THE Ingenious Mr. Collier in calling his Learned Treatise, A short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, &c. has not given it a Title that fully reaches the Subject, and the great Design of that Laborious piece of Oratory: For in his whole Discourse, which he divides into six Chapters; In the First he confronts the present Stage, by setting forth the general Innocence and Modesty of the Ancient Greek and Latin Dramatick Poetry; and in the Four next Chapters de descends to a View of the English Theatres, where he Seats himself down, and very Magisterially sits Censor and Judge upon several particular Dramatick Offenders and Offences, in some, and only some, of our late Plays.

Hitherto, the Title Page seems to carry the Contents of the Book, as if his present Work in hand were only a Christian Correction of Abuses and Corruption, viz. Profaneness and Immorality crept into the Stage. But in his last Chapter, he plainly tells us, his Design is not Reformation, but Eradication: For here he throws by the Pruning Hook, and takes up the Axe.

In due prevention therefore against so dangerous a Weapon, in so angry a Hand, we'll endeavour first to Guard the Root; and afterwards we'll joyn with him, and give him free leave to Lop off as many of the Luxurious Branches, as shall not be found worth saving.

To begin therefore with some Examination of that Last Chapter, which he Entitles, The Opinion of Paganism, of the Church, and State, concerning the STAGE, here likewise we'll set out first from Home, viz. in the Opinion of the English State, &c.

Here, says our Author, I shall come down to our own Constitution, and I find by 39th of Eliz. chap. 4. and 1 Iac. chap. 7th.

That all Common Players of Interludes, counterfeit Egyptians, &c. shall be taken adjudged and deem'd Rogues, Uagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars, and shall sustain all Pains and Punishments, as by this Act is in that behalf appointed.

The Penalties are Infamous to the last degree, and Capital too, unless they give over. 'Tis true, the First Act, viz. 39th of Eliz. excepts those Players which belong to a Baron or other Person of higher Degree, and are Authorized to Play under the Hand and Seal of Arms of such Baron or Personage.

But in the latter Statute this Privilege of Licensing is taken away, and all of them are expresly brought under the Penalty without distinction.

'Tis true in this last Act, as he says, the Barons Privilege of Licensing Players was taken away; but this Author, that reads no farther than what wright or wrong serves his own Turn, and quotes Authority but by Halves, forgets that that Act of the Ist. of Iac. was but a Temporary Act, to hold in force but that Sessions of Parliament. But this small Trip we'll forgive him.

But for a little more Light into this 39th. of Eliz. by way of Context to explain the Cause. The Clause against Players begins thus. Be it Enacted that all Persons calling themselves Scholars, going about begging; all Seafaring Men, pretending Losses of their Ships or Goods on the Sea, going about the Country begging; All idle Persons going about in any Country, either begging or using any subtle Craft, or unlawful Games or Plays, or feigning themselves to have knowledge in Physiognomy, Palmistry, or other like Crafty Science, or such like Fantastical Imaginations: All Persons that be, or utter themselves to be Proctors, Procurors, Patentgatherers, Collectors for Goals, Prisons or Hospitals, &c.

This Law, 'tis plain, is particularly Level'd against a sort of People that have no settled Habitation, Rovers up and down the Country, and therefore called Vagabonds. But what's all this to the Establishment of our Publick Theatres? Besides, why are all Offenders in this Act thus stigmatiz'd and punish'd as Rouges, but for the practising Frauds and Cheats upon the People?

Nay, this Act chiefly strikes not at the Professions of the Offenders here mention'd, but the Abuse or Corruption of them, as in the Scholar, Seaman, Proctor, Procuror, Patent-gatherer or Collector, as well those as are really so, as those that utter themselves such. The Mendicant Scholar, for Instance, as a Scandal to Learning, the Universities, nay, perhaps the Church it self; the Seaman as an Impostor, viz. with his pretended Losses; the Proctor as a Fomentor of Litigious Suits among the People, &c. the Patent-gatherer under the Mask of Publick charity, Collecting the Mony into his own Pocket, not only to the Abuse of the Country, but to the very Scandal of the Government, when the most Pious Royal Acts of Grace shall be thus fraudulently perverted, to the carrying on so notorious a Cheat: And therefore the Patent-gatherer or Collector Unlicens'd was thus branded, &c. And undobtedly 'twas much upon the same scandalous Account, that the Unlicens'd Players of Interludes are here herded among all those Rascally Companions: For why should not the Government, with all Reason, surmize an equal Danger to the Publick, from such Unqualify'd Players, and accordingly provide against them, as being Persons who under no Warrant of Authority, nor Honourable Patron to vouch for their Integrity, might be as justly suspected of Roguery, Cheating or Pilfering, as any other of their Brethren in Iniquity, mention'd in the Act? Nor can this particular Brand upon the Offenders, here mentioned, bear any shadow of Construction to Asperse, Taint or Scandalize, the Profession of Playing it self, and the Publick Theatres supported by Royal Patents, &c. any more than the same Brand upon the Scholar, the Proctor, the Collector, &c. under the formentioned Corruption, should be interpreted a Reflection upon Religion, Law, Learning or Charity. Nor are His Majesty's Servants, the present Authorized Actors, any more concerned at the Common mistaken Cry of Fools from starting this Statute against them; than any honest Reader of the Ingenious Mr. Collier, with a Talent of Common Sense, ought to be convinced, That this Opinion of the State concerning the Stage, here Quoted, makes any thing for his Cause.

About the Year 1580. there was a Petition made to Queen Elizabeth for suppressing of Play-houses. 'Tis somewhat remarkable, and therfore I shall describe some part of the Relation.

Many Godly Citizens, and other well disposed Gentlemen of London, considering that Playhouses, and Dicing-houses, were Traps for Young Gentlemen and others, and perceiving the many Inconveniencies and great Damage that would ensue upon the long-suffering of the same, not only to particular Persons, but to the whole City; and that it would be a great Disparagement to the Governours, and a Dishonour to the Government of this Honourable City, if they should any longer continue, acquainted some Pious Magistrates therewith, desiring them to take some Course for the Suppression of Common Play-houses, Dicing-houses, &c. within the City of London and Liberties thereof, who thereupon made humble Suit to Queen Elizabeth, and her Privy-Council, and obtain'd Leave of her Majesty to thrust the Players out of the City, and to pull down all Play-houses and Dicing-houses within their Liberties; which accordingly was effected. And the Play-houses in Grace-Church-Street, &c. were quite put down and suppress'd. Rawlidge his Monster lately found out, &c. p. 2, 3, 4.

The Name of this Author that Mr. Collier has here Quoted, being utterly a Stranger to all the great Scholars in Title-page Learning through St. Paul's Church-yard or Little Britain, I am sorry I am so much in the Dark, that neither Stow, Baker, Cambden, nor Holinshed, make any mention of this Revolution in or about the Year 1580, viz. this Abdication of the Publick Play-houses by Queen Elizbeth; however not to dispute the Veracity of an Affirmative in Verbo Sacerdotis, but take it as an Orthodox Record, I cannot but stand a little amaz'd to think what wondrous State-opinion he has here discover'd.

First, 'tis here observable that the foremention'd Grievances alleged against Playhouses, were so far from a publick Censur of the State, that they were only a private Complaint of some Godly Citizens, &c. who therewith acquainted some Magistrates, (the Magistrates themselves were not the first Complainants.) The Foundation of, and Arguments against this Grievance, was only on the score of Inconvenience and Damage, that their Continuance and Sufferance on that Account would be a Dishonour to the Government of the City, not of the State nor Church: For her were no Suggestions either of Immorality, Lewdness, Corruption of Manners or Vanity, or any Religious charge against them, as Godly Men as the Complainants are here presented; whilst on the contrary the whole Accusation against them, and the whole Godly Fear was founded expresly on no other danger, then the entrapping the Youth of the City, whether Gentle or Simple, whether Gentlemens Sons or Citizens Pretences or Servants, undoubtedly to the squandering away their Parents or Masters Money; and therefore, if too long suffer'd, a publick Inconvenience or Damage would ensue to the whole City. Hereupon these Complainants Petition'd the Magistracy, and the Magistracy the Queen; and her Gracious Royal Grant was this, That that Eye-sore, a Play-house in Grace-Church-Street, in the Heart of the Metropolis, should be supprest, and the Players thrust out of the City of London, and possibly banish'd as far as to Westminster. And what makes the whole Grievance (without Ralleay) very remarkable, Here are Play-houses and Dicing-houses, both joyn'd in one Sentence of City Excommunication, the Dicing-houses of the two, so much the more dangerous Inhabitants within the Walls, That the Youth of the City, viz. Sons, Servants, Prentices or Cash-keepers, from so fatal a Temptation and Snare, might be truly Trapt into the Loss of those Extravagant Sums, perhaps purloin'd or embezell'd from Parents or Masters, to a very dangerous Consequene to the whole City indeed; whilst on the other side, the small Figure, the Low-priz'd Play-houses made in those Days, rendred them so little Threatners of any such Capital Danger; that both Dicehouse and Play-house are here Sentenced to Banishment together, the one for Suspicion of Robbery, and the other of Petty Larceny.

Now these two Authorities being all he says upon that Head, viz. The Opinion of the State concerning the Stage, I have Quoted them verbatim at full length, that the Reader may guess the strength of this Learned Argumentator, by this first Sample we have given of him.

But to match him with an Opinion of the State concerning the Stage, out of Stow's Chronicle, Anno 1583. not above three Years after the said Abidication.

Stow 23d Eliz. Comedians and Stage-players of former Time, were very poor and ignorant in respect of these in this Time; but being now grown very skilful and exquisite Actors for all Matters, they were entertain'd into the Service of divers Great Lords, out of which Companies there were Twelve of the Best chosen, at the request of Sir Francis Walsingham, they were Sworn the Queens Servants, and were allow'd Wages, and Livery's, as Grooms of the Chamber, and until that Year 1583, the Queen had no Players. Amongst those Twelve Players were Two rare Men, viz. Thomas Wilson for a quick, delicate, refin'd extemporal Wit, and Richard Tareletion, for a wonderous plentiful, pleasant, extemporal Wit. He was the wonder of his Time. He lyeth Buried in Shoreditch.

Now from this Authority of Mr. Stow, which we may venture to call Authentick, it looks a little odly, that this Chronicle should take such particular notice of the Exalted Court Favours, that smiled upon these Darling of the Stage, and be so silent upon the Calamity of the other Excluded City Members of the same Fraternity. Methinks the pulling down of Houses, and Banishing the whole publick City-diversion, but just three Years before, shou'd have made as loud an Alarum at this Court Preserment to their Younger Brothers, and certainly deserved as large a Page in this History, at least for the Queen's Honour: For it looks like a little piece of Injustice to that Glorious Memory, to let any part of publick Reformation, such as the suppression of Vice, as Dice-houses and Play-houses, (and such our Author here designs it) perform'd by that Illustrious Princess, lye untransmitted to Posterity. But when Play-houses and Dice-houses are so suspiciously joyn'd together by this unknown Author, what if these Play-houses should prove but Gaming-houses at last? is looks very shrewdly that way, all Circumstances consider'd. But this I only surmize; besides, it looks like misdoubting the Ingenious Mr. Collier's Testimony, and so I'll rather give him his Point.

However, as I am ready to do him Justice as to his Quotations, I hope he will do the like by mine, and allow me at least this Triumph to the Stage, That the Pious Queen had a better Opinion of Players than Mr. Collier's Godly Citizens, when she did them the Honour of Entertaining them as her Menials in her Livery, and under her own Roof. But perhaps that Princess design'd to make a Reformation in the Stage, as well as the Church; and therefore was resolv'd to redeem the Stage-players from their Original State of Infamy and Slavery, Quoted pag. 241. where he tells you, That the Romans refused the Jus Civitatis to Players, seiz'd their Freedom, and made them perfectly Foreign to the Govenment, which St. Augustine was pleas'd to commend 'em for. And afterwards page 256. The whole Tribe of them was thrown out of all Honour and Privilege. They were neither suffer'd to be Lords nor Gentlemen.

Now notwithstanding not only all these Pagan Blots in their Scutcheon, but even the very Theodostan Code, that page 241. calls them Personae Inhonestae; belike this Gracious Queen was pleased to give them that gentler Treatment, under her English, them they had found either from the Civil or Heathen Laws; and at least advanc'd them to tread very near the Heels of Gentlemen, under such Royal Smiles, and the kind Court Reception she gave them.

