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form an early habit and temperament of the most extreme and characteristic sensibility. By a different mode of education, as in foreign countries, children being associated to their parents, have their memories burdened with family duties and tales, which make a deeper impression on the mind, than the unintelligible jargon of books and pedagogues, and suppress or blunt the exercise of the judgment. The sensibility of the heart is free from all impressions, as the association and protection of the parents provide him with every thing he may want, and with menaces, fears and punishment, deprive him of every sentiment but submission, which must destroy the springs and energy of the passions, the source of sympathy. And this would be a proper mode of education, if society was happily and wisely constituted; but being the reverse, sympathy is destroyed by the cruel conduct of tyranny in parents in the exercise of domestic government, as probity and judgment are by the tales of civil treachery and relations of knavish transactions, which overwhelm the memory, and confound the superior faculties of the mind, corrupt the ingenuous and sympathetic dispositions of the tender heart.

In the subject of education, I shall consider the church and the theatre as mediate causes.

RELIGION or priestcraft will probably maintain its ground longer in England than in any other country, notwithstanding the progress of its great enemy, wisdom. In this country the priests, like the conductors of a puppet-show, use wires so fine or metaphysical, reasons so subtle, that gross understandings do not perceive them, and know not what passes behind the scenes: whereas in most other countries, the wires that move the puppets to play the farce of religion, are so gross or ceremonious, so absurd and futile, that the weakest minds detect the fraud, and penetrate behind the scenes, where the whole machinery is discovered. This must happen upon the Continent in the course of a very few years, which the progress of knowledge will alone effect, without the aid of wisdom, whose strongest powers will be

required to dissipate the illusion of intellectual idolatry, established on metaphysical reason; or, the most dangerous of all error, false knowledge, arising from the technical powers of the mind, operating without the aid of judgment, as is the case in England.

Religion in this island being divested of the grosser ceremonies, or proofs of its absurdity, leaves the mind fewer substitutes for real virtue, probity and sympathy; and the minds of its ministers being strengthened and enlightened by the education above treated of, they preach up the exercise of that virtue more with the noble ardor of citizens, than the furious and fanatic bigotry of priests.

The THEATRE of this country is conducted in a manner disgraceful to an enlightened and civilized people. The dramatic representations of tragedy and comedy convey a poisonous with a wholesome moral. The former holds up gigantic tyranny and splendid vice, revolving through the hemisphere of military and imperial glory, and setting in a radiant horizon by a pompous death. The spectator is made a witness of the most bloody deeds of cruelty and villainy, and the heart accustomed to the stronger vibrations of sensibility, feels no shock from the feeble impressions of the common evils of life, and receives no advantage that can form any counterpoise to this evil, in contemplating the disappointment of ambition and treachery.

In the neglected and despised state of the theological theatre, the dramatic theatre would be a necessary and excellent substitute, if its conduct had that attention bestowed upon it, which it merits. How many church auditors whom sleep has protected from the absurdities and impieties against the religion of Nature, delivered from the pulpit, have found no escape from the barbarities and vices of scenic representations, that seduce the passions, and enliven the temperament to receive the most lasting impressions.

This important source of instruction and morality should be guarded with the utmost vigilance. Colleges should be established for actors and dramatic writers,

and subjects should be selected in possession of all the perfections of human nature, which that profession demands. Authors should be taught the modes of human passions, the nature of virtue, and the means of exciting the minds to its practice, by the forcible impulse of natural example, displayed on the stage as a true mirror of life.

The dramatic art should also form a part of universal education, that the public might become its just and only arbiters; and then, being purged by their censure from the licentious scenes that scandalize sympathy and probity, virtue, divested of all sophistical relations and theological impieties, would appear in all her charms, and manifest herself as wise self-love; and mounting this immoveable throne, would subjugate all doubts, and be elevated above the reach of the most ingenious sophistry that could inspire scepticism, or seduce the mind from her beneficent empire.

