Mr. Talbot. Satire is no argument, Sir."

Mr. Lewellin. "But it often puts forth a biting one, from under the folds of its concealment. But, as you seem to dislike it, Sir, I will dismiss it, as a compliment to your taste, and return to the more grave form of debate. Permit me then to ask you, if the society into which the young are introduced at a theatre, does not form a very powerful objection against it?"

Mr. Talbot. "This is an objection against theatrical amusements, which I have been expecting to make its appearance for some time; and now it is out, I am not unwilling to meet it. I will then confess, that the English box lobbies are too much disgraced by the open display of female prostitution,' and that too many of the

baser sort of our own sex frequent the theatre; yet, Sir, as the wisest and the best are always to be found in attendance on the Comic muse, we may very easily mingle with them, and thus avoid that contagion of evil, to which you imagine we are necessarily exposed. "You will know that vice, like every other marketable commodity, will be offered for sale in great public thoroughfares. Can you see the vast majority of an audience rivetted on the scenic representation, without confessing that many a youthful passion is preserved from temptation out of doors, by this intellectual oocupation of his time within? London, and all large towns, are, by reason of their congregated numbers, a focus of vice; you know licentiousness would find other haunts, and not be one whit limited by the suppression of the stage; it would be hard, indeed, that virtue should imprison itself, because vice frequented the same resort; on that principle we might not walk in broad day light the great streets of the metropolis, because of thepolluted' neighbours on all sides."

Mr. Lewellin. 66 Then you admit that the theatre is one of the haunts of vice; and yet you say that the wisest and the best are always to be found in attendance there; not, of course, from compulsion, but from choice! The wisest, and the best, then choose to go where the most profligate, and licentious resort! Surely, you will not adduce their conduct on this point, as a conclusive argument in favour of their superior wisdom, or superior virtue? And if we go, we may mingle with them!! But, how shall we know the wisest and the best, from the most depraved, in such a promiscuous throng as usually crowd a theatre! From instinct? or from some secret sign, which, like that of the Masonic order, is concealed from every one, but the initiated?"

Mr. Talbot. "When I go to the theatre, if I go alone, I keep apart from others; and if I go in company, I keep with them, so that I have no intercourse with the general audience."

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Mr. Lewellin. "I am happy to hear it, Sir; but do all who attend, adopt the same judicious maxim?" Mr. Talbot. "They may if they choose, and if they do not, they alone are to blame."

Mr. Lewellin. "Yes, they may! but do they? No,