But methinks this Ingenious Quoter of History need not have look'd so far back as to 1580. or Queen Elizabeths 39. or Iac. 1st. for a National Opinion of the Stage: Here was a Modern one of much fresher Memory, and more pat to his purpose, when the Stage-plays lay under a more Universal Abdication, viz. in the Reign of those later Powers at the Helm, who with no little Activity leap'd over the Block, and the whole White-hall Stage it stood upon, and yet stumbled at the Straw. &c. A profane Comedy or Tragedy, were all Heathen and Antichristian, but Pious Regicide and Rebellion, were Religion and Sanctity with them. The Camel would go down, but the Gnat stuck in their Throats.

Now this Learned Gentleman ought by all means to have Quoted this National Opinion of the Stage, as not only an Argument much more to his Cause, but a Relation that in pure Gratitude to the Patrons of his Book, ought not to have been omitted. For as this Author's View of the Stage is that more than Ordinary Darling to the Gentlemen of that Kidney, he cou'd in Honour and Justice do no less than tickle 'em with their own Memoirs. Nay as the whole Society of the Gentlemen of the Calves-head Feast, have made this Book their particular Bosom Favourite, it would be prudent in the Author, (and perhaps the Book was Compos'd and Calculated for that purpose) to harangue so considerable a Party; for 'tis a hard World we live in, and the gaining of good Friends may be serviceable.

From these, next let us see how the Stage stands discouraged by the Laws of other Countries, as he has alrady shew'd you how it stands in our own.

To begin with the Athenians. These People Plutarch tells you, thought a Comedy so unreputable a Performance, that they made a Law, that no Iudge of the Areopagus should write one.

This Learned Gentleman is resolved to make his Foreign State-Authority against the Stage and his English one all of a piece. For methinks this Athenian Law, that only prohibited the Gravity of a Judge from writing a Comedy, Recorded by Mr. Collier in Monumental Black and White, as the Athenian State-opinion against Plays, is certainly that most charming Argument, enough to set Heraclitus himself a smiling.

The Lacedemonians, who were remarkable for the Wisdom of their Laws, &c. Their Government would not endure the Stage under any Regulation.

Well, here's one positive Bill of Exclusion.

To pass on to the Romans. Tully informs us, that their Predecessors counted all Stage-plays uncreditable and scandalous. Insomuch that any Roman who turned Actor, was not only to be Degraded, but likewise as it were Disincorporated, and Unnaturaliz'd by the Order of the Censors.

This Roman State-opinion is almost as Doughty a Quotation as his Athenian one. For here the Predecessors of the Romans counted Plays uncreditable, &c. But their kinder Successors, belike were of a contrary State-Opinion. Their Fore-fathers only past it as a Temporary Act, like the first of Iac. For the uncreditable Player was afterwards set rectus in Curia. And how did those opinionated Predecessors (pray mark it) handle the Roman Offender that turn'd Author? Why truly, as Cicero Cited by St. Augustine tells us, They Disincorporated and Unnaturaliz'd him. And how did they do all this? Why truly, as it were. Their Censors of the Stage did put their Order in Execution but very gently. Well, to do this Author as much Justice, as he has done the Roman Censors, I must own to the World, that he argues (as it were) most judiciously, and, as it were, to the purpose.

We read in Livy, That the Young People kept their Fabulae Attellanae to themselves. They would not suffer this Diversion to be blemish'd by the Stage. For this Reason, as the Historian observes the Actors or the Fabulae Attellanae were neither Expell'd their Tribe, nor refused to serve in Arms, both which Penalties it appears the Common Players lay under.

Here Livy gives us another Roman State-Account in Relation to the Stage, viz. That some of their Dramatick Entertainments were thought worthy to be the particular Performance of Gentlemen, who belike were either so pleas'd with it, or so proud of it, as to Monopolize the Diversion to themselves, and all without the least Stain to their Gentility. That Lash of the Roman Censors was only, as it appears, or, as it were, for the poorer Hirelings Players; and for this very good Reason, Et quod Turpe est cerdoni Volesos Brutosque decebit.

Playing in it self belike was no fault, taking Money for it was all.

His last State Opinion is, That in the Theodosian Code Players are called Personae Dishonestae, &c. That is (to Translate it softly) Persons Maimd, and blemish'd in their Reputation. Their Pictures might be seen at the Play-house, but were not permitted to hang in any creditable Place of the Town, the Function of the Players being scandalous by the Civil Law.

As scandalous as the Civil Law had render'd Players, however these scandalous Fellows were handled as softly as Mr. Collier Translates; Their scandal was so little a publick Nuisance, that the Christian Government, even in its primitive Lustre, always suffer'd them amongst them; and as Gondibert says, —Is not Powers Permission a Consent, Which is in Kings the same as to Ordain; And Ills ordain'd are free from punishment?

But of this Subject, I shall have occasion to be more at large.

These few State Memoris against the Stage, that Stage that Flourish'd in the Greek and Roman Empires, above a Thousand Years together; in the Histories of so many Ages, and through two such Spacious Empires, are all he can find us; I dare not say, will not; for he's never sparing of Scandal if he knew where to get it.

To all these State Authorities, he finishes that Head of his Discourse with a long Pastoral Letter of the Lord Bishop of Arras in Flanders, publish'd about two Years ago against Plays; too long here to repeat.

But here I am afraid our Author mistakes himself. For one single Flandrian Doctor, as I take it, is not a whole National Opinion; and therefore this Pastoral Letter is but a very indifferent Authority upon that Head.

Now for another Head, which he calls the Testimony of the most celebrated Heathen Philosophers, Orators and Historians, concerning the Stage.

To begin with Plato, this Philosopher tells us, That Plays raise the Passions, and pervert the use of them, and by consequence are dangerous to Morality. For this Reason he banishes these Diversions his Common-wealth.

Aristotle lays it down for a Rule, That the Law ought to forbid young People the seeing of Comedies, such Permissions not being safe till Age and Discipline had confirmed them in Sobriety, fortified their Virtue, and made 'em as it were proof against Debauchery. That the force of Musick and Action is very affecting, it commands the Audience, and changes the Passions to a resemblance of the Matter before them.

Here the Charge of Plato and Aristotle against Plays somewhat agrees, viz. in Raising the Passions, which Aristotle Expounds the changing the Passions of the Audience to a Resemblance of, or Sympathy with, the Matter before them; only Plato sat a little the severer Judge upon them; for he Banisht them his Common-wealth: But Aristotle carries not Matters so high as to a total Exclusion, but allows them as an innocent Diversion to Persons of mature Age and Discretion.

But methinks Mr. Collier gives but a lame Account of Plato's Reason for Banishing Plays from out his Common-wealth. For I can hardly believe that that Learned Philosopher, whatever Motives he had for Excluding Plays from his Government, would have talk'd so far out of his own natural Philosophy, as to tell us that Raising a Passion perverts the use of it. For if, as Aristotle explains the Case, the Raising the Passion is here meant, That the Passion represented on the Stage imprints the same Passion into the Audience (a Point which we shall hardly grant him, and which we shall have occasion to speak of hereafter:) Yet all this while, if the worst Passion or Representation on the Stage should have this wondrous Operation upon the frail Audience; For instance, if a Man should see a Hercules Furens, and grow as mad, and pull up Oaks as fast as he; or a Lustful Tarquin, and presently fall a Ravishing: Or a Young Lady should see a lewd Thais, and immediately take Taint, and play the Wanton like her; however here's no perverting the use of the worst of all these Passions. 'Tis true, all these foremention'd Passions are none of the best: But the worst Passion in producing its own natural bad Effects, Plato would hardly have call'd it, perverting the use of the Passion. But Mr. Collier in verbo Sacerdotis assures us, he Translates faithfully, and therefore as wise a Man as Plato was, we are bound to give it against him.

Tully cries out upon Licentious Plays and Poems, as the Bane of Sobriety and Wife thinking. That Comedy subsists upon Lewdness, and that Pleasure is the root of all Evil.

Plutarch, he tells us, was of the Opinion that Plays were dangerous to corrupt Young People: (And here he joyns with Aristotle.) And therefore Stage-Poetry, when it grows too hardy and licentious, ought to be checkt.

Here Plutarch concurs with Tully, viz. That Plays are to be checkt only when too Licentious, as the Bane of Sobriety, and an Excitation to Lewdness.

Livy reports the Original of Plays among the Romans, viz. That they were brought in upon the score of Religion, to pacifie the Gods, and remove a Mortality. But then he adds, That the Motives are sometimes good, when the Means are stark naught; that the Remedy in this Case was worse than the Disease, and the Atonement more Infectious than the Plague.

Livy is an Author, that Mr. Collier has all the reason in the World to set a value upon; for he's a Man of his own Gall. He owns that Plays were Originally an Institution founded upon Religion, that by their Divine Power and Influence they pacified the Anger of the Gods, and removed a Pestilence, or some other general Mortality. (For he plainly confesses they did the Work, not the Cure design'd, but perform'd.) Yet with all these sovereign and pacifick Virtues, and the whole Glory of a National Deliverance wrought by them, the Remedy was a worse Plague than that it had cured. Could Mr. Collier himself have declaim'd more pathetically!

Valerius Maximus, Livy's Cotemporary, gives much the same account of the Rise of Theatres at Rome. 'Twas Devotion that built them. And for the Performance of those Places, which Mr. Dryden calls the Ornaments; this Author Censures as the Blemishes of Peace: And which is more, he affirms, They were the occasions of Civil Distractions, and that the State first blush'd, and then bled for the Entertainment. He concludes,, the Consequences of Plays were intollerable.

And very well he might conclude so, if he was of his own Cotemporaries Opinion, viz. That they were a worse Plague than what they cured. But methinks these two Roman Authors between them have given Plays an unaccountable Power; for belike they could make Peace in Heaven, and raise Wars on Earth; they pacified the Gods, but set the World at Dissention. And indeed had either the Spirit of a Livy or Collier reign'd amongst them, those Civil Distractions had been not at all to be wonder'd at: For such angry Gentlemen would have found Matter of Quarrel with Plays, though for their atoning of Heaven, and averting of Judgements.

Seneca, the Philosopher, he tells us, was very angry at the Play-house, and for this Reason, That scarce any Body would apply themselves to the study of Nature and Morality, unless when the Play-house was shut, and the Weather foul. That there was no Body to teach Philosophy, because there was no Body to learn it. But that the Stage had Nurseries and Company enough.

This Quarrel of Seneca against the Stage, I confess was highly reasonable; for undoubtedly that angry Gentleman of Learning was sensibly touch'd in the most tender part, viz. Honour and Interest. Perhaps the Auditory had found as much good Instruction to be glean'd up at a Play-house Lecture, as at a Philosophy one; and so because the Play-house-School got ground of the Philosophers, 'twas high Time, to cry out, Great was his own Diana of Ephesus.

Tacitus relating how Nero hired decay'd Gentlemen, for the Stage, complains of the Mismanagement; and lets us know, 'twas the part of a Prince, to Relieve their Necessity, and not to tempt it, &c. And that his Bounty should rather have set them above an ill Practice, then put them upon it.

Though Nero's Conduct, was not always to be Vindicated, however, begging both Tacitus and Mr. Collier's Pardon, I must give it on his side in this Case; and say, he was here very much in the Right. For if that Prince thought it no Degradation to his own Imperial Dignity, Personally to Act in Plays himself, I know no Reason he had to think it either a Shame or a Condescension in a Private Gentleman, and a Decay'd one too, to come upon the Stage. If the Sovereign could play the Histrio, sure the Subject was not above it.

Plays, in the Opinion of the Judicious Plutarch, are dangerous to corrupt Young People; and therefore Stage-Poetry, when it grows too Hardy and Licentious, ought to be check'd.

Here Plutarch's Charge against the Play-house, is not over severe; the Dangers from the Stage only threaten'd the Younger sort of People. Wisdom and Gravity, nay, possibly Mr. Collier himself, might enter a Play-house Walls, and come off unhurt. Nay, as Dangerous as it might be even to Youth it self; the Danger belike lay not either in the Play-house or the Play; but the Abuses and Corruptions that crept into the Representations there: For he condemns the Stage-Poetry, but only when it grows too Hardy and too Licentious. Plutarch's Check does not reach Mr. Collier's, he brings only the pruning Hook.

I have here recited every Individual Authority quoted by Mr. Collier, of his Heathen Philosophers, Historians, and Orators; I think they are somewhat short of half a Score. And how far their several Authorities reach, I hope I have indifferently well explain'd.

