l ages the theatrical art had kept pace with the
improvement of mankind, and with the progress of letters and the fine
arts. As man has advanced from the ruder stages of society, the love
of dramatic representations has increased, and all works of this nature
have keen improved in character and in structure. They had only to turn
their eyes to the history of ancient Greece, although he did not pretend
to be very deeply versed in its ancient drama. Its first tragic poet
commanded a body of troops at the battle of Marathon. Sophocles and
Euripides were men of rank in Athens when Athens was in its highest
renown. They shook Athens with their discourses, as their theatrical
works shook the theatre itself. If they turned to France in the time of
Louis the Fourteenth--that era which is the classical history of that
country--they would find that it was referred to by all Frenchmen as the
golden age of the drama there. And also in England in the time of Queen
Elizabeth the drama was at its highest pitch, when the nation began to
mingle deeply and wisely in the general politics of Europe, not only
not receiving laws from others, but giving laws to the world, and
vindicating the rights of mankind. (Cheers.) There have been various
times when the dramatic art subsequently fell into disrepute. Its
professors have been stigmatized, and laws have been passed against
them, less dishonourable to them than to the statesmen by whom they were
proposed, and to the legislators by whom they were adopted. What were
the times in which these laws were passed? Was it not when virtue was
seldom inculcated as a moral duty that we were required to relinquish
the most rational of all our amusements, when the clergy were enjoined
celibacy, and when the laity were denied the right to read their Bibles?
He thought that it must have been from a notion of penance that they
erected the drama into an ideal place of profaneness, and spoke of the
theatre as of the tents of sin. He did not mean to dispute that there
were many excellent persons who thought differently from him, and he
disclaimed the slightest idea of charging them with bigotry or hypocrisy
on that account. He gave them full credit for their tender consciences,
in making these objections, although they did not appear relevant to
him. But to these persons, being, as he believed them, men of worth
and piety, he was sure the purpose of this meeting would furnish some
apology for an error, if there b