e of youth; and that
nothing which has a tendency to mislead them, in any of those
essentials, should be submitted to their eyes or ears; but that on the
contrary, every thing should be done, as a great moral philosopher has
instructed us, "to secure them from unjust prejudices, from perverse
opinions, and from incongruous combinations of images." Let it be kept
in mind that we are not now discussing the question whether the stage be
beneficial to society or not. Though it be a fair subject of inquiry,
and will hereafter engage a share of our attention, we have no use for
it, at present; since be our opinions or those of our readers what they
may, the stage exists, and will continue to exist and attract the
regards of mankind. The true point of consideration, therefore, is, not
how far it is beneficial or how far injurious; but in what way its
benefits may be enhanced, and its mischiefs, if any, be abated. He who
should demonstrate that it has a pernicious tendency, would but the more
strongly enforce our propositions; since he would thereby show the
expediency of diminishing that tendency and of mitigating that evil
which the public will forbids to be entirely prevented.

It is not merely on account of its effects upon the audience, but on
that of the actors themselves, that the theatre calls loudly for a
strict critical regimen. An actor resigned to his own opinion, and
committed to the unrestrained licentious exercise of his own judgment,
if he be not one in a million, sinks into negligence, becomes wilful,
and if, as is nine times in ten the case, he should obtain the casual
applause of a few stupid and injudicious spectators, becomes headstrong,
refractory, and incorrigibly hardened in error. If by means of the
oversight of critical judges, or the false adjudication of applause, an
actor insensibly slides into popularity, he is erected into a standard
of taste, by those who have not seen better; instead of being himself
tested by sound principles of criticism and estimated by comparison,
with the best models, he becomes gradually absolved from submission to
all authority, is held up as a criterion for determining the merit of
other actors, and dubbed the Roscius of his little theatre by a number
of confident pretenders who know just as much about dramatic character
and acting, and on the very same grounds too, as the poor islander of
St. Kilda did of architecture, when he sagaciously concluded that the
great church