Well, to Sum up this Heathenish Evidence. This Learned Scholiast has made hard shift to muster up a little above half a dozen Philosophers, Orators and Historians, that have either enter'd their Pagan Protests, or prefer'd some Arraignment against Plays.

Now the particular Opinions of not half a score of these Dissenting Ethnick Doctors, out of at least half as many hundred of that Fraternity, especially too at their rate of talking, or Mr. Collier for 'em, is no more a Conclusive Argument, in my simple Judgment, against the Stage; Then a Diogenes in his Tub and his Rags; or an Epimantus at his Roots and his Water, should perswade any Rational Man from a clean Shirt upon his Back, and a good House o're his Head; or a good Dish of Meat and a Bottle of Wine for his Dinner, viz. if he is able to purchase it.

And now as doughtily as these Orators have supported his Cause, upon this Diminitive Foundation, what a Colossus has he rais'd.

For he concludes upon this Head, with telling us, This was the Opinion of those Celebrated Authors, with respect to Theatres. They charge 'em with the Corruption of Principles and Manners, and lay in all imaginable Caution against them. And yet these Men had seldom any thing but this World in their Scheme; and form'd their Judgment only upon Natural Light, and common Experience. We see then to what sort of Conduct we are obliged. The Case is plain: Unless we are little enough to renounce our Reason, and fall short of Philosophy, and live under the pitch of Heathenism.

Here I must confess this Insinuation is very artful. But all this while these Philosophers that charge the Stage with this Corruption of Principle and Manners, give us but their bare Word for it. Was it enough for the Great Plato and Aristotle, the very Doctors of the Chair in the Old Heathen Divinity, (for Religion was then but Philosophies Pupil); was it enough, I say, for those Zealots in Morality, to see that Stage that had stood hundreds of Years, and to look upon it, as such a Nursery of Corruption, and say no more against it? Does it look like the Man that the World received him, for Plato, to tell us in a Line and a Half, That Plays raise the Passions, and pervert the use of them, and by consequence are dangerous to Morality; only to start such an unintelligible Fragment, and not make a little Sermon-Work upon that Text? Perhaps indeed, Sic Volo, sic Iubeo, might be enough to banish Plays from his own Common-wealth; and even that short Sentence might be Supererrogation. However, he owed that Justice both to the World around him, and Posterity after him, to read a little longer Esculapian Lecture upon so Epidemick a Disease.

Undoubtedly had either Plato or Aristotle but half Mr. Collier's Pique against the Play-houses, they would have spared their Ink as little as he has done; and consequently have supplied him with more copious Satyr, and more sensible Arguments upon that Subject.

But for once I'll joyn Issue with him, and to throw some Weight more into his Scale, I'll suppose these half a dozen Philosophical Doctors with their Natural Light, and as many Doctor Collier's with their Divine Light, had all past their Negative Vote against the Stage; however they would hardly carry the Cause. For truly I know no Reason why the Stage should be obliged to stand upon a stronger Basis then the very Sanction of our Laws themselves. And I doubt not but a Foundation may be very honest and innocent, though not establish'd by a Nemine Contradicente.

To these Testimonies of the Philosophers, &c. he tells you, He'll add a couple of Poets, who both seem to be good Judges of the Affair in hand.

The first is Ovid, who in his Book, De Arte Amandi, gives his Reader to understand that the Play-house was the most likely Place to forage in. Here would be choice, nothing being more common than to see Beauty surprized, Women Debauch'd, and Wenches pick'd up at those Diversions.

Ovid. Lib. 1.

In this Authority of Ovid, our Learned Observator, quite forgets himself, and runs off from his Theme. For Ovid has nothing to say against the Stage, or any Reflection, or Objection against the Dramatick Presentations there. His present Business, to speak in the modern Dialect, is only with the Pit, Box and Galleries. This Quotation therefore is but very indifferently rank'd under that Head, viz. The Opinion of Paganism concerning the Stage. He tells us indeed, the Young and the Fair are to be seen at the Theatres; That Beauty and High Toppings, Faemina Cultissima, and undoubtedly Beauty and High Virtue too, Faemina Castissima may be seen in a Play-house; nay, and come thither too, to see and be seen, without any offence to Modesty. And hither 'tis that Ovid invites his Young Pupils in the Art of Love, to forage in (as he calls it.)

And here I'll give Mr. Collier the Point, viz. That a Debauchee may pick up a Wench at those Diversions. Nor is it any great wonder in so Universal a Concourse of the Young and the Fair, to find some smutty Corn in so large a Field. Society and Crowds, upon a more sacred Ground than a Play-house, are not wholly composed of Honour and Innocence, but that a Carrion Crow may be catch'd even in a flock of Doves.

And truly had not Mr. Collier been wilfully over-sighted, he would have inform'd us, that Ovid was of the same Opinion. For in the very immediate foregoing Verses to this Quotation, he advises his Young Libertine to forage the Temples of the Gods; for he may find the same Game to fly at there too.

And here I am sorry I must joyn with Ovid; when much Diviner Altars are subject to the same Profanation. 'Tis not all Religion and Piety that enters a Church Door: Hypocrisie and Wantonness are too often too bold Intruders: And not only to see and to be seen, is the height of the Devotion, but possibly the Lecture and the Sermon may be sometimes made the screen to the Rover and the Wanton.

But Mr. Collier, I hope, will not infer from hence, that the Church Doors should be shut up, or Devotion barr'd entrance, for fear of Prophanation or Hypocrisie herding in along with them.

'Tis true, there may be a Case, and a weighty one, for keeping us out from Church, Prayers, Sacraments, and what not; as we find it recorded in a Learned Discourse publish'd by this Orthodox School-man, called, A Perswasive to Consideration, tender'd to the Royalists, particularly those of the Church of England, Printed in the Year, 1695. being a Discourse upon this Text— In the Day of Adversity consider—Where Page 35 we Read, as follows.

However, I am loth to leave my Church! (the Auditor thus Expostulating with him) You say well. But can you expect to find the Church, where it's peculiar Doctrines are disowned; where it's Authority is opposed, and betrayed to the Secular Power? Does the Being of a Church consist in Brick and Stone? What would you do if Jupiter was worshipped there? I hope the chiming of the Bells would not draw you to the Service of the Idol. If it is urged, that we may be so planted as to want the Advantage of an Orthodox Pastor; What is to be done in such Circumstances? Must we pray alone, without the Assistance of Priest or Congregation? To this Question, after what has been said, I think the Proverb a sufficient Return; Better be alone than in ill Company. If 'tis farther objected, That by this Principle we lose the Benefit of the Blessed Sacrament. To this I answer,

1. That this Objection is oftentimes no more than Pretence: For if People would take that Pains which the Regard to the Institution requires, it seldom happens but they might receive it from proper Hands.

But 2. I answer, That breaking the Unity of the Church by Schismatical Communion, and making our selves Partakers of other Men's Sins, (1 Tim. 5. 22.) is a bad Preparation for the Sacrament. To break a moral Law for a positive Ordinance, though never so valuable, looks like robbing in order to Sacrifice.

And therefore when the Case is truly put; a pious Desire of Receiving will be Equivalent to the Thing. This being an allowed Rule in Instances of Necessity. So that we cannot be said to lose the Benefit of the Blessed Sacrament, though we are not so happy as to partake in the Administration.

Now by the same Strength of Reason he has here carry'd the Cause against the whole Church of England, and Excluded his Royalists from all publick Devotion; undoubtedly he may shut up the Play-house Doors, and exclude 'em from all publick Diversion too.

The other Poet he joyns with Ovid, is the Author of the Plain-Dealer.

This Poet, in his Dedication to Lady B. some Eminent Procuress, pleads the Merits of his Function, and insists upon being Billeted upon Free Quarter. Madam, says he, I think a Poet ought to be as free of your Houses as of the Play-houses, since he contributes to the Support of both, and is as necessary to such as You, as the Ballad-Singer to the Pickpurse, in convening the Cullies at the Theatres to be pick'd up and carried to a Supper, and Bed, at Your Houses. This is frank Evidence, and ne're the less true for the Air of a Jest.

As frank as this Plain-Dealer's Evidence is, here's nothing but what, with a very Grave face of Truth, and in as earnest a Jest, might have been said upon any other Publick places of Meeting, viz. the Dancing-Schools, the Mall, the Parks, the Gardens; and where not? And unless this Man of Morals, would have a Law made to suppress all Places of general Resort, and confine Mankind to Cells and Caves, I know not well how he will prevent all these Enormities that the Plain-Dealer has here rallied upon.

Nay, this I will positively averr, That both the Plain-Dealer and Mr. Collier's Argument on this side, lies much stronger against any other publick Place of Resort than the Play-house. For if Wantonness and Lewdness will creep into all Publick Societies, though of never so innocent a Foundation, the Theatres lie least obnoxious to that Danger. For in all the other forementioned Places of Resort, we make our own Diversion, have no Entertainment but what we give our selves; and consequently, as Idleness is the Mother of Lust, and when We have least to do, the Devil has most; we lie more open to Temptation and Irregular Desires, than we can do in a Play-house, where the Diversion is all found to our Hands, and the Auditor has both his Eyes and his Ears so employ'd, and is so much taken up with either the Pity and Concern for the Distresses of Tragedy, or a Mirth and Delight from the Pleasantry of Comedy, that he has hardly the Leisure to rove after any Imaginations of his own.

And therefore if our Platonick Author is for banishing of Plays, for this only Grievance within the Walls of a Play-House, he may as justly Vote for the rooting up a Garden, for fear the Spider should suck Poyson from the Flowers.

Next, to proceed to his Testimony of the Fathers, he begins with Theophilus Bishop of Antioch, who lived in the second Century.

'Tis not lawful (says this Father) for us to be present at the Prizes of the Gladiators, least by this Means we should be accessary to the Murders there committed. Neither dare we presume upon the Liberties of your other Shows, least our Senses should be tinctur'd and disobliged with Indecency and Prophaneness. The Tragical Distractions of Tereus and Thyestes are Nonsense to us. We are for seeing no Representations of Lewdness. The Stage Adulteries of the Gods and Hero's are unwarrantble Entertainments; and so much the worse because the Mercinary Players set them off with all the Charms and Advantages of Speaking. God forbid that Christians, who are remarkable for Modesty and Reservedness, who are obliged to Discipline, and train'd up to Virtue; God forbid, I say, that we should dishonour our Thoughts, much less our Practice, with such Wickedness as this.

Tertullian, who lived in the latter End of this Century, thus Addresses the Heathens upon this Subject.

We keep off from your Publick Shews, because we cannot understand the Warrant of their Original. There's Superstition and Idolatry in the Case; and we dislike the Entertainment, because we dislike the Reason of its Institution, &c.

His Book, De Spectaculis, was wrote on purpose to diswade the Christians from the publick Diversions of the Heathens, of which the Play-house was one, &c.

The Arguments of Tertullian which are too long here to recite, were chiefly upon these two Heads, viz. That Pleasure was a bewitching Thing, and the Levity of the Theatres for that Cause was not consistent with the severer Principles of Christianity. His second Argument was the low Character of Players, from the Magistracy it self, who, though they abetted the Stage, discountenanced the Players, and crampt their Freedoms, &c.

To conclude, he insinuates the great danger of being present at those Entertainments; and tells us one sad Example of a Demoniack Possession.

A certain Woman went to the Play-house, and brought the Devil home with her. And when the unclean Spirit was prest in the Exorcism, and ask'd how he durst attack a Christian? I have done nothing (says he) but what I can justifie; for I seiz'd her upon my own Ground.

Before I enter upon any other Argument, I shall make some few Remarks upon this Possession.

I shall not Dispute Tertullian's Veracity in this Relation; yet methinks, upon a thorough Examination, neither Tertullian nor Mr. Collier have over-well proved the Play-house to be the Devils own Ground, when the Title's supported by no more Authority than a bare single Affirmative, and that from no other Mouth than the Father of Lies, the Devil himself. If the Play-house were really a Chattellany of Lucifer, a Fief of the Infernal Empire, some Doctors are of Opinion, the Devil would be the last would tell us so: For as the subtilty of that cunning Seducer strows all his Pit-falls with Flowers, he has neither that Charity for Mankind, nor owes that Service to God, to play thus Booty against himself in so frank a Declaration. However, if that restless Sworn Enemy of Man, had any such generous Principle in him, the Dives in Flames had had no occasion of supplicating a Monitory Messenger, to send to his Worldly Friends, from Abraham: But might e'ne have begg'd the Civil Favour of that kind Errand from one of his own Tormentors. This I must say, that this foolish Devils imprudent Discovery was so Capital a piece of Treason against the Interest of his own Infernal Kingdom, that really I am of Opinion, to set him Rectus in Curia Diabolica, he wants Absolution.

