atre, will find many who appear to view a Lear, a Shore, a Hamlet, and a harlequin, with the same heavy eye; nor shew one emotion, except it be of laughter, while nature is most powerfully attracting the sacred fountain of tears, wherever it has not been closed by affectation, by a natural or an acquired stupidity. It seems indeed to be a part of the contemptible vanity, which characterises the age, to laugh at public spectacles when others are serious, and to be serious when others laugh."Who, indeed," says the affected votary of fashion, "would be sincerely affected by any thing said or "done by the low creatures on the stage?"

Some spectators, on the other hand, lose all the effect of the piece by attending to the identical men and women who act, rather than to the characters which they represent. They also admire a favourite performer's coat, gown, cap, shoe, leg, or hand, but forget the hero and the heroine, the poet and the poem.

The taste for ridicule, which greatly prevails in a mean, selfish, debauched, and trifling age, contributes to prevent the genuine effect of tragedy. Great laughers are seldom susceptible of deep or serious impressions. While the dead lie scattered on the stage, and every thing is presented to the view which ought to excite pity and terror, the joker dissipates the sweet sorrow of sympathy by the introduction of a ludicrous idea. Ridicule indeed seems to become a weapon in the hands of the wicked, destructive of taste and feeling, as well as of morality and religion.

The addition of a ludicrous epilogue, a farce, a pantomime entertainment, and of dances between the

acts, has often been lamented as destructive of the effects of the finest tragedy. It is true that they who live to please, must please in order to live; and therefore the players and their managers are not culpable. They must not only provide manly amusements for men, but childish diversions for children and school-boys. These entertainments have, indeed, often that ingenuity and drollery in them, which may at a proper season relax the most rigid philosophy. I censure not the things themselves, but the time of their introduction. After the soul has been deeply impressed with serious and virtuous sentiments, it is surely lamentable that every stamp should be effaced by harlequins and buffoons. It must be remembered, that I am speaking only of the moral effects of the drama, and I believe

every one will agree, that these would be more successfully produced if the entertainment, as it is called by way of eminence, preceded the tragedy. The spectator would then retire to his pillow with his fancy full of fine poetic images, and his heart glowing with every elevated idea of moral rectitude. But now his feelings are so trifled with and tantalized, that at last he grows callous to the tenderest pathos, and frequents the theatre merely as a critic in acting, instead of an interested partaker in the scenes which pass in review.

Every mode of improving the hearts of the community at large, in the serious and severer virtues, ought to be applied with diligence. The theatre opens a fine school for the accomplishment of this end; and it would certainly contribute greatly to accelerate the general improvement, if there were less

singing, dancing, and buffoonery, and more tragedy. But some fashionable man must set the example of admiring it, or else all the muses themselves might rack their inventions in composing the melancholy tale, with no other effect than that of diffusing sleep or smiles throughout pit, box, and gallery.

It is remarkable that, after this paper was published, tragedy became fashionable. The fashion, however, was but transient; it wanted the support of court favour; and poor Tragedy was laughed off from the stage by Farce.

NO. CXXIV. ON THE INFLUENCE OF POLITICS, AS A SUBJECT OF CONVERSATION, ON THE STATE OF

LITERATURE.

IT is a mark of the social and public spirit of this nation, that there is scarcely a member of it who does not bestow a very considerable portion of his time and thoughts in studying its political welfare, its interest, and its honour. Though this general taste for politics, from the highest to the lowest orders of the people, has afforded subjects for comic ridicule, yet I cannot help considering it both as a proof of uncommon liberality, and as one of the firmest supports of civil liberty. It kindles and keep's alive an ardent love of freedom. It has hitherto preserved that glorious gift of God from the rude hand of tyranny, and tends, perhaps, more than any other cause, to communicate the noble fire of true patriotism to the bosoms of posterity.

While we

watch vigilantly over every political measure, and communicate an alarm through the empire with a speed almost equal to the shock of electricity, there will be no danger that a king should establish despotism, even though he were to invade the rights of his people at the head of a standing army.

But as zeal without knowledge is subversive of the purpose which it means to promote; it becomes a true friend to his country, to endeavour to unite with the love of liberty the love of knowledge. It unfortunately happens, that political subjects are of so warm and animating a nature, that they not only appear to interest in a very high degree, but to engross the attention. The newspapers form the whole library of the politician, the coffee-house is his school, and he prefers the Gazette, and an acrimonious pamphlet, for or against the ministry, to all that was ever written by a Homer, or discovered by a Newton.

To be a competent judge either of political measures or events, it is necessary to possess an enlightened understanding, and the liberal spirit of philosophy; it is necessary to have read history, and to have formed right ideas of the nature of man and of civil society. But I know not how it happens, the most ignorant and passionate are apt to be the most decisive in delivering their sentiments on the very complicated subjects of political controversy. A man, whose education never extended beyond writing and the four rules, will determine at once, and with the most authoritative air, such questions as would perplex the wisest statesman adorned with all human learning, and assisted by the experience

and advice of the most cultivated persons in the nation. Even gentlemen, according to the common acceptation of that title, or those who have fortunes and have received the common instruction of the times, are seldom able to judge with propriety in politics, though they are usually inclined to dictate with passion. Is it possible that, from having learnt only the first elements of Latin and French, and the arts of dancing, fencing, and fiddling, a man should be qualified, I do not say to sit as a senator, but to expatiate, with sufficient judgment and intelligence, on the propriety and nature of important measures concerted by profound wisdom? But he is a man of property, and therefore, though all his other merit, in kind and degree, may be like that of a master of the ceremonies, or that of a skilful groom and whipper-in, he thinks he has a right to give law to the neighbourhood in political conversation. His ideas are confined to narrow limits; and as his patriotism is for the most part spite, so his support of a ministry is, in some respects, self-interest. It must be so; for a man, whose mind is not enlarged and cultivated, cannot entertain so liberal a system of opinions as those of real patriotism.

But even among persons whose minds are sufficiently improved to distinguish and pursue the good of man and of society, independently either of passion or of private advantage, the rage for politics often proceeds too far, and absorbs all other objects. In vain does the hand of art present the picture or repeat the melody of music; for the eye is blind, the ear is deaf to all but the news and the newspa per. Poetry, philology, elegant and polite letters,