last class, the principal are stories or novels, and theatrical compositions. On the subject of novels, I have in a former paper delivered a few general remarks, calculated to ascertain their moral tendency. In this, I propose extending my consideration to dramatic writing; and, as it is nearest to the novel, at least to that species which I principally considered in the paper alluded to, I shall begin with a similar examination of tragedy.

The engines which tragedy professes to use for moral instruction are the passions. The father of dramatic criticism has told us, that tragedy "purges the passions by exciting them; " a proposition, which, from its short apophthegmatical form, is subject to considerable obscurity. A modern writer, in his defence of tragedy as a moral exhibition, explains its meaning, by the analogy of the Spartan custom of making their slaves drunk, and showing them in that beastly state to their children, in order to inspire a detestation for the vice of intemperance. But if this is to furnish us with an illustration of Aristotle's assertion, I am afraid it will not aid the cause of tragedy as a school of morals. It was from the previous contempt of the rank and manners of the drunkard, that the Spartan boy was to form his estimate of drunkenness. The vice of a slave could hardly fail to disgust him. But had they shown him the vice itself, how loathsome and degrading soever in its own nature, in a person of superior respect and estimation, what would have been the consequence? The fairest answer may be drawn from the experience of those countries where freemen get drunk, where senators and leaders of armies are sometimes intoxicated. The youths who behold these examples the oftenest are not the least liable to follow them. I am afraid it is even so

with tragedy. Scenes presenting passions and vices, round which the poet throws the veil of magnanimity, which he decorates with the pomp of verse, with the splendour of eloquence, familiarize the mind to their appearance, and take from it that natural disgust which the crimes, presented in their native form, would certainly excite. Cruelty, revenge, and murder, are often the attributes of the hero; for he must always be the hero on whom the principal stress of the action lies. What punishment awaits or what misfortunes attend his crimes, is little to the purpose; if the villain is the prominent figure of the piece, he will be the hero of the tragedy, as the robber, though he is about to be hanged, is the hero of the trial or the execution. But even of the nobler characters, does not the morality of sentiment often yield to the immorality of situation? Treachery is often the fruit of wisdom and of resolution; murder, an exertion of valour; and suicide, the resource of virtuous affliction. It will be remembered, that it is not so much from what the hero says, as from what he does, that an impression is drawn. The repentant lines which Cato speaks when he is dying, are never regarded. It is the dagger only we remember, that dagger by which he escaped from chains, and purchased immortality.

But the leading passion of modern tragedy is one to which Aristotle could scarce have meant his rule to apply; because in ancient tragedy it was almost unknown. The passion I allude to is love. The manners and society of modern times necessarily led to this change in the drama. For the observation which some authors have made is perfectly just, that the sentiments of the stage will always be such as are flattering, rather than corrective of national manners and national failings; superstition in Greece,

gallantry in France, freedom and courage in England. In every popular exhibition this must be the case. Even the sacredness and authority of the pulpit is not exempted from its influence. In polite chapels, preachers exhort to morality; in crowded churches of less fashionable people, they enlarge on doctrinal subjects, on faith and sanctification. But

the very existence of the stage depends on that public opinion which is not to reform but to conciliate; and Dr. Johnson's expression is not the less true for its quaintness :

"They that live to please, must please to live."

To this necessary conformity to the manners of the audience is owing the introduction of love into almost all our dramatic compositions; and those, as might be expected, are most in favour with the young, where this passion is allowed the most extensive influence, and the most unlimited power. It was this which, when it was the fashion for genteel people to pay attention to tragedies, drew such audiences to Lee's Theodosius, and to Dryden's Anthony and Cleopatra; where the length of the speeches, and the thinness of the incidents, would have been as tiresome to them as a sermon, had it not been for a tenderness and an extravagance of that passion, which every girl thought she could feel, and believed she could understand. The moral consequences of such a drama it is unnecessary to question. Even where this passion is purified and refined to its utmost degree, it may be fairly held, that every species of composition, whether narrative or dramatic, which places the only felicity of life in successful love, is unfavourable to the strength and purity of a young mind. It holds forth that single object to the ambition and pursuit of both sexes, and

thus tends to enfeeble and repress every other exertion. This increases a source of weakness and corruption, which it is the business of a good instructor to correct and overcome, by setting before the minds of his pupils other objects, other attainments, of a nobler and less selfish kind. But in that violence, in that tyranny of dominion, with which love is invested in many of our tragedies, it overbears every virtue and every duty. The obligations of justice and of humanity sink before it. The king, the chief, the patriot, forgets his people, his followers, and his country; while parents and children mention the dearest objects of natural attachment only to lead them in the triumph of their love.

It is the business of tragedy to exhibit the passions, that is, the weaknesses of men. Ancient tragedy showed them in a simple manner; virtue and vice were strongly and distinctly marked, wisdom and weakness were easily discriminated; and though vice might be sometimes palliated, and weakness excused, the spectator could always discover the character of each. But in the modern drama there is an uncertain sort of outline, a blended colouring, by which the distinction of these objects is frequently lost. The refinement of modern audiences calls for shades of character more delicate than those which the stage formerly exhibited; the consequence is, that the bonds of right and wrong are often so uncertainly marked as not to be easily distinguished; and if the powers of poetry, or the eloquence of sentiment, should be on the side of the latter, it will require a greater firmness of mind than youth or inexperience is master of, to resist it.

Reason condemns every sort of weakness; but passion, enthusiasm, and sickly sensibility, have dig

nified certain weaknesses with the name of amiable; and the young, of whom some are susceptible, and others affect susceptibility, think it often an honour to be subject to their control. In tragedy, or tragic writing, they often find such characters for their imitation. Such characters being various, complicated, and fluctuating, are the properest for tragedy. The poets have not neglected to avail themselves of that circumstance; their dramas are filled with such characters, who shift the hue and colour of their minds according to the change of situation or the variety of incident; or sometimes, whose minds, in the hands of the poet, produce that change, and create that variety. Wisdom and virtue, simple, uniform, and unchanging, only superior artists can draw, and superior spectators enjoy. N

No. 28. SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 1785.

CONTINUATION OF THE REMARKS UPON TRAGEDY.

THE high heroic virtue we see exemplified in tragedy, warms the imagination and swells the mind; but being distant from the ordinary feelings and exertions of life, has, I suspect, but little influence upon the conduct. On the contrary, it may be fairly doubted, whether this play of the fancy, in the walks of virtue and benevolence, does not lessen the exertion of those qualities in practice and reality. Indocilis privata loqui, said Lucan, of Cæsar; so in