Well, but perhaps you'll say, This Discovery was no Blunder in his Politicks, but extorted by the Divine Force of the Exorcism. Really Sir, that may be. However to give this Devil and his Vouchers their due, all this Confession carries a very rank Face of a Sham still. For if it were substantial Verity, that the Play-house was truly and firmly the Devils own Ground, and every Christian Rambler catch'd upon it his own Lawful, and, to use his own words, Justifiable Seizure; at this rate, the Devil must be soften'd into a Spirit of that unaccountable Mercy, so very unlike the Bible Picture we have of him, when among so many Thousands and Ten Thousands, nay Millions and Millions of Christians, that since that Day have been caught in a Play-house Walls, so pat for his Clutches; nevertheless this only single Seizure of that kind is all that's Recorded against him.

I have several times heard this Demoniack Story warmly play'd, as not a little formidable Battery against the Theatres, by some passionate Zealots, no very good Friends either to our Church or our Stage; and to confirm this Diabolical Authority, those Enthusiasts without question had read, that 'twas no new Thing for the Cloven-foot to deliver Oracles, and therefore doubt not but this may be one.

But in all these Declamations of the Fathers against Stage-plays, St. Cyprian, Tertullian, and St. Augustine, and all of 'em confess 'twas the General Opinion of the Christians that Plays were a Lawful Diversion; and therefore the whole business of those Declamations, is the opening the Christians Eyes, and refuting that too Epidemical Erroneous Opinion; and what occasion'd that spreading Error amongst them was, that the appearance of that general Innocence in those Entertainments gave them that Reception amongst the Christians, that they could not believe them Criminal without some express Divine Precept against them; and accordingly St. Cyprian, the Author de Spectaculis, argues against those, who thought the Play-house no unlawful Diversion because 'twas not condemned by express Scripture.

So Tertullian reproves the Christians, That their Faith is either too full of Scruples, or too barren of Sense. Nothing (he says) will serve to settle them but a plain Text of Scripture. They hover in uncertainty, because 'tis not said as expresly, [Thou shalt not go to the Play-house,] as 'tis [Thou shalt not Kill, &c.]

And here, with all due Reverence to these Christian Fathers, the Scriptural silence in that Case well furnish some more curious Speculations than they have been pleas'd to make; and which I hope will be no unpardonable Inquiry to prosecute a little farther then they have done.

First then, as our Blessed Saviour was Born in the Days of Augustus, 'tis known, by all Historians, that the shutting up of Ianus's Temple Doors in his Reign, universally open'd those of the Play-houses. Theatrick Representations in all the Provinces of the Spacious Roman Empire, were the then Common Publick Diversion and Entertainment, and such they continued many Reigns after him.

Now it may raise a little Wonder why the Apostles, that went forth by a special Command of the Almighty to Convert all Nations, Preaching Repentance, and the Kingdom of Heaven; They that so exactly perform'd that great Commission, as to Arraign or Censure Vice and Impiety from the highest to the lowest, in all its several Branches; not only pronounced their lowder Anathemas against the more crying Sins, but read Divinity-Lectures even upon the Wardrobe and Dressing-Box, correcting the very Indecencies of the Hair, the Apparel, and each uncomely Gesture, &c. That these Missioners of Salvation should travel through so many Heathen Nations (the Gentiles they were sent to call) and meet at every turn the Theatre and the Stage-players staring them in the very Face, and not make one Reprimand against them, is a Matter of very serious Reflection.

Had the Play-house been, as St. Cyprian calls it, the Seat of Infection; or as Clemens Alexandrinus much to the same Sense calls it, the Chair of Pestilence; and (to join the Authority of the Unclean Spirit along with them,) the Devils own Ground; I am of Opinion in this Case, that those Divine Monitors, the Apostles, that sets Bars to the Eye, the Ear, the Tongue, to every smallest Avenue that might let in the Tempter; would hardly have left the Broad Gates to the Play-house so open, without one Warning to the unwary Christian in so direct a Road to Perdition. Such a Discovery I believe would have been rather the earlier Cautionary Favour of some of our kind Evangelical Guardians, then the Extorted Confession of our greatest Infernal Enemy two hundred Years after.

'Tis true, St. Cyprian gives a Reason for this Apostolical Silence, viz. That some things are more strongly forbidden because unmention'd. The Divine Wisdom would have had a low Opinion of Christians, had it descended to particulars in this Case. Silence is sometimes the best Method for Authority. To forbid, often puts People in mind of what they should not do; and thus the force of the Precept is lost by naming the Crime, &c.

Here the World must pardon me, if I presume to say, That St. Cyprian plays more the Orator than the Church-man. I hardly believe that there has been that Crime too Black to lie upon Scripture Paper, when the very Sin that drew down Fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah has been recorded there: Nor can I grant him his Consequence, viz. That such Black Sins are the more strongly forbidden because unmention'd. This I am certain, That the many, the loud, and the repeated Fulminations of Vengeance from the Mouths of the Patriarchs, the Prophets, and the Apostles, denounced against the most Tremendous Iniquities and Abominations, does not very well prove the Scriptural Silence in such Cases.

Besides, St. Cyprian here, under the notion of a Reason for such Silence, either flies wide from the Matter, or else contradicts himself. The Charge he all along lays against Plays, is the Levities and Impertinences of the Comedies, the Ranting Distractions of Tragedies, that Plays were originally the Institution of Heathen Idolatry. That as they are Lewd Representations, they are of this dangerous Consequence, viz. That by using to see such Things we shall learn to do them, &c. And that therefore we must draw off our Inclinations from these Vanities, &c.

All this is so far from a Blackness too deep for Paper, or a Monster too hideous for the Modesty of Divine Revelation to expose to Light, that nothing can be less. But granting this Christian Father the liberty of being sometimes cooler, and sometimes warmer upon that Subject, and allowing these Levities and Vanities to be so many Gorgons and Medusa's; granting the Play-house to be that Rock, that Quicksand, or any other more devouring Gulph; however, the Divine Wisdom in that Case, instead of having a low Opinion of Christians, had it descended to a particular Caution against it; especially when the hidden Rock or Quicksand lay so unseen by the general Eye of Christians, that both by Tertullian and St. Cyprian's Confession, the Danger appear'd so little, that 'twas the publick Christian Opinion, the Play-house was a Lawful Diversion; on the contrary, the Divine Wisdom, I say, had as much occasion of some seasonable Admonition, to hang out as a Watch-Light or Sea-Mark, against those hidden Rocks, as ever Aaron had to warn the Children of Israel from the Tents of Coran, Dathan and Abiram, before the Earth opened to swallow them: And undoubtedly had there been any such true Danger in a Play-house, the Divine Wisdom, without either a low Opinion of itself in descending to give such a particular Caution, or the weak-sighted Christian to want it; amongst its other many thousand particualar Monitory Favours and Mercies, wou'd have added this One more to that infinite Number. I wish this Divine Author has not himself a much lower Opinion of Christians, when to crutch his Argument against the Play-house, he would insinuate, that even a Gospel-Precept may be sometimes ensnaring, and the very Commands of God himself against a Sin, a Temptation to draw us into it; and consequently that in some Cases it is much safer, and more divine Prudence, to leave the Sinner to grope out his way to Salvation, than to give him a Light to guide him thither.

Besides, these Fathers, instead of defending the Spiritual Silence against Plays (the main Argument they drive at,) the Gospel-Light being no ways wanted to guard against them, but that even the very Light of Nature was sufficient in that Case; On the contrary, as they have managed their Indictment against the Stage, have put it so far out of the power of Nature, that they seem to enforce the absolute necessity of a particular Revelation Pilot even to 〈…〉 Danger that lay there.

For Instance, Tertullian.

Will you not avoid this Seat of Infection? The very Air suffers by their Impurities, and they almost pronounce the Plague! What tho' the Performance may be in some measure Pretty and Entertaining? What, tho' Innocence, yes, and Virtue too, shines through some part of it? 'Tis not the Custom to prepare Poison unpalatable, nor make up Rats-bane with Rhubarb and Sena. No, to have the Mischief speed, they must oblige the Sense, and make the Dose pleasant. Thus the Devil throws in a Cordial Drop to make the Draught go down; and steals some few Ingredients from the Dispensatory of Heaven. In short, look upon all the engaging Sentences of the Stage: Their Flights of Fortitude and Philosophy, the Loftiness of their Stile, the Musick of the Cadence, and the fineness of their Conduct; Look upon it only, I say, as Honey dropping from the Bowels of a Toad, or the Bag of a Spider. Let your Health over-rule your Pleasure, and don't Die of a little Liquorishness.

Now if the Visible Beauties of the Stage were made up of all those attracting Charms and Graces, viz. Engaging Sentences, Morality, Philosophy, Virtue and Innocence, and all so shining; could Nature in this Case, as St. Cyprian says, so govern, where Revelation does not reach, as to discover the Latent Poison in the Pill, and all mix'd up with so many Ingredients of Heaven, and under so many Leaves of Gold? Could meer Natural Light supply the Holy Text, to warn us against so lovely and fair a Face, set forth by Tertullian with all these ensnaring Enchantments, without any want of a Spiritual Illumination, to tell us, 'Tis the Syren that wears it?

Tertullian however endeavours to palliate this Scriptural Silence, and tells us, Though Plays are not expresly forbidden in Scripture, we have the meaning of the Prohibition, though not the Sound, in the First Psalm, Blessed is the Man that walks not in the Counsel of the Ungodly, nor stands in the way of Sinners, nor sits in the Seat of the Scornful.

I hope no Man will interpret my Amazement at the Application of this Text to the Condemnation of Play-houses, to any want of Veneration to so celebrated a Pillar of the Church as Tertullian; nay, and all this the substantial Meaning, only the empty Sound wanting!—And here I must declare, had the Demoniack Woman had no plainer Christian Light to lead her to Heaven, than this to shew her the Snares of a Play-house, I am very much afraid she had continued under Possession still, and never got loose from the Infernal Talons that seiz'd her there.

And here again I must once more beg my Reader not to charge me with the Ridiculing of Divine Writ, when I declare from my Soul I should as soon quote, and with as reasonable a Construction, that Verse in the Psalm, Why does the Heathen rage, and the People imagine a vain Thing? for a twoedg'd Sword against Seneca and Terence, the Ranting of Tragedy, and the Fiction of Comedy; and that Hercules Furens, and the Comical Davus, were both hewed down together.

But to return to the Fathers.

If the Heathen Dramatick Poetry, in the Plays of their Times, were so scandalous, so lewd, and infamous a Representation, that the very mention of them in Divine Precept, though to set the Mark of Cain upon them, [Thou shalt not see a Play] by the Venerable Tertullian being even rank'd with [Thou shalt not Kill], were too black a Record to foul the very Paper with: I am here very much afraid, that this Learn'd Histriomastix, our Author, has thrown away a great deal of Oyl and Labour in washing the Ethiop; when in his First Chapter of The Immodesty of the Stage, in his comparing the Ancient and Modern Play-wrights, he clears almost the whole Body of the Greek and Latin Dramatick Poets from every Thing so much as tending to Lewdness or Smut, or even a double Entendre that way. In short, what with the Native Morals and Virtues of the Poets themselves, and the Superiour Care of the Publick Inspectors and Censors of the Theatre, he sets forth, at large, that Modesty and Innocence of the Heathen Stage, so far from encouraging Lewdness and Debaucheries, corrupting of Manners, &c. or any of those hideous Phaenomena's through that long and learned Harangue of the Fathers against them; that hardly any thing, scarce North and South, can be more opposite, than the Sentiments of these Doctors of the Primitive Church in his last Chapter, and of this sometimes Minister of the English Church in the first Chapter.

For Instance, he begins with Plautus, an Author that, he tells us, Has left us 20 intire Comedies; out of which Volume of Antiquity, he quotes but five censurable Passages, and those but moderate ones, viz. Lena and Bacchis the Strumpet are airy and somewhat over-merry, but not obscene. Chalinus, in Womans Cloths, is the most remarkable. Pasicompa Charinus his Wench, talks too freely to Lysimachus, and so does Sophroclidisca, Slave to Lemnoselene; and lastly, Phronesiam, a Woman of the Town, uses a double Entendre to Stratophanes. This Poet, he farther informs us, confesses Smut a scandalous Entertainment; that such Liberties ought to fall under Neglect, to lie unmentioned, and be blotted out of Memory. And that this was not a Copy of his Countenance, we may learn from his Compositions. Nay, this very Plautus, who wrote in an Age not perfectly refin'd, has regard to the Retirements of Modesty, and the Dignity of Humane Nature; and though he often seems to design his Plays for a Vulgar Capacity, he does not make Lewdness his Business.

