was, the ally of the Church, but an examination of the Theater in those ages and countries, and of the religious condition of the Church at the same time, fully demonstrates the position here taken. It is not pretended that attendance on the Theater is inconsistent with the general moral and religious character of the average Roman Catholic population of the world, or with that of the Church of England in the times of Henry the Eighth, Edward, Elizabeth, or of Charles the First and his son. Nor is this a reflection upon the stricter part of those Churches, for we have in a former chapter pointed out the different views and practices found in them. The standard here assumed is not that which accommodates itself to those who "walk in the ways of their hearts and the sight of their eyes," but that which requires the nature to be adjusted to the law of God and the example of Christ, the standard which has been presented by all the "reformed " Churches, properly so called.

But is there any reason to hope for a reformation of that which has not, in so long a time and under such a variety of conditions, eyer been in a state

which did not need to be reformed?

There is

an almost insuperable obstacle in the way. The "classics" of the Drama are fixed, and by all the laws of art, and poetical, or dramatical composition, the generic character of the Theater is settled as firmly as the hills. And the iron grasp in which the "classics" hold the Theater is due alike to the veneration which is naturally given to antiquity, to the superior advantages which the "classic" writers had, and the vast intelligence which they possessed. And as in the case of inferior artists in any field, beauties are feebly imitated, while faults are easily copied and intensified. A divergence so great as would be necessary to render the Theater no longer obnoxious to Christian condemnation could not be brought about in many ages unless all the laws which have obtained in other departments of progress should fail. The rise of a transcendent genius, such as Shakspeare, to whose ability should be added the virtues and tastes adequate to revolutionize the Theater and the Theatergoing public, is not to be anticipated, and nothing less than this could effect the result.

Another difficulty inheres in the demand for excitement, and in the impossibility of producing it without the delineation of vice and all its attendant entanglements, whether in tragedy or comedy. This remark having been elaborated in a preceding chapter, nothing more than a reference to it here is necessary. Those who fancy that the just representation of human life, in which “praise or censure are awarded according to the principles of Christian morality,”—in which evangelical godliness is always praised and the want of it deplored,—can afford permanent amusement to the general public, are under a delusion as great as was poor Miss Bacon when she believed that she had proved as clearly as a demonstration in Euclid, that Lord Bacon wrote Shakspeare to introduce a philosophy for which the world was not ready.

CHAPTER XX.

CAN THE THEATER BE REFORMED?—CONTINUED.

`HE improbability, if not the impossibility, of

THE

the Theater's being reformed, appears from the relation which its patrons sustain to the character of the entertainment furnished. While a higher function may be claimed for the Drama than providing amusement, it will not be questioned that the Theater is supported by the bulk of its patrons as an entertainment. And as the management must make a financial success, it is plain that the representations cannot diverge very far from the tastes of the majority. If the attempt be made to force them to hear something above their intellectual or moral level, it must be "floated" by something at or below that level. The money of the most depraved attendant bears the same relation to the sum total as an equal amount paid by the most refined. If, then, nine tenths of the Theater-going public call for the present order of plays they will

get what they call for, or the management will fail. Garrick understood this, and admitted it in the wellknown epilogue which he delivered at the opening of the Drury Lane Theater in the city of London:

"Hard is his lot, that here by fortune placed
Must watch the wild vicissitudes of taste;
With ev'ry meteor of caprice must play,
And chase the new-born bubbles of the day.
Ah! let not censure term our fate our choice,
The stage but echoes back the public voice;
The drama's laws the drama's patrons give,
For we that live to please must please to live."

One hundred and twenty-eight years have passed since that epilogue, composed by Dr. Johnson, was spoken by Garrick, and it closed with the following earnest appeal:

"Then prompt no more the follies you decry,

As tyrants doom their tools of guilt to die;
'Tis yours this night to bid the reign commence

Of rescued nature and reviving sense;

To chase the charms of sound, the pomp of show,

For useful mirth and salutary woe;

Bid scenic virtue form the rising age,

And truth diffuse her radiance from the stage."

But during that long period the "drama's laws'

have been given by the "drama's patrons," and the