restrictions were afterwards imposed upon the writers of such pieces, they produced a new species of comedy. This is that which obtains at the present day. It consisted of an imitation of the manners of common life. The subject, the names, and the characters, belonging to it, were now all of them feigned. Writers, however, retained their old object of laughing, at folly and of exposing vice.

Thus it appears that the theatre, as far as tragedy was employed, inculcated frequently as good lessons of morality, as heathenism could produce, and as far as comedy was concerned, that it became often the next remedy, after the more grave and moral lectures of the ancient philosophers, against the prevailing ex. cesses of the times.

But though the theatre professed to encourage virtue, and to censure vice, yet such a combination of injurious effects was interwoven with the representations there, arising either from the influence of fiction upon morals, or from the sight of the degradation of the rational character by buffoonery, or from the tendency of such representations to produce levity and dissipation, or from various other causes, that they, who were the greatest lovers of virtue in those days, and the most solicitous of improving the moral condition of man, began to consider them as productive of much more evil than of good. Solon fore

warned Thespis, that the effects of such plays, as he saw him act, would become in time injurious to the morals of mankind, and he forbade him to act again. The Athenians, though such performances were afterwards allowed, would never permit any of their judges to compose a comedy. The Spartans under Lycurgus, who were the most virtuous of all the people of Greece, would not suffer either tragedies or comedies to be acted at all. Plato, as he had banished music, so he banished theatrical exhibitions from his pure republic. Seneca considered, that vice made insensible approaches by means of the stage, and that it stole on the people in the disguise of pleasure. The Romans, in their purer times, considered the stage to be so disgraceful, that every Roman was to be degraded, who became an actor, and so pernicious to morals, that they put it under the power of a censor, to control its effects.

But the stage, in the time of Charles the second, when the Quakers first appeared in the world, was in a worse state than even in the Grecian or Roman times. If there was ever a period in any country, when it was noted as the school of profligate and corrupt morals, it was in this reign. George Fox therefore, as a christian reformer, could not be supposed to be behind the heathen philosophers, in a case where morality was concerned. Accordingly we

find him protesting publicly against all such spectacles. In this protest, he was joined by Robert Barclay and William Penn, two of the greatest men of those times, who in their respective publications attacked them with great spirit. These publications shewed the sentiments of the Quakers, as a religious body, upon this subject. It was understood that no Quaker could be present at amusements of this sort. And this idea was confirmed by the sentiments and advices of several of the most religious members, which were delivered on public occasons. By means of these publications and advices the subject was kept alive,, till it became at length incorporated into the religious discipline of the Quakers. The theatre was then specifically forbidden; and an inquiry was annually to be made from thenceforward, whether any of the members of the society had been found violating the prohibition.

Since the time of Charles the second, when George Fox entered his protest against exhibitions of this sort, it must certainly be confessed, that an alteration has taken place for the better in the constitution of our plays, and that poison is not diffused into morals, by means of them, to an equal extent, as at that period. The mischief has been considerably circumscribed by legal inspection, and, it is to be hoped, by the improved civilization of the times. But it does not

appear by any historical testimony we have, that a change has been made, which is at all proportioned to the quantity of moral light, which has been diffused among us since that reign. Archbishop Tillotson was of opinion, "that plays might be so framed, and they might be governed by such rules, as not only to be innocently diverting, but instructive and useful to put some follies and vices out of countenance, which could not perhaps be so decently reproved, nor so effectually exposed or corrected any other way." And And yet he confesses, that, " they were so full of profaneness, and that they instilled such bad principles into the mind, in his own day, that they ought not to have been tolerated in any civilized, and much less in a christian nation." William Law, an eminent divine of the establishment, who lived after Tillitson, declared in one of his publications on the subject of the stage, that "you could not then see a play in either house, but what abounded with thoughts, passages, and language contrary to the christian religion." From the time of William Law to the present about forty years have elapsed, and we do not see, if we consult the controversial. writers on the subject, who live among us, that the theatre has become much less objectionable since those days. Indeed if the names only of our modern plays were to be collected and published, they would teach us

to augur very unfavourably as to the morality of their contents. The Quakers, therefore, as, a religious body, have seen no reason, why they should differ in opinion from their ancestors on this subject: and hence the prohibition which began in former times with respect to the theatre, is continued by them at the present day.

SECT. II.

Theatre forbidden by the Quakers on account of the manner of the drama-first, as it personates the character of others secondly, as it professes to reform vice.

THE

HE Quakers have many reasons to give, why, as a society of christians they cannot encourage the theatre, by being present at any of its exhibitions. I shall not detail all of them for the reader, but shall select such only, as I think most material to the point.

The first class of arguments comprehends such as relate, to what may be called the manner of the drama.