Of Terence, who appear'd when Breeding was more exact, and the Town better polish'd, he says, That he managed accordingly, and has but one faulty bordering Expression, which is that of Chremes to Clitopho. This single Sentence apart, the rest of his Book is unfullied, and fit for the nicest Conversation. Nay, his very Strumpets are modest, and converse not unbecoming their Sex.

Then for Seneca, he assures us, He is clean throughout the whole Piece; and stands generally off from the point of Love. In fine, to dispatch the Latins together, he tells you, They had nothing smutty so much as in a Song, and kept their Language under Discipline.

To do the same Right to the Greek Poets he tells us, How the Stage had both its beginning and highest Improvement at Athens.—Aeschylus was the first who appear'd with any Reputation: His Genius seems noble, and his Mind generous, willing to transfuse it self into the Audience, and inspire them with a Spirit of Bravery. His Materials were shining and solid, &c. This Tragedian had always a nice Regard to good Manners, &c. and so govern'd his Expressions of Love, that they carried a Face of Virtue along with them.

To Sophocles, that next succeeded him on the Stage, he gives this Character, That he was in Earnest an extraordinary Person; and among his many eminent and all virtuous Qualifications, when he concerns himself with Amours, nothing can be more temperate or decent, &c. His Descriptions of Love are within the Terms of Honour; the Tendernesses are solemn as well as soft; they move to Pity and Concern, and go no farther. In fine, like his Predecessor, he lightly touches upon an amorous Theam; and, to use our Author's ingenious Allusion, He glides along like a Swallow upon the Water, and skims the Surface, without dipping a Feather.

Next for Euripides, his Character agrees too with his Elder Brothers, even to priding himself in Virtue and Modesty, delivering great Thoughts in common Language, and being drest more like a Gentleman than a Player. His Distinction lies in the Perspicuity of his Stile; in Maxims and Moral Reflection; in his peculiar Happiness for touching the Passions, especially that of Pity; and lastly, in exhausting the Cause, and arguing pro and con upon the stretch of Reason. And for Modesty he is intirely in the Authors Favour, &c. He calls Whoring Stupidness and playing the Fool; and to be Chast and Regular is with him, as well as with Aeschylus, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . As much as to say, 'tis the consequence of Sense and right Thinking, &c.

'Tis true, he singles out one frail Brother of the Quill, Aristophanes, and finds a very foul Blot in his Scutcheon, viz. Atheism; and hereupon very passionately declaims upon that Topick, viz. upon his ridiculing the Gods, and breaking in upon Religion, &c. for several whole Pages. But as heavy as the Atheist lies upon him, still he wipes off the Imputation of Debauchery, assuring us, That as to the business of Love, Aristophanes always declin'd it. He never patches up a Play with Courtship and Whining, tho' he wrote nothing but Comedy, &c. 'Tis true, as to the Atheism of Aristophanes, tho' it may appear somewhat a Sin against the Athenian Light of Theology: It happen'd to be a Fault on the better side, (at least in the Christian Scale) when only against the Libertine Houshold of Heathen Gods, where neither Infidelity nor Apostacy were altogether so Capital.

Now, as such were the Characters of the Ancient Poets, and those the very Founders of the Feast in the Theatrical Entertainments in St. Cyprian and Tertullian's Days, and some Ages after them, I cannot but once more repeat my Amazement at their over-passionate Exclamations against the Stage, especially upon the mistaken Topick of Lewdness and Debauchery.

After all this honest and faithful Review of the Ancient Stage, taken even by our kind Author himself, I fancy he has given us some more substantial Reasons for the Scriptural Silence against Plays, than all these Fathers have done. For if such, by his own generous Acknowledgment, was the Stage Primitive State of Innocence; (a Confession which we highly stand obliged to him for, though like one of Sir Martin Marral's Discoveries, considering how little it makes for his Cause,) I fear we shall thank him for a Favour he never intended us.

If therefore, as I was saying, or rather our Author has said for me, such was not only the Innocence of the Heathen Stage, under all the Restrictions of Chastity, Modesty and Decency, not only from the native principles of the Authors, but also from the Regulation of Publick Authority; but even such was the Merit (so I may call it) of those Theatrick Representations so little tending to the Corruption of Manners, That several of them were written with a Genius, to speak in his own Language, enough to transfuse and inspire a Spirit of Bravery, so far from a Check, as to be rather an Excitation to Virtue. Here, upon all these Concessions even from our Author himself, (provided still that as Stage-Plays are only Humane Institutions, and Worldly Diversions, and that that Objection shall be found no Bar to this Plea of Innocence, as that I hope we shall make out;) this then being the Stage, and these the Plays that faced the whole Travels of the Apostles; here's a very substantial Argument for the Evangelical Silence, in not one word against them; for the Mouths of those Divine Oracles open'd only to the Correction of Vice.

Nor will it raise any part of an Objection against this Argument for their Silence, &c. That the Original innocent Constitution of Plays was sometimes Corrupted, their Modesty Debauch'd, and Abuses crept in amongst them, as this Author often observes against them; For as the very Heathens themselves had their Censors and Inspectors appointed to correct and punish those Abuses, and to keep the Stage in the bounds of Modesty, I hope the Christians needed no particular Scriptural Precept in that Case: The Divine Wisdom must then have most truly had a low Opinion of Christians, to think they wanted any particular Evangelical Light to follow, even where the Ignorant Heathen had led before them. And as to the more horrid Representations of the Amphitheater, so frequent in the Neronian Reign, in which St. Paul died; here indeed there wanted no Evangelick Command, to warn the Christian from those Execrable Bloody Walls, where Murder upon Murder even in cold Blooded Sport was made a Publick Entertainment; The Divine Wisdom, as St. Cyprian says, had had a low Opinion indeed to think the Christian could want a Heavenly Caution of entring those Shambles of Humane Butchery.

Besides, to shew how little the Dramatick Poetry lay under the Gospel Censure, our Author, (tho' upon another occasion,) is pleas'd to quote that Text of St. Paul, Evil Communications corrupt Good Manners, as the Expression first of the Comick Poet Menander, 290 Years before Christ, and afterwards of St. Paul the Apostle. Here I would ask whether St. Paul the most Learned of the Apostles, in delivering the Divine Oracles of God, would have incorporated the saying of a Heathen Poet, that possibly had been spoke a hundred times over on the Publick Stage, by a Hireling Player, into the Gospel of Truth, notwithstanding the Morality and Innocence of the Expression it self; had Stage-Plays in themselves, and that in their worst capacity of Comedies, justly lain under St. Cyprian's Character of them, viz. That were they not otherwise highly Criminal, the Foolery of them is egregious and unbecoming the Gravity of Believers?

For some other Instances of St. Paul's Respect for the Poets.

In Acts 17. 28. In him we live and move and have our Being; as certain of your own Poets have said, for we are also his Ofspring.

In his Epistle to Titus, Chap. 1. ver. 14, 15. speaking of the People of Crete, he says in the words of Epimenides the Poet.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . One of themselves, even a Prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are always Liars, evil Beasts, slow Bellies: This Witness is true, &c.

Here the Apostle has not disdain'd to quote a Heathen Poet, nay, and honour him with the Title of Prophet.

Now therefore as the Spirit of God spoke by the inspired Apostles, we may venture to boast, it gives some Reputation to the Poet, and sure a little Vindication of the Innocence of the Profession, that the Holy Ghost himself has spoke in the words of a Menander, and an Epimenides.

But to make a little farther Examination into the Reason of this over-violent Zeal and Vehemence of the Primitive Fathers against the Stage. We are to consider the forementioned Authority, viz. Theophilus, Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Minutius Foelix, and St. Cyprian, so faithfully translated by Mr. Collier, lived all in the second or third Century, in the Mourning Minority of the Church of God, under the Heathen Persecutions. For Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, began his Reign but in the beginning of the fourth Century. Had not then those Primitive Fathers, with Stakes, Gibbets, Cauldrons, Gridirons, Racks, &c. all before their Eyes, a just cause of Complaint against the Christian Inclination for Plays, Delight and Pleasure at that time of Day? Does the Son from his Fathers Death-Bed go to the Musick-House? or the Widow from her Husbands Funeral to the Dancing-School? Was the Play-house a seasonable Christian Diversion, possibly to come from a Laurences Gridiron to a Thyestes Feast? I may here joyn with Tertullian. In Earnest, Christian, our Time for Entertainment is not yet; ye are too craving and ill manag'd, if you are so violent for Delight, page 258.

Besides, was it not a yet greater aggravation to the ill timed Christian Fondness for Plays, to herd, consort and mix with their Tyrants, Persecutors and Murderers the Heathens, in their Entertainments and Diversions? And therefore is it to be doubted, but that this unseasonable Inclination of the Christians for Plays went a great way in the Fathers Passionate Declamations against them; and undoubtedly to check the Christian Fondness in that Case, push'd 'em upon the necessity of enlarging upon that stronger Argument, viz. The Unlawfulness of Plays, where the weaker one, the Indecency of seeing them, would not prevail?

Nay, as Clemens Alexandrinus joyns the Circus and the Theatre together, when he says, They may not improperly be called the Chair of Pestilence. Does not therefore the bloody Gladiator, the profession of the Murder at the Prize, as Minutius Foelix calls it, the Secular Games, and the Pantomimi, and all the rest of the more Licentious and Barbarous Heathen Entertainments, go a great way in the Condemnation of the more Innocent Plays, whilst the Stage suffers with the Ill Company it keeps; all those horrid Diversions, being at the same time supported by the Tyrant Pagan Emperors? Nay, does not the very Christian Horror of those Heathen Tyrants, the Patrons of those Plays, go a great way with these Fathers to the Condemnation of the Feast for the Founders sake? And therefore is all this Vehemence, though to a stretch of Argument, and the Racking of Reasons against them, any thing to be wonder'd at?

Suppose we could parallel the same Modern Case; were there, for Instance, any such Diversion as Plays amongst the Turks, would not the Grecian Patriarchs be as tender of the Christians mixing in that Diversion, more especially if our Mahometans were like their Heathens, a Spirit of Persecution? Why then are all these Primitive Champions brought down to Battle our Theatres, when their whole Ground of Quarrel and Foundation of Complaint, is so Foreign to the present State of the English Stage?

Next, we'll examine the short Account he pretends to give us of the Councils of the Primitive Church concerning the Stage.

The Council of Illiberis or Collioure, Decreed, That it shall not be lawful for any Woman, who is either in full Communion, or a Probationer for Baptism, to Marry or entertain any Comedians or Actors; who takes this Liberty shall be Excommunicated, Anno 305. Can. 67.

The first Council of Arles, Excommunicates Players as long as they continue to Act, Anno 314. Can. 5.

The second Council of Arles made their 20th Canon to the same purpose, and almost in the same words, Anno 452.

The third Council of Carthage, of which St. Augustine was a Member, Ordains, That the Sons of Bishops or other Clergymen should not be permitted to furnish out publick Shews, or Plays, or be present at them. Such sort of Pagan Entertainments being forbidden the Laity, it being always unlawful for all Christians to come among Blasphemers.

By the 35th Canon of this Council 'tis Decreed, That Actors or others belonging to the Stage, who are either Converts or Penitents, &c. shall not be denied Admission in the Church, which our Author remarks, was a Proof that Players as long as they kept to their Employment were barr'd Communion.

Another African Council declares,

That the Testimony of People of ill Reputation, of Players, and others of such scandalous Employments, shall not be admitted against any Person. Anno 424. Can. 96.

The second Council of Chaalon sets forth,

That Clergy-Men ought to abstain from all over-engaging Entertainments in Musick, or Show (Oculorum aurium que illecebris); and as for the smutty and licentious Insolence of Players, and Buffoons, let 'em not only decline the hearing it themselves, but likewise conclude the Laity obliged to the same Conduct. Anno 813. Can. 9.

