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Untitled Article
of passion and reason , than is a professor at an ordinary lecture ? Cannot the lesson of the patriot be as well read to him from the Doards of a theatre , as from the floor of St . Stephen , or the pulpit of the Rotunda , or the platform of a political union ? Does not a great actor , in short , by operating upon several senses at once , wield a moral power infinitely greater than that of a debater at
St . Stephen ' s , and if so , why should he be held in less respect ? Some contemner of theatres and actors will perhaps reply , ' This is all very true in the abstract , but it is found in practice that players and play-goers are very immoral people . ' Then I ask , to what is it owing that an instrument capable of producing so much good to the community , should only be productive of evil ? There is but one answer : the odious , the accursed , the mischievous , the
suicidal monopoly . The most ancient attribute of the stage , and which has most commonly been quoted in its favour , is the fact of its being a moral instructor for the community . Many who have deemed themselves further advanced in wisdom have affected to laugh at this , and to regard the stage merely as a matter of amusement ,
entirely devoid of influence . The wise people may nevertheless have been out . The stage has possessed influence , though the influence has been evil ; and being evil , it is fortunate that its influence has not been more widely extended . The power and iufluence of the drama , if rightly guided , might be enormous . The rulers of despotic countries are aware of this , and therefore is it
that they invariably make the stage their own property , and guide its proceedings in the mode which seems the best adapted to their own interest . Those who doubt , might be reminded of the power of the old Greek tragedies , and the Roman Roscius might be quoted to them , but they would perhaps reply , that the power they possessed was only an evidence that there was a lack of other
excitement , which is not the case now . What then will they reply to the fact , that the excitement which built up the barricades of Brussels was engendered at the theatre , that the revolution lately attempted at Frankfort , also had its origin at the theatre . * Why do people visit the theatres at all ? Because * man is infinitely precious to man , ' and when he cannot behold in reality the higher
beings of his species , he loves to behold their semblance and the painting forth of their actions , as near the life as may be . The taste of man in the rough , is not always good ; it requires cultivation , and therefore is it that the demons of his species have seemed to him like heroes . Therefore is it , that now the eyes of the community are opened , they refuse any longer to worship the pagod things which were crammed into the plays of former days ,
* A writer in the Spectator—the ancient , not the modern—describing his sensations after a tragedy , said that he felt so heroic , that he could have defended the Spectator and Sir Roger de Coverley againut a score of Mohawks . Yet upon staying out tho farce , all his heroic virtue vaniahed . It is a true p icture , aud thq moral is admirable .
Untitled Article
556 On Theatrical Reform .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1833, page 556, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2620/page/44/
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