is last sigh.

Cromwell and his Puritans had a holy horror of actors. They pronounced
them Sons of Belial! and professors of abomination. During the whole
reign of the Republican Parliament, and Protectorate, the theatres of
that day were closed, or, if opened by stealth, were subject to the
visits of the emissaries of "Praise God Barebones," "Fight the Good
Fight," and their crew. The actors were driven off the stage by
soldiers, and the cant word of that period is still recorded, "Enter
red coat, exit hat and cloak." William Prynne was celebrated for his
writings against the immorality of the stage, and the furious invectives
of Jeremy Collier, are still extant; his pen was roused by Dryden's
_Spanish Friar_, and Congreve's witty, but licentious comedies. Collier
inveighed without mercy, but he certainly did much to reform the stage.
Our Evangelicals and Methodists denounce the histrionic art to this day,
with more than the zeal of the Church of Rome. But a follower of Wesley
or Whitfield would not enter the den of abomination. Here, however, we
take care all our comedies shall be purified, and our tragedies free,
even from an oath; both are subject to the censor's unsparing pen, and
must be subsequently licensed by the Lord Chamberlain.

The actors in England, have, it is true, only become respectable
within the last half century, and though they are termed his majesty's
servants, yet an _unrepealed_ statute denounces them as vagabonds.
As a body, numerous in itself, they are as free from crime as any other
associated body or profession of men, and yet do they "his majesty's
servants" continue to lay under the stigma which the above unrepealed
act fixes upon them. This is perfectly anomalous, and it was spiritedly
denounced by Sir Walter Scott, when on a recent and interesting occasion
he nobly and manfully declared "Its professors had been stigmatized; and
laws had been passed against them less dishonourable to them than to the
statesman by whom they were proposed, and to the legislators by whom
they were passed." To repeal, therefore, an act nugatory in itself,
would not add to the reputation of the profession, nor give a license to
further abuse; but it would be an act of justice, and remove a prejudice
unjustly attached to the professors of a difficult art.

The critical pen of Mrs. Inchbald justly remarks, "To the honour of
a profession long held in contempt by the wise--and still contemned
by the weak--Shaksp