I have here recited his Authority of the Councils of the Church at this full length, as affording Matter for several serious Reflections and weighty Considerations. First, then it appears by the express words of the Council of Carthage, that the Comedies then Acted, were Pagan Entertainments, and generally perform'd by Pagans, viz. Blasphemers, and for certain were the Composition of the Heathen Poets; for we have no Record or mention of any Christian Poet that compiled or wrote any Theatrical Representations; For had there been any such Christian Author, his Name at least, if not some of his Works would in all likelihood have been transmitted to Posterity, as well as so many of the Dramatick Labours of the Heathen Poets: Besides, had there been any such Dramatick Christian Writers, undoubtedly the several Councils that prohibited the Performance of Plays, and expresly forbid the furnishing or dressing out of Shews or Plays, would have much more particularly reprimanded the more Capital Offender, viz. the Compiler and Composer of such Entertainments, it being their equal Duty and Caution to crush the Egg as the Cocatrice.

Nevertheless, though Playing then stood upon that Heathenish bottom, however the Christians were apt not only to entertain Comedians and Actors, but Personally themselves to be Actors, nay, and in those very Heathen Compositions.

Now here was occasion of just Complaint in those Divine Assemblies, the Councils of the Church, against this Practice of the Christians, were the matter of Playing it self never so innocent. For much the same Reproach (though not the same Apology) lay against them, as the Jews threw upon our Saviour, viz. for consorting with Publicans and Sinners.

Christianity in those Days was in its Morning: The Sun of Righteousness had not fully dispelled the Heathen Darkness and Ignorance. The Christians had the Unconverted Heathen every where round them. And as the great Work of calling in the fulness of the Gentiles was not yet perfected; it might reasonably give Offence to the Fathers of the Church, and raise some shadow of fear, that the Christian Condescension to intermix in the Pagan Diversions and Vanities, viz. their Plays, and those originally too of an Idolatrous Foundation, might give that Reputation or at least that Countenance to Infidelity, as possibly might in some measure retard the great Work of Universal Conversion.

Now as all these Councils commenced from the beginning of the Fourth Century, at, or after the Administration of the Roman Empire was lodged in the Hands of Christian Princes, those Primitive Royal Sons of the Church, those Champions of the Faith that would never be wanting in their utmost Zeal and Industry to propagate the Gospel of Truth: Here, I say, it will afford a Matter of the nicest Speculation, viz. How Players and Playing should lie under this publick Censure of the Church, and yet Acting it self continued unsilenced and unsuppressed by so many successive Christian Emperors.

That it kept all this while so unsuppress'd, is plain and evident; otherwise, why so many repeated Decrees of Councils against them, if the occasion of Offence, viz. Playing it self, had not continued? Nor can it be supposed, had Playing been very much offensive, or had but half the black Colours Mr. Collier has laid upon it, but that some Ghostly Counsellors would have advised those Emperors to such a Suppression of the Stage; and undoubtedly they had listen'd to such Advice. Their Power of putting such Advice in Execution was indisputable, and had the Argument been powerful enough to perswade 'em, without question the Will would not have been wanting; and consequently the Christian Roman Empire would never have faln short of the Heathen Plato in his Common-wealth, in banishing the Playhouse, upon a full Conviction of their Christian Duty to oblige them to such a Reformation: At least, had the Lenity of those Christian Emperors, who propagated the Faith, not by Rods of Iron, but Beams of Mercy, indulged their Pagan Subjects to continue their Heathen Plays and Vanities; nevertheless, 'tis highly to be supposed, they had either used their own Imperial, or commission'd their Ecclesiastical Authority to forbid that Liberty to their Christian Subjects.

But as nothing of all this was done, but the open and publick Stage continued unshaken, in defiance of all this Holy Breath against it; what can we in all Reason conclude, but that these Christian Princes lookt back to the fore-mention'd Father louder Thunder against the Stage, as only a temporary Blast; the greatest Cloud that rais'd all that Storm, the main Ecclesiastical Matter of Complaint, was dispell'd; for the late Mourning, now Smiling Church, had thrown off her Cypress, her Wounds were all heal'd, and her Tears wiped away; and thus that great Stage-Stumbling-Block, viz. the unseasonableness of Mirth and Diversion, was removed. The Christians too now joining in the Heathen Diversion, met their Friends, not their Persecutors there. And for the bloodier Gladiators, and all the other lewder and more barbarous Theatrick Entertainments, they fell in course with the Tyrants that supported them. Thus all these highest Provocations of the Primitive Christian Quarrel against the Theatres composed and ended, and nothing but the Innocent Dramatick Stage left standing; and that to liable to all the Inspection and Regulation of Censors and Supervisors, upon any Abuse or Corruption: How then must these Christian Emperors look upon these Decrees of the Councils, but as an over-warmth of Zeal, a sort of a Iury-Presentation, past at their Vacat Exiguis, not weighty enough to found a State-Indictment upon? Nay, their Sentence perhaps not worthy the Execution, as pronounc'd by not altogether the proper Judges of the Fact: A true Inquisition into the Stage being more the States, than the Churches Province. Those Reverend Divine Doctors of their Councils, pass their Judgment at too far distance; their Gravities come least, or perhaps never into a Play-house Walls; and therefore the full Cognizance of the Matter, and the true Merits of the Cause, lay not so much in their Reach.

For these therefore, and whatever other Reasons the Primitive Christian Government was induced to continue the Stage; Is not here one of the most convincing Arguments for the present Establishment of the Theatres, especially comparing the different Circumstances between them? Our Plays are no Heathen Compositions; our Authors and Auditors profess one Faith; our Stage lies under no Ecclesiastical Reprimand from the Fathers of our Church: In short, we have so many more favourable Aspects, and all that Weight on our side, in ballance between 'em, enough to silence even Calumny it self.

And thus, as our Stage has so leading an Example as the Primitive Christian Indulgence to warrant its Foundation; as it has received the Protection of Crown'd Heads, it has sometimes had the Honour of their Royal Presence at its Diversions too; and what's yet greater, even Princes of the most exalted Piety have been the Royal Guests within those publick Walls.

In a Sermon upon the Death of the late QUEEN, preach'd by William Payne, D. D. Rector of St. Mary Whitechappel, Chaplain to His MAJESTY, Page 19 and 20. dilating upon that copious Theme, the shining Piety of that truly Christian Princess, we read as follows:

She gave Patterns of Virtue not uncouth or fantastick, affected or unnatural, such as we meet in the Legends, but what are agreeable to Civil Life, and to all the Stations of this World, what Christianity and the plain Law of God require of us; and those Things which they had not forbidden, She did not think necessary to forbid her Self. The undue Rigours and Severities of some Indiscreet Persons have done great Harm to Religion and Virtue, by condemning those Things as absolutely sinful, which are so only by Accident, but in themselves innocent; such as Dancing, Playing at Cards, going to Plays, and the like. Our Admirable QUEEN could distinguish here between Duty and Prudence, between Unlawful and Inexpedient. She would not refuse those Common Diversions, nor use them too much: She would not wholly keep from seeing of Plays, as if they were utterly unlawful, &c.

Here are two Christian Authorities, one from the Theatre and the other the Pulpit, of a contrary Opinion to Mr. Collier, viz. That Plays in themselves are an Innocent Diversion.

And here I must look back to one Argument of the Fathers against the Theatres. St. Chrysostome, to oppose the Worldly Diversion of the Stage, tells us how St. Paul exhorts us to rejoyce in the Lord. He said, In the Lord, not in the Devil. And St. Ierome on the same Subject says, Some are Delighted with the Satisfactions of this World, some with the Circus, and some with the Theatre. But the Psalmist Commands every good Man to delight himself in the Lord.

These Precepts of the Psalmist, and the Apostle, are indeed the highest Duty of Christianity. But as we are but Men, 'tis a Duty too weighty to lye upon Humane Weakness, without any Intervals of some lighter Alleviations of the Cares and Labours of Life. Were Life to be intirely divided between the Prayer-book, the Psalter and the Plough, Rejoycing in God is that Exercise of Piety, requiring so Intent and Exalted a Meditation, that the weakness of Humane Nature would hardly be able to keep up the Soul on so sublime a flight, without flagging her Wing, and Devotion so severely tyed to the Altar, I fear, would make but a very lean Sacrifice.

But both the Psalmist and the Apostle did not extend this Command to Rejoyce only in the Lord; no, their Commission reach'd not so far, they neither did, nor could deliver such a Precept, because their Lord and Master, our Blessed Saviour himself, would have refuted them.

For to give us an Instance, that Temporal and Worldly Mirth and Rejoycing has received a Warrant of Authority even from Christ himself; we need but read how Christ and his Mother were called to the Marriage in Cana of Galiiee, where his Beginning of Miracles was turning Water into Wine.

Here we may Innocently and Modestly presume to suppose, at this Marriage Festival, when their Wine, as the Text expresses, was drank out, that Cheerefulness and Mirth went round with the Glass, not Spiritual Mirth, for that wants not the Juice of the Grape. And here undoubtedly our Saviour would neither have been himself a Guest at the Feast, or heightned the Mirth at the Price of a Miracle, had either a Cheerful Glass, a Sociable Rejoycing, or the Innocent Delights of Life been Sinful and Unlawful. Nor can the End of this Miracle, exprest in the Text, viz. The manifesting forth his Glory, and making his Disciples believe on him, be any Argument to weaken my Assertion. For 'twere even Impiety to suggest, That our Saviour could want Occasion or Opportunities of Exerting the God, to need a poor Choice for the Ground of a Miracle.

Next, let us examine one of the most Capital Offences of Dramatick Poetry arraign'd both by the Philosophers, Fathers of the Church, and the Son of the Church, Mr. Collier, viz. The Raising the Passions, &c.

Here we'll begin with Tragedy. Tragedy indeed does raise the Passions; and its chief work is to raise Compassion: For the great Entertainment of Tragedy, is the moving that tenderest and noblest Humane Passion, Pity. And what is it we pity there, but the Distresses, Calamities and Ruins of Honour, Loyalty, Fidelity or Love, &c. represented in some True or Fictitious, Historick or Romantick Subject of the Play? Thus Virtue, like Religion by its Martyrdom, is rendred more shining by its Sufferings, and the Impression we receive from Tragedy, is only making us in Love with Virtue, (for Pity is a little Kin to Love) and out of Love with Vice; for at the same time we pity the suffering Virtue, it raises our Aversions and Hate to the Treachery or Tyranny in the Tragedy, from whence and by whom that Virtue suffers. How often is the good Actor (as for Instance, the Iago in the Moor of Venice, or the Countess of Notingham in the Earl of Essex) little less than Curst for Acting an Ill Part? Such a Natural Affection and Commiseration of Innocence does Tragedy raise, and such an Abhorrence of Villany.

And that this is truly the Entertainment of Tragedy, we come on purpose to see Virtue made Lovely, and Vice made Odious. That Expectation brings us to the Play; and if we find not that very Expectation answer'd, instead of any satisfactory Delight we receive, or any Applause we return, we Explode and Hiss our Entertainment; the Play sinks, and the Performance is lost, and we come away with this Disrelish as to think both our Money and Time ill spent.

'Tis true a Character that has not all the Perfections of true Honour or Innocence, nay a Vicious one sometimes may move Compassion. But then 'tis not the Vice or Blemishes in the Character that moves that Pity. For Instance in the Orphan, we pity the Vicious and Libertine Polydore that lyes with his Brother's Wife. But when do we pity him? When he's touch'd with that sense and horror of his Guilt, that he gives up his Life, (pick's a feign'd Quarrel with the Injur'd Castalio, and runs upon his Sword) to Expiate. 'Tis not the Criminal but the Penitent, the Virtue not Vice in the Character moves the Compassion.

Thus we pity Timon of Athens, not as the Libertine nor Prodigal, but the Misanthropos: When his Manly and Generous Indignation against the Universal Ingratitude of Manking makes him leave the World and fly the Society of Man; when his open'd Eyes and recollected Virtue can stand the Temptation of a Treasure he found in the Woods, enough to purchase his own Estate again: When all this glittering Mine of of Gold has not Charm to bribe him back into a hated World, to the Society of Villains, Hypocrites and Flatterers. We pity the Evandra too, his Mistress, not for the Vice and Frailty in her Character, but for that Generous Gratitude to the Founder of her Fortunes, that she sells all she has in the World, and brings it all in Jewels to relieve the Distresses of Timon; and what heightens our Pity, is, that she follows him, not for a Criminal or wanton Conversation with him: Nay, what's yet greater, she can quit all the Vanities and Temptations of Life, and with an equal Contempt of Jewels and Gold, can embrace his voluntary Poverty, eat Roots, drink Water, and dye with him.

