sufficiently evinces that national improvement in every respect might easily become the result of such popular entertainments, if governed by the principles of virtue and morality. But this alas! is no longer the object of dramatick writers; virtue is now exploded as a worthless acquisition, while fashionable vice tricked out and garnished with every superficial ornament and dazzling allurement stalks with exultation through the applauding theatre.

I am induced in the first place to consider the nature and attributes of the Tragic Muse; since she has through all ages deservedly acquired the principal reverence and dignities; but I must confess, that it seems rather difficult to recognize the sober conductress of the ancient drama under her present tinsel ornaments, as all her original simplicity is lost beneath superficial decorations and empty pomp, which sufficiently mark the altered taste of the times. Our eyes may be dazzled by a rapid succession of triumphs, battles, chains, tempests, and moon-light adventures; but this pageantry does not affect the heart. At the moment we acknowledge an artificial pleasure, and are lost in the bustle and tumultuous variety; but when we return, and reflect in private upon what we have enjoyed, we are astonished at find

ing so very little matter to reflect upon, and what little we may at length discover hardly repays the trouble of consideration.

Some decided and established rules have ever regulated the tragedians of former days; such as a regular and exact management of the plot, consistency in the characters, a preservation of some little appearance of probability throughout the incidents, with a constant attention to morality and virtue. Our writers on the contrary soar above their low-minded predecessors, and spurn the shackles which they suffered to restrain their poetical excursions. A decided plot is no longer accounted necessary towards a perfect composition, in which the scenes are frequently stitched together in so loose a manner, as to have scarcely any evident relation one to the other. A rustic will deliver out sentiments which would do honour to any hero; and the most abstruse questions in philosophy or even theology are confidently decided by an humble confidant. Probability is rather scouted as a failing, than admired as a perfection; as the following ingenious contrivance for stifling a conspiracy on the moment, and rescuing the poet from an awkward predicament clearly exemplifies. At the critical period when a party of conspirators are rushing on to murder

their king, whom it was expedient to preserve for the sake of historical truth, the author has recourse to a convenient clap of of thunder, which resounding most fortunately, has the desired effect of making all the gentlemen throw down their arms, implore pardon, and promise to conduct themselves with propriety for the future. Now it must be confessed that poets have gained a prodigious accession of power latterly, if they have the heavens so much under controul, as to authorize the introduction of any elementary prodigy whenever they find thenselves on the horns of a dilemma. That unfashionable and nearly exploded article morality has been totally laid aside by these refined tragedians, who have perhaps forgotten that such a thing ever existed, and esteem their object attained, if by a few rambling sentences they can excite astonishment; if they interest the audience by a striking antithesis of persons; or force them into tears by the unnatural sorrows of a whining courtezan.

If any person who had been formerly accustomed to admire the productions of Shakspeare and Otway, heightened by the efforts of a Garrick or a Barry should have happened to retire from the metropolis, and upon his return hope to be amused as formerly at the theatre; what

must be his sensations upon beholding the altered mode of dramatical entertainment? A tragedy is announced, to which he hurries expecting to be pleasingly affected by sympathetic feelings at the well represented woes of natural misfortunes; and even conceives that his mind may be improved by the spectacle. He beholds the curtain rise to slow music, and is rivetted with the deepest attention, when a magnificent procession crosses the scene, wherein, if he knew any thing of modern manners, he would be made acquainted with the hero of the piece by his fine habiliments; who, let him be the son of a clod-hopper, or a tinman, is elevated nobody knows why in a superb car, and drawn by elephants or tame lions happily conveyed to England for the purpose. The hero descending from his throne without any evident reason, (while the procession very good-naturedly stands still) addresses the audience in a soliloquy, and discourses concerning the most consequential secrets before the whole multitude of guards, fifers, and attendants; who I presume are conveniently deprived of the sense of hearing for the occasion; since, if a single individual of the whole assembly should happen to hear one syllable of what this worthy man is relating, the whole plot of the drama must necessarily fall to the ground. In this oration, he informs his

audience that he has fallen in love with the wife of his benefactor, and that she is inflamed with a mutual passion. Heroes and heroines used to be virtuous. Our rustic spectator starts, and expects the audience to evince some little token of disapprobation towards these immoral sentiments. On the contrary the whole theatre is evidently interested in the success of these unfortunate sufferers; and every person gazes upon the succeeding scenes wherein the lovers deplore their wretched state of thraldom under a tyrant (the modern name for a husband) with manifest satisfaction and audible sobbings. At length the virtuous hero entraps the husband into his power, and is upon the point of stabbing him, when suddenly the fallen victim recalls to his remembrance that in the husband ofhis mistress he will

destroy his own benefactor. At this charming antithesis of persons the uplifted sword of course drops to the ground, and the good-natured husband by way of recompense delivers up

his wife to the man who was going to have murdered him. Upon this noble action perhaps something like indignation would move the mistaken rustic, who conceives that a conclusion is perfected to the whole; but on the contrary in a scene which follows, the hero's father enters, and having stabbed his son, kills himself, with

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