mongst us, since
fifty years have expired. I mean the question of attendance by clergymen
on theatrical representations. Dr. Carlyle had been prosecuted before
the General Assembly in 1757 for being present at the performance of the
tragedy of Douglas, written by his friend John Home. He was acquitted,
however, and writes thus on the subject in his Memoirs:--

"Although the clergy in Edinburgh and its neighbourhood had abstained
from the theatre because it gave offence, yet the more remote clergymen,
when occasionally in town, had almost universally attended the
play-house. It is remarkable that in the year 1784, when the great
actress Mrs. Siddons first appeared in Edinburgh, during the sitting of
the General Assembly, that court was obliged to fix all its important
business for the alternate days when she did not act, as all the younger
members, clergy as well as laity, took their stations in the theatre on
those days by three in the afternoon."

Drs. Robertson and Blair, although they cultivated the acquaintance of
Mrs. Siddons in private, were amongst those clergymen, referred to by
Dr. Carlyle, who abstained from attendance in the theatre; but Dr.
Carlyle states that they regretted not taking the opportunity of
witnessing a display of her talent, and of giving their sanction to the
theatre as a place of recreation. Dr. Carlyle evidently considered it a
narrow-minded intolerance and bigoted fanaticism that clergymen should
be excluded from that amusement. At a period far later than 1784, the
same opinion prevailed in some quarters. I recollect when such
indulgence on the part of clergymen was treated with much leniency,
especially for Episcopalian clergy. I do not mean to say that there was
anything like a general feeling in favour of clerical theatrical
attendance; but there can be no question of a feeling far less strict
than what exists in our own time. As I have said, thirty-six years ago
some clergymen went to the theatre; and a few years before that, when my
brothers and I were passing through Edinburgh, in going backwards and
forwards to school, at Durham, with our tutor, a licentiate of the
Established Church of Scotland, and who afterwards attained considerable
eminence in the Free Church, we certainly went with him to the theatre
there, and at Durham very frequently. I feel quite assured, however,
that no clergyman could expect to retain the respect of his people or of
the public, of whom it was known tha