However, if the pitying Part is not the main Offence, there's another more dreadful Danger from Tragedy. For as his Minutius Foelix, upon that Subject, tells us, Sometimes a Luscious Actor shall whine you into Love, and give the Disease that he Counterfeits.

Mr. Collier himself is more at large upon this Play-house Danger: For he concludes his Book with this last Argument to prove the Unlawfulness of Plays, viz. Were the Stage in a condition to wipe off all her other Imputations, there are two Things behind which would stick upon them, and have an ill Effect upon the Audience. The first is their dilating so much upon the Argument of Love. The Subject is Treated Home, and in the most tender and passionate manner imaginable &c. These Love Representations, oftentimes call up the Spirits and set them at Work. The Play is Acted over again in the sense of Fancy, and the first Imitation becomes a Model. Love has generally a Party within; and when the Wax is prepar'd the Impression is easily made. Thus the Disease of the Stage grows catching. It throws its Amours among the Company; and forms these Passions, when it does not find them, &c.

I don't say the Stage Fells All before them, and disables the whole Audience: 'Tis a hard Battle where none escapes. However their Triumphs and their Trophies are unspeakable. Neither need we much wonder at the matter. They are dangerously prepar'd for Conquest, and Empire. There's Nature, and Passion, and Life, in all the Circumstances of their Action. Their Declamation, their Mein, their Gestures and their Equipage, are moving and significant. Now when the Subject is agreeable, a lively Representation, and a passionate way of Expression, make wild work, and have a strong Force upon the Blood and Temper.

I cannot well understand what Mr. Collier means (and I-fear, he don't over-well understand himself,) in all this last Paragraph. But perhaps he design'd it more for Rapsody than Reason; and so 'tis no great matter whether it be Intelligible or not. For all this Nature, Passion, Life and Action; Declamation, Mien, Gesture, and Equipage are purely the Actors, and by making such wild work in the Blood and Temper, and felling so many of the Audience before them, plainly tells us, That these unspeakable Triumphs and Trophies, Conquest and Empire are all the Actors and Actresses and the Cupids Darts come all from their own Eyes and Charms, and consequently the Audiences captivated Hearts are all their own; the Enamour'd Gentlemen in the Pit, and the Gay Ladies in the Boxes, are these Victorious Players most passionate humble Servants.

This unspeakable Play-house Victory, I am afraid is a piece of News that wants Confirmation. For as to the Men-Players, I dare swear for 'em, that all the Feminine Trophies our Triumphant Young Fellows of both Play-Houses can boast, is not enough to buy them Sword-knots and Crevatestrings. And for the Ladies of the Stage, with all the advantage of Paint, Plume, and Candle-light; I do not hear they are so very over-stockt with Idolaters, or make any such general Slaughter-work amongst the Audience before them.

But for once, we'll wave this Interpretation of Mr. Collier, and screw his foremention'd Rapsody to the Sense of his Minutius, viz. That the Charms of the Counterfeit whining Love, separate from the Charms of the whining Lover, shall infuse a True Love-sick Disease into the Audience.

Now 'tis worth one's Pains to inquire by what wonderful Operation, and by what unaccountable Conveyance, this Counterfeit Disease must infuse the true Disease into the Audience. First, here's Pygmalion's Fable infinitely out-done; for the Pygmalion here does not animate the Image, but the Image the Pygmalion. But let that pass.

How then must this Love-disease be contracted! why, thus. Here's a Young Beautiful Actress on the Stage, we'll suppose, by Virtue of the Attracting Graces of Carriage, Movement, Address, Tenderness, Languishment, and what not, shall make a Man fall in Love. In Love! With whom? not the Mistress of all these Attracting Graces; No, that's the natural Way of falling in Love, and that's none of the Operation here. Those Graces that in any other Woman but an Actress shall win Hearts for her self, shall here have a quite contrary Effect. You shall go off as cold as a Chaste Ioseph to all these visible Charms and Charmer that gave you the Fire, and be all in a flame for some Body else. These are indeed unspeakable Stage-Triumphs and Trophies! Thus the Charms of one Woman wins a Heart for another. I have heard indeed of Celadon's kissing his Mistress upon another Woman's Lips, but that was nothing to this; He kiss'd his Mistress only in Imagination, but here the Lover is Captivated in true Earnest.

Really the Ladies in our Boxes stand highly obliged to the Women in the Play-house, and are in all Honour bound to support the Stage. For instead of exercising any Dint of Charms of their own to get Lovers, they keep their Deputies on the Stage to do the Drudgery of Conquest, and carry off the Prize themselves.

One thing I would willingly advise Mr. Collier, viz. to sit Chair-man himself at a Natural Philosophy Lecture, and read a little Learnedly upon this unspeakable way of catching the Disease of Love: Otherwise I am afraid 'tis such a weak-faith'd Age we live in, that all his Metaphysical Divinity will hardly convince 'em of this Superlative Operation of Love.

Besides, if his Minutius, and all the other Primitive Doctors much of the same Opinion, could plead Infallibility, and their Argument were Unquestionable: Nevertheless they would hardly carry Mr. Collier's Cause. For if whining Love is this unspeakable Conqueror, and Love never whines but in our Tragedies, where the Virtuous Distress'd Love is the Darling in the Play; Consequently if a Man should catch the Disease from a Iaffeir and Belvidira, or a Marius and Lavinia, or any such Character, such an Infection would rather recommend then condemn the Stage, not corrupt but reform the Audience, by refining that Noble Passion, so depraved in this Age, from Coldness and Libertinism, to Fidelity and Virtue.

Well, if the Infection from Tragedy strikes not altogether so mortal, let us examine the more pestilential Air of Comedy, and search if possible, which way the more fatal Poison enters there.

First, then for the subject of Comedy, 'tis the Representation of Humane Life in a lower class of Conversation; we visit the Palace for Tragedy, and range the Town for Comedy, viz. for the Follies, the Vices, the Vanities and the Passions of Mankind, which we meet with every Day. In short, the Comedian, may join with the Satyrist, Quicquid agunt Homines, Votum, Timor, Ira, Voluptas, Gaudia, Discursus, nostri est farrago libelli.

But to confine our selves into as narrow a compass as we can, under these three Heads, viz. Folly, Knavery, and Love, we may not improperly Rank the whole Characters in Comedy.

The Fools we may divide into three Classes, viz. the Cudden, the Cully and the Fop. The Cudden a Fool of God Almighties making; the Cully, of Man's making; and the Fop, of his own making.

For the first of these Fools the Cudden, the Sr. Martin Marral, or the Sr. Arthur Addle, &c. I hope the Audience is in no danger of taking Taint from these Characters in Comedy; the made Fool may be a catching Disease, but not the born one.

For the second, one of the made Fools, the Cully. Here's the least danger of a Contagion that way; for that Disease is rather cured than catch'd from the Stage. The Country 'Squire or the Knight, the Prodigal or the Bubble, &c. either Cozen'd by Sharpers, Spungers, Dicers and Bullies; or Jilted by Jades, or snared into any other Ruinous Folly of this Kind; In exposing these Characters, the Stage does the Work of a Philosophy School, it carries the whole Force of Precept and Instruction to warn unwary Youth from the Snares and Quicksands of Debauchery. It points him out the several Harpies that devour him, and instead of taking Taint from the Stage, the very sight of the Plague-spots not gives, but expels the Contagion.

For the third Fool, the Fop; this indeed of all Fools is the most incorrigible. For the Cudden wants no good Will to be wiser, and would learn Wit if he were capable of it. The Cully indeed is capable of being taught Wit, but seldom learns it, till he has too well paid for his Learning; sometimes perhaps at no less Price than his Ruin, when he buys the Knowledge of finding himself a Chouse, by the same Experimental Wisdom as Sir Philip Sydney's Painter learnt to draw Battle-work from Musidorus, viz. when his Hands were cut off. But of all Fools the Fop is the blindest; his Faults are his Perfections, whilst he looks upon himself as the compleatest of Courtiers and Gentlemen; and by that means perhaps, tho' never to be cured of the Fondness he has for his own tawdry Picture; however, in all Places in the World he will never play the Narcissus at the Theatres, nor fall much in Love with his own painted Face, in a Sir Courtly's or a Lord Foppington's Lookingglass. This I will positively say, He that does not bring the Fop to the Play-house, shall never carry it from thence. And in all the Stage Fop-pictures, the Play-house bids so fair for mending that Fool too, that if the good Will fails, the Fault's not in the Mirror, the Hand that holds it, or the Light 'tis sets at, but the perverse and deprav'd Opticks that cannot see themselves there.

As to the second Class, &c. the Villain, the Vsurer, the Cheat, the Pandar, the Bully, the Flatterer, and all the rest of their Brethren in Iniquity; there's so little Danger from all their Stage-Pictures, that there's here no fear of playing the Narcissus in the Glass; and therefore we'll pass to the lewd Love-Distempers in Comedy; and see what Mortality the more dangerous Contagion and Malignity from these Counterfeit Diseases may produce.

First then, to shew how very little Influence the Stage-Characters and Representations of Whoredom and Debauchery carry to the Temptation of the Audience, or the Corruption of Manners; or to make Lewdness look lovely even to the very Practisers of it: Let us consider, that, he that loves Whoredom, loves the Harlot purely as the Harlot, the Sin when it comes singly, in puris naturalibus, with as little a Train at the heels of it as possible. For no Man loves the Levity and Fickleness of the Harlot, the falseness of her Oaths and Tears, the profusness of her Vanity, the insults of her Pride, or the mercynariness of her Lust. Every Man, nay, the greatest Libertine himself would have a Mistress, (if such a Creature of that kind can be found in the World) that brings Love for Love. The Man that loves the Wanton, loves not the Traitress nor the Hypocrite; The Syren may be lovely, and her Musick pleasing; but we are not over-fond of her Enchantments, her Rocks nor her Quicksands.

The same Argument holds on the other side: The Dalilah her self loves a Character of Honour and Fidelity in her Paramour, not the looseness of the Rover and the Libertine: The finest Gentlemen, one of them in all our Comedies; a Dorimant himself is no very tempting Character for a Young Lady to fall in Love with. The veriest Wanton of that Sex is as much for Monopoly as the other; they care not for half Hearts, a Gallant divided between a Lovet, a Bellinda, and a Harriot. 'Tis true, we may see a mad Florimel upon a Stage in Love with a wild Celadon, for wildness sake; but that Rara avis in Terris, is hardly to be found off of the Stage.

Now as the Lovers, I mean the vicious Characters of Love, in our Comedies are generally (I might venture to say, all of 'em) set forth with some of these foremention'd Corruptions, viz. Levity, Hypocrisie, Infidelity, &c. we meet the Jilt, the Rover, the Libertine, false Vows, false Oaths, Love for Money, Treason for Love, or some other ther accumulated Sin, more than the bare Wanton, in all of them: All these therefore are so far from ensnaring or seducing the unwary Auditor, those inviting Charmers off of the Stage by what he sees presented upon it; that they are rather the Objects of his Aversion.

The Objects of his Aversion! Have a care what you say: no, no, says Dr. Collier at my Elbow, don't mistake your self Lactantius his Testimony in his Divine Institutions, Dedicated to Constantine the Great, shall confute that Argument.

The Debauching of Virgins, and the Amours of Strumpets are the Subject of Comedy. And here the Rule is, the more. Rhetorick the more Mischief, and the best Poets are the worst Common-wealths-men. For the Harmony and Ornament of the Composition, serves only to recommend the Argument, to fortifie the Charme, and engage the Memory. Let us avoid therefore these Diversions least somewhat of the Malignity seize us.

Well, to answer both the Primitive Dr. and the Modern one together, I fancy some very good and substantial Reasons, and Proof may be produc'd, That the Ornament and Composition, the Poet and Rhetorick may make these Amours of Strumpets, Debauchery, &c. a delectable Entertainment to the Auditor that hears them upon the Stage; and yet neither recommend the Argument, nor leave any Charm to corrupt him, or Malignity to seize him; but rather the quite Contrary.

First then, why is the Jilt, the Strumpet, or the Adultress, an Entertaining Character in Comedy? Why! Because those very Characters afford the most ample Matter in the Conduct of the Play, to gain one of the great Ends of Comedy, and that which chiefly attracts the Audience thither, viz. Mirth. It gives Occasion, Matter, and Subject to create the Laughter of the Audience.

