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Untitled Article
be judiciously valiant , to have a temperance which shall beget a smoothness in the angry swellings of youth , to esteem life as nothing when the sacred reputation of a parent is to be defended , yet to shake and tremble under a pious cowadice when that ark of an honest confidence is found to be frail and tottering , to fee ] the true blows of a real disgrace blunting that sword which the imaginary strokes of a supposed false imputation
had put so keen an edge upon but lately ; to do , or to imagine this done , in a feigned story , asks something more of a moral sense , somewhat a greater * delicacy of perception in questions of right and wrong , than goes ta the writing of two or three hackneyed sentences about the laws of honour as opposed to the laws oi ° the land , or a common-place against duelling . Yet such things would stand a writer now-a-days in far better stead than Captain Agev and his conscientious honour ; and he would be considered as a far better teacher of morality than old
Rowley or Mtddieton if they were living /' Hence the false views in morality ; hence hypocrisy and moral vulgarity of conduct ; hence the fall of the true Drama , to the level of erroneous opinion ; hence the degradation of the stage , both public and private , and hence the 'W ' of the London Review .
We are of opinion that there should not be one morality for men , and another for women ; and that the heinousness of too free a translation of the term ' personal liberty' should either be somewhat abated in public opinion , or equalised . Thus much for the question involved in one part of the conduct of Captain Ager ' s mother ; as to the rest , we consider it noble on both
sides . The reviewer begins by stating the case with a sneering levity that may become him well enough , but which is wretchedly unbecoming to the subject , and to the consistency of the chief writers in the London Review . " Thus , " says lie , " in < A Fair Quarrel' by Middleton and Rowley , we find a very curious " casus conscientite" which puzzles a certain captain , upon whom his colonel had bestowed an opprobrious name in which his mother ' s character was involved . Our conscientious
captain , though dying to punish the insult , is mightily perplexed with the thought that the reproach might be well grounded . " ( The reviewer thinks it a good joke that the truth should have any influence in the matter either way !) " In this state of doubt he goes straight to the person who best knew the truth , of the case , namely his own mother . She is extremely angry , as one might suppose , at her son ' s not very delicate inquiry ;"—( hi » excitement rendering him unmindful of
perfection in style and diction ?) " but upon discovering that the certainty of her former good conduct will induce the captain to fight , she falls into the curious fancy of confirming the colonel ' s report . This unnerves the gallant youth , "—( upon whom the truth should have taken no sort ofeffcjct ?) " so thoroughly that his seconds are almost ready to beat him into the combat . Fortunately the Colonel calls him a coward , This falsehood / ' ( the
Untitled Article
2 * 8 The London Review v . The British Drama .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 248, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/56/
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