him that paintings in a church were not consistent with religion, replied, "paintings are the books of the ignorant." In this view fiction is a useful auxiliary to truth; a sick child refuses the medicine which brings it health when presented in its natural bitterness, but swallows it voraciously when sweetened with honey.* There is a passage in one of the Rev. Dr. Knox's Essays, so applicable to this point, that I quote it entire. "There seems to me to be no method more effectual of softening the ferocity and improving the minds of the lower classes of a great capital, than the frequent exhibition of tragical pieces, in which the distress is carried to the highest extreme, and the moral, at once self-evident, affecting, and instructive. The multitudes of those who cannot read, or, if they could, have neither time nor abilities for deriving much advantage from reading, are powerfully impressed through the medium of the eyes and ears, with those important truths, which, while they illuminate the understanding, correct and mollify the heart. Benevolence, justice, heroism, and the wisdom of moderating the

*Tasso, Gierusal. Liberata, Canto I. ver. 3.

Cosi al egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi,
Di soavi licor gli orli del' vaso.
Succhi amari ingannato intanto ei beve,

E dall' inganno suo vita riceve.

The original idea is in Lucretius.-De Rer. Nat.

passions are plainly pointed out, and forcibly recommended to those savage sons of uncultivated nature, who have few opportunities, and would have no inclination for instruction, if it did not present itself in the form of a delightful amusement.' In spite of all that may be said or proved, men, as long as they are compounded of their present materials, will seek amusement in their leisure hours. If then, we proscribe the Stage, which is an intellectual recreation, the chances are, we shall drive them to others which are more exclusively sensual; and it is, no doubt, this conviction of its comparative superiority, which has induced the laws by which Theatres are protected. "If the Theatre," says La Motte, in his Essay on Poetry and Painting, "were to be shut up, the Stage wholly silenced and suppressed, I believe the world, bad as it is now, would be then ten times more wicked and debauched,"-" which," says Mr. Wilkes, in his View of the Stage, "was once the case at Milan, when Charles Barromeus took possession of the archbishopric: he, out of abundance of zeal and severity, shut up the playhouse and expelled the players, strollers, and minstrels as debauchers and corrupters of mankind. He soon had reason to alter his opinions, for he found that the people ran into all manner of excesses, and that wanting something to amuse and

* Knox's Essays, vol. iii. p. 122-3.

divert them, they committed the most horrid crimes by way of pastime. It was on this account he repented of his edict, recalled the banished players, and granted them a free use and liberty of the Stage."

In speaking of the early Greek Drama, Dr. Bennett justly eulogizes the high moral purity of the great Tragic poets, Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and as justly condemns the low buffoonery and obscenity of Aristophanes. The latter I am no more inclined to defend than I should the similar licentiousness of some of our own writers, who cannot plead the powerful talent of the Athenian in mitigation of their faults. I therefore yield him up, with all his sparkling wit and poignant satire, to slumber on the shelves of college libraries, from whence it would be a pity to disturb him. Yet, though the moralist may hesitate to draw instruction from such a doubtful source, the student will derive advantage from examining the Attic purity of his language, and many of his sins against decency may be forgiven him, for the sound political advice contained in his Comedies of Peace, the Acharnians, and Lysistrata, in all of which he urges his countrymen to conclude the war with Sparta, and not to engage in the expedition against Syracuse. It would have been well for the Athenians if they had listened to his warning voice, and profited by the moral, instead of merely laughing at the jest. It

is curious enough that the remnant of Aristophanes which has reached our times, should have been preserved by the partiality of Saint Chrysostom, one of the early Christian Fathers, quoted among the enemies of the Theatre, who is said to have been so fond of this author, that he constantly slept with his works under his pillow. Aristophanes has also found an advocate in Archbishop Potter, who claims for him "the crowning merit of a great mind, and a sound consistent view of the philosophy of morals.* It is also to be remarked, that the same Athenians, who not only tolerated, but revelled in the licentiousness of the comic poet, should at the same time, have watched their tragic drama with a jealous eye, and evinced the utmost solicitude to preserve in it the strictest reverence for morality, decency, and justice. The one they considered the imitation, or mirror of life and manners; the other, the standard of virtue. Tragedy at all times, as proceeding from a higher source, and embracing loftier objects, is less liable to abuse than comedy, the end of which is to expose absurd peculiarities, and satirize the passing follies of the day. Euripides, in one of his tragedies, puts into the mouth of Bellerophon a panegyric

* Potter's Archæologia Græca. Appendix, Section I. History of Greek Literature.

Imitatio vitæ, speculum consuetudinis.-Cicero.

G

upon riches, which concludes thus:-"riches are the supreme good of the human race, and with reason excite the admiration of the gods and men." The whole Theatre exclaimed against these sentiments, and the Poet would have been banished on the instant, but he desired the sentence to be respited till the conclusion of the piece, in which the advocate for riches perishes miserably. This severe censure on the tragic poets was the common practice of the Athenian public, and may be quoted in reply to the assertion, that plays, to obtain popularity, must always administer to the vices rather than the good feelings of the audience. But that point will be more appropriately discussed in another place.

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Dr. Bennett deduces the decline of the Athenian power, and the loss of their independence, from immoderate indulgence in the pleasures of the Theatre, and the national degeneracy from thence proceeding. "Never," says he, “ did any land produce dramatic writers at once so powerful and so little exceptionable, as were Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripedes never were people more passionately attached to the Drama, than the Athenians; it had here a full and fair trial of its tendency, and what was the result? Let those who desire information on this point, consult the writings of the admirable historian Rollin, especially that

* Rollin. Preface to Ancient History.