The Jilt for Instance, with her Windings and Turnings, her Wheedles to draw in her Cully, and her Artifices to Secure and Manage him; The false Wife with her Faunings and Flattery, to lull the Husbands Jealousie. Her Starts and her Fears at every Danger and Alarme, her whole Arts to cover the Hypocrite; and her Surprize and Confusion at her Detection and Discovery (for Comedy it self does that Dramatick Justice to bring her to shame, if no other punishment) as they afford plot design, and contrivance, &c. are the highest Jest of Comedy. And 'tis for that, and that only Charme that these Characters find so general a Reception on the Stage. And that this is truly the only Charme, is manifest from the success of those Comedies. 'Tis not the Lewdness it self in a Vicious Character, that recommends it to the Audience, but the witty Turnes, Adventures and Surprizes in those Characters that give it Reception. For without this, the Play drops and dies.

And to shew you, that a Vicious Character, Quatenus as Vicious, is no Darling of the Audience; but that the Mirth only that it raises, is the Delight of Comedy; let an Ingenious Author raise the same Mirth upon a Virtuous Foundation, and that Comedy shall be as hug'd a Favourite as the other. For Instance in a Sr. Solmon Single and several other Comedies, where the Love is all Virtuous. In fine, 'tis the Wit of the Composure, not the Vice in the Composure, gives Life to the Comedy. A dull Representation of Vice or Virtue, shall be equally Hist off the Stage. And tho' even Vice and Debauchery in a Theatrick Representation may find Applause, 'tis never the more a Closet Darling for being a Stage one. Nay rather one the contrary, much less the Darling of the Closet. For the publick exposure of Debauchery, with all her Treacheries, Wills, Delusions, Impostures and Snares, has more of the Antidote than the Poyson.

There's a great deal of difference betwixt likeing the Picture and the Substance. A Man may be very well pleas'd with a Forest work piece of Tapestry, with the Lyons, the Bears, and the Wolves, &c. but not over fond of their Company in Flesh and Blood; and confequently the very worst Jilt may be the Minion upon the Stage, and, as I said before, our Aversion off it.

Nay, I dare be so bold, as to tell this angry Gentleman, as highly as he Resents the Cuckolding of Aldermen and Quality in our Comedies, that I could find him Matter of very good Instruction, from a Character of this kind, in a very Ingenious Author, though not much in Mr. Colliers Favour. For Example, If the Reverend Gentlemen of the Fur would be but half as kind to a Play-house as a Pin-makers-Hall, and step for Edification, but so far towards Westminster, as to see the Old Batchelor; I doubt not but an Isaac Fondlewife would be a very seasonable Monitor to Reverend City Sixty, to warn against the Marrying to Sixteen. Nor can I think it such a scandalous part of the Dramatick Poet; but rather a true Poetick Justice, to expose the unreasonableness of such Superannuated Dotage, that can blindly think or hope, that a bare Chain of Gold has Magick enough in the Circle to bind the Fidelity of so unequal a Match, a Match so contrary to the Holy Ordinance of Matrimony; and an Itch at those Years that deserves the severest Lash of the Stage. And if an Author would pick out such a Character for a little Stage Satyr, where can he meet with it but amongst the City or Court Quality? Such Inequality of Marriages are rarely to be found, but under the Roofs of Honour; for so Antiquated a Lover, (the least he can do) must bring a Coach and Six, to carry off such a Young Bride.

One thing mightily offends this Divine Author, viz. That our Modern Plays make our Libertines of both Sexes, Persons of Figure and Quality, Fine Gentlemen and Ladies of Fashion, a fault utterly unpractis'd by the Ancient Poets: For Terence and Plautus his Strumpets are little People.

Now this is so far from a fault in our Comedies, that there's a necessity of those Characters, and a Vertue in that Choice. For as the greatest and best part of our Audience are Quality, if we would make our Comedies Instructive in the exposing of Vice, we must not lash the Vices at Wapping to mend the Faults at Westminster.

And as the Instructive Design of the Play must look as well to the Cautioning of Virtue from the ensnaring Conversation of Vice, as the lashing of Vice it self. Thus the Court Libertine must be a Person of Wit and Honour, and have all the accomplishments of a Fine Gentleman. (The Court Ladies receive no Visits from Ruffians.) Besides there needs no cautioning against a Don Iohn; every Fool would run from a Devil with a visible Cloven-foot. That Devil therefore must have all the Face and Charms of Honour, when it would seduce Honour; and therefore 'tis those very Pictures the Stage must present.

The Plain-dealer speaks very significantly to this purpose, and very much justifies this Choice of Characters for Plays. Who betrays you, Over-reaches or Cheats you, but your Friend? Your Enemy is not trusted with your Affairs. Who violates the Honour of your Wife, but your Friend? Your Enemy is not admitted into your Family.

Who therefore are those Dangerous Friends of Quality, but their Bosome Conversation? and who that Conversation but their Equality; and therefore for an Instructive Draught for Comedy, who so proper to sit to her Pencil as Quality?

Besides, Comedy opens a wrong Door to let in a Taint of Lust. Lust is the product Thought and Meditation; not the Child of Laughter. The Auditor must have a much more serious Face than he wears at a Light Comedy, to take so deep and so fatal an Impression.

Nay, if we could suppose that the Jest of a Comedy shall open his Laughing Mouth so wide as to let down a Lust like a Witches Ball of Pinns; or rather that a speaking Image in a Comedy shall have the same conceptionary Force upon us, as the European Picture at the Mauritanean Princesses Bedsfeet, that made her bring forth a White Child; Yet still the Picture in Comedy, like that in the Ladies Bed-Chamber, does not hang long enough for any such Conceptionary Impression: For besides twenty other equally diverting Objects in the same Comical Lantscape; here's the whole Stage new furnish'd every Day; and a new Collection of Painting for the next Entertainment. The Venus yesterday is the Diana to day, the Iuno to morrow, all a quite contrary set of Imagery. And if the Movement, the Gesture, the Equipage, have any such dangerous Force, here's not one Movement one Day but what's quite alter'd the next; and so Change upon Change, &c. 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 so that in the infinite Variety of the Stage, here's no dwelling upon one darling Object to run any such Danger of Infection: For the whole Stage-Mercury is too volatile to fix.

But if the Stage had any such Magical Power, (for no Natural one will reach it) over poor weak Mortality to Enchant, Corrupt, Confound, or what else Mr. Collier pleases; we'll try the Experiment but in one Play: For Instance, we'll take one of the loosest, and to answer the Temptation, one of the loveliest of those Libertine Pictures, Mr. Dorimant, we named before; and granting the Ladies Love Proof against such a Libertine Character; we'll suppose some Young mad Spark as much Charm'd with this lovely Dorimant, as this Divine Speculator can fancy him, and consequently shall catch the true Disease from this amiable Counterfeit; pray which of all the Ignes fatui, in Mr. Dorimant's Character shall be the misleading Fire? For here in one Play, in the Presentation of poor three Hours, we have, First, Mr. Dorimant's Cooling Intriegu, all his retreating Steps from the tiresome Embraces of an old Mistress, Madam Lovet; next his start of Love, an Amour, en passant, into the Arms of Belinda; and to conclude the Character, his last honourable Passion for the Virtuous Mistress Harriot. Now I say, to which of all these three, shall this mad Sparks Tarantula dance? (For to all three together is a little too mad a Gallop:) If to the first: And consequently (to Copy from the Original) he goes home weaned from an old Darling Sin, and turns off some Bosom Dalilah; if our Spark catches Fire from this part of the wild Dorimant, I hope, our Ecclesiastical Censor will sind no Sin in so harmless an Infection. If to the second: If he takes Fire from Dotrimant's Frailty with Belinda; there indeed he may want some Church-Buckets to quench him; 'tis high time for all Hands for his Conversion. But if he sums up the Character, and Copies the whole reforming Rover, quits, like Dorimant, his old sour Grapes and forbidden Fruit, for the Charming Sweets of a Chaste Harriot, and finishes the Picture in the Comedy, in an honourable Wedlock Passion; then I hope this Reverend Corrigidore of unruly Love, will remit the Lash, and hold his whip Hand.

Thus you see what Boutefeu does Mr. Collier make of a poor Player, that with the Intoxication of a three Hours Tale of Love, shall put a Man not only into a whole Nights pain of it, but possibly to a total Corruption of his whole Mass of Blood, and the very enflaming of an unquencheable Feavor. What Quixot Wind-mills can an Enthusiast raise, and then Battle the Gyant of his own Creation!

The second of the two Things he has to object against the Stage, is, Their Encouraging Revenge. What is more common then Duells and Quarrelling in their Characters of Figure? Those Practices which are infamous in Reason, Capital in Law, and damnable in Religion, are the Credit of the Stage, &c. But this Subject he tells you he had discours'd of before,—viz. p. 67. Our Saviour (he says) tells us we must forgive until seventy times Seven. That is, we must never be tired out of Clemency and good Nature. He has taught us to pray for the Forgiveness of our own Sins, only upon the condition of forgiving others: Here is no Exception upon the Repetition of the Fault or the Quality of the Provocation.

I shall not dispute upon Our Saviours Precepts of Forgiveness, but acknowledge it possibly, the highest Characteristick of Christianity, and a Perfection that comes nearest to the Great Original of Mercy, that deliver'd it. But to let my Reader see upon what stress, Mr. Collier enforces his Scriptural Arguments, we'll Examine, what Consequence must follow the Universal Stretch of a Divine Precept.

By these Divine Commands of our Saviour to the Literal Extent of the Precept: In the first place I must neither Sue in Law nor Equity for the Recovery of a Just Right, or the Reparation of any wrong whatever. For the Prosecution of Law is directly opposite to this Forgiving Doctrine.

So here's Westminster-hall shut up immediately. Nay, if the precept of God obliges me to the same Resignation of my Coat to the Thief that has Rob'd me of my Cloak, I am so far from Licens'd or Authoriz'd to take that Christian Revenge against the Offender, viz. the Prosecution of publick Justice upon him; that the very Christian Judge, instead of Arraigning the Robber, the Cheat or the Felon at the Bar, for the Breach of our Humane Law; should rather stand obliged to Arraign the Prosecutor for the Breach of a Divine one. So here's the Old-Bayly shut up too. Nay here's the very Law it self Arraign'd, as little less then Antichristian for punishing that Injury, which the express Law of God, even seventy seven times over, obliges us to forgive. I believe this Author as bold a Sermonist, and as hardy a Hero of the Rockost, as his Perswasive to Consideration has prov'd him; Nevertheless has hardly Courage enough to Preach this Doctrine to the Gentlemen of St. Stephens Chappel.

Nay, by this forgiving unrevenging Doctrine push'd home, here's Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance set up with a Vengeance, not only in submission to Soveraign Tyranny to Lord it over us, but even to every little Diminitive Arbitrary Thief and Ruffain, the Lord and Master of my Purse, my House, my Coat, &c. for at this rate of Forgiveness, here's a General Goal-Delivery, Newgate Doors set open, Oppression, Injustice, Theft, Rapine and Villany let loose, and the Homo Homini Lupus at free Discretion to Spoil, Ravage, and Over-run the whole World, whilst the meek, humble, resigning, forgiving Christian is the tame bleating Sheep before him.

The Gentleman Thief at this rate will be as great as an Almanzor himself, and may Plume in his Vanity.

In short, how can any Man of Sense extort such rigorous Constructions of the Divine Commands; as if the God of Concord and Peace could set up a Doctrine of Christianity utterly destructive, not only to all Civil Government, but even to Human Society it self.

Mr. Collier is almost as angry at the Vanity, as at the greater Sins of the Stage; and passes his Vote for their Exclusion, even for that Offence alone. But if he'll make a fair distributive Justice to all other Vanities, I am afraid he'll set up another Doctrine almost as pernicious to Government as the first. For if the Vanity-shop the Playhouse must go down; pray let the Vanityshops the Embroiderer, the Laceman, the Featherman, the Ribband-Weaver, cum multis aliis come in for a snack; for there's not one of all those Professions but is utterly useless to the real wants of Life, and perhaps deals in the more dangerous Vanities; for the Stage Vanities may only raise an Innocent Tear or a Laugh or so; but these other ther Vanities are very often the unhappy Nurses of Pride, a more capital Fault.

I confess, a good stretch of this Argument for the General Retrenchment of Vanities would make a terrible City slaughter, and almost as many Beggers as the stretch of the other would Thieves: However, 'tis but Dr. Collier's Preaching them another healing Text, being a second Perswasive, to Poverty, like his First, to Consideration, to alleviate their sorrows, and soften their losses, by assuring them, That the Poor shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.