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Comedy claims the greater part of reproach, and instead of correcting, is become the school of prejudice, vice and buffoonery; and the representation of a piece called the Beggars' Opera is alone [?] sufficient to disgrace the stage, and hold it up to the execration and indignation of the whole world. In this, the most dangerous vices, which in other countries are buried in oblivion with their authors, are here resuscitated and metamorphosed into acts of heroism, decorated with all the incidents of enterprise and martial glory, accompanied with scenes of the most seducing gayety and pleasure: and the unexampled number of malefactors which this industrious and enlightened country produces, would be paradoxical, unless solved and accounted for by the seducing scenes of a debauched stage; which fact, if its victims had not frequently declared in their dying confessions, wisdom and common sense would discover. The low ribaldry and vulgar buffoonery of farces and pantomimes, displayed not in wit or intrigue, but in kicking, cuffing, falling, and every mode of personal assault and insult, infects the morals of the people, and is the cause

of those pugilistic contests that disgrace the streets of our metropolis. The childish introduction of ghosts, witches and hob-goblins, recalls weak minds back to the remembrance of follies and fears, which time would obliterate, if theatrical managers had wisdom enough to copy the improvement of other nations, who must content a refined people with the combination of the libe ral arts of painting, dancing and music, and the more dignified, though equally absurd mythology of ancient

times.

Having taken a view of the intellectual faculties, affections and passions of the English people, and the education that may excite or modify them, I shall proceed to observe them, in their political and social conventions.

The science of GOVERNMENT is the most important and intricate of all sciences, and demands a capacity of mind to comprehend and consider a subject simultaneously in all its parts and relations: and this power is what constitutes wisdom.

It is evident to a mind in possession of this faculty, that government, to be perfect, should conform to the moral powers and habitudes of its subject; that these are related to many circumstances of situation, custom, and policy of neighbors. Nobody would conceive it possible to establish an absolute democracy, the most perfect form of social union, in the island of Jamaica, with out changing the temper of its inhabitants, by a total reform in the institutions of society.

The principles of the aggregate body being heterogeneous; three-fourths placing happiness in liberty and repose, and one-fourth in slavery and activity, it is plain there can be no point of union or concentration, and that force alone can hold together such a herd of men; for I cannot call it a community. This exemplar will serve for all nations in proportion as they possess union of sentiment in the only true centre, wisdom or virtue; for they are synonimous.

There is no nation in the world whose inhabitants

possess generally, or in the gross, wisdom; and therefore force of government is employed to substitute an artificial for the natural point of union, and it relaxes or contracts its energy, according as virtue has more or less influence. If the volition of man was directed by the unerring guide, wisdom, all kinds of government would become inimical and vicious coercion. While error, interest and superstition pervert the human faculties, it is necessary that the collective judgment of many individuals should establish a system of coercion or government, to prevent ignorance in its rage from destroying the whole race of humanity.

Government must also be considered as to local situation, and the policy of its neighbors. If these are ignorant, and consequently wicked, their properties and lives will be in danger; coercion must then augment its powers, in order to drag the selfish citizen from that avaricious ignorance, which makes him refuse pecuniary aid to public exigencies, and by giving up a small part of his property to furnish an armament of his countrymen, prevent the whole from being plundered by an enemy. Many others not prompted by sordid avarice, but influenced by their affections as parents or children, have not wisdom to intrench on their comforts, in order to procure them greater in public safety.

The nations agitated by uncommon industry acquire superior strength and riches, and would sooner conquer their neighbors, if a spirit of emulation or equality of industry did not take place. This industry is enforced by the institutions of society, which coercion executes, and by the accumulated property of the great, forces the poor, or the great body of the people, to a state of extreme necessity, which compels Nature, ever seeking repose, to violent and destructive labor: but if the violation was uncontrolled by a participation of authority, as in a democratical government, labor and property would be soon equalized, if political wars were frequent, and the nations populous and extensive.

Government cannot be regulated by abstract princi

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