uestion was given to the audience
for general debate,--according to the custom,--Nat started to his feet.

"Mr. President," said he, and every head was up, and every eye fixed, at
the sound of his voice. All were astonished that he should presume to
speak on that floor; they would scarcely have been more surprised if a
strange debater had dropped down through the plastering into the
audience. But Nat went on to say, in substance,

"I have listened to the discussion of the question before us with
mingled feelings of interest and surprise. Much that has been said I can
most cordially respond to, while some of the arguments upon the
affirmative do not appear to me legitimate or just. Every subject should
be treated fairly, and especially one like this, which is so apt to
encounter superstition and prejudice. It is no objection, in my mind, to
an enterprise, that it had a lowly origin, any more than it is for an
honest and noble man to have descended from ignoble parents. If a man
will work his way up from poverty and obscurity by his indomitable
energy and perseverance, until he carves his name with scholars and
statesmen on the temple of fame, it is the climax of meanness in any one
to twit him of his humble origin, and hold him up to ridicule because
his parents are poor and unhonored. And so when the gentleman tells us
that the theatre was born in a cart, and was originated by those who had
neither learning nor character, it is no argument against it, in my
view, when I see the rank to which it has attained. The cart has given
place to the marble edifice, decorated in the highest style of art, and
the place of the untutored street-singer and clown is filled by the
queen of song and the prince of orators. The play is no longer devoid of
literary character, but is invested with a classic elegance which only
the gifted intellect of Shakspeare could impart. What is it that has
elevated dramatic entertainments from the cart to the costly temple?
Human meanness could not do it, nor human policy alone. It has been
accomplished by the intrinsic value to be found in such dramas as those
composed by Shakspeare, and that justly entitles them to something
nobler than a contemptuous sneer.

"I do not presume to defend theatres as they are, with all the vices
that attach to the present manner of conducting them. I admit that the
actors are no better than they should be, and that intemperance and
licentiousness may be countenanced b