Price 3 d.]

[No. 23. Vol. I.

-Desinant

CONVERSATION has charms which

few will deny themselves the privilege of exercising, even though it should be to their own or another's cost. The subjects on which it is lavished, are as numerous as the ideas it is intended to convey; but, yet, we find tongues adapted for all. Every one has his favourite topic of conversation, on which he can expatiate in all the warmth of eloquence, and which, in short, he considers himself perfectly master of. This peculiarity of sentiment engages his whole attention, and frequently, his thoughts are so far wrapped up in it, as to preclude every gleam of an extraneous subject. He necessarily watches every opportunity of unloading the burden of his discourse, and for which purpose he resorts to those characters which in some degree assimilate with his own. It is said, that to judge rightly of a man's character, we must previously know what company he associates with, and this we shall most easily discover by observing the forte of his conversation. Words betray the disposition of the speaker as forcibly as his actions, which made Tully exclaim:"Quantum a rerum turpitudine abes, tantum te a verborum libertate sejungas."

VOL. I.

2 Z

Ter.

There are however, some topics on which every one is capable of animadverting. But these are only what ru mour accidentally scatters in her rapid flight, and are often of a very dangerous tendency. Man being naturally curious, is himself fond of novelty and also desirous of raising the same principle in the breast of his neighbour in a dou. ble degree, and to this cause may be assigned much of that strange fabrication which is daily and hourly poured abroad, But I need not recite the influence which rumour holds over the minds of men, as it was sufficiently spoken of in our last. Suffice it to say, that conversation which treats of the disparagement of another's character, has of late become so universally the subject of talk, as almost to exclude every other branch of converse which may merit a higher character. This sort of discourse is usually carried on amongst a class of individuals who make it their employment to slander and defame the virtuous part of society, merely because their utmost exertions are incapable of raising them to the same standard of perfection. So many have become adepts in the secular mode of wrangling, that the only means left for avoiding its pernicious influence, is, to lower our

attainments, and assume a more abject appearance.

It is into such conversation, and the people who make use of it, that I would at present examine. Speculations of this nature run no hazard of commenting upon one class, at the expense of another. Their crimes are mounted on the forehead of society, legible to all whom affluence of fortune, or superior qualifications, may render exempt from the drudgeries and inconveniences of life. It is on such that calumny directs her treacherous designs, while the inferiority of mankind freely escape.

Defamation is the offspring of that most detestable of vices-envy, which can only draw its existence from the seed of all human error -self-ignorance. In the latter we have the embryo state of every vicious principle which displays itself in the theatre of life. All the follies and incongruities which we witness, take their source from the delusion of self-deception. What is vanity but an effort to exceed the limits which nature has proscribed man to move in; and what raises the black designs of envy in his bosom, but a consciousness that his attainments are insignificant, when compared to those whom nature has ordained to move in a larger sphere. It is these combined evils of self-delusion which render man that incorrigible being which is represented to us; and it is these alone which instigate him to pursue that line of conduct which may undermine the character of his superior. Envy goads him on with a consciousness of his inability to outstrip his neighbour in his possessions, and consequently proposes to him such stratagems as shall at once destroy the object of his solicitude, and usurp the throne of dignity himself. With all his artfulness to appease this ungovernable disposition, he is sometimes as greatly deceived in his expectation of success, as the injury would have finally proved, on the object of his dislike,-a slight disappointment is a great hurt to a calumniator. Should he in his artifice to destroy the reputation of his neighbour, be compelled to advert to some of his shining qualities, and raise the theme rather to his favour than disparagement; it is a moment when envy suffers the most poignant tortures, and must have recourse to a sisterhood of vices before it can obtain relief. The tor

ments these defamers experience when their designs prove abortive, are only to be judged of from the stings of selfreproach, combating with the ardent aspirations of vanity. Another cause of their own chagrin originates amongst themselves. We find them ever upon the tiptoe to circulate the dangerous and multiplied reports which rumour puts into their hands, and by this means they not unfrequently create their own displeasure. Should one of them have circulated a report before it has arrived at the ears of another, the latter will instantly feel the weight of his reproach in not having been the first to communicate such eventful tidings; but he speedily requites this reproval by enlarging the fabrication. Thus do we witness the trivial errors of mankind, exaggerated beyond degree, by the unjust representations of slander.

Calumniators generally separate themselves from the intercourse of the better half of the world, and take a residence amongst themselves. Every town and village can point out the circle where malevolence sits uncontrollable, and where every passing occurrence goes through the sieve of their scrutinous and prejudiced observations. The members of this body are found so intimately connected with one another, and are so extremely tenacious of their pretended influence over mankind, as to exclude the interference of those who do not bear some relation to their stamp and character. The younger branches of this society are taught to cultivate the same tract which their predecessors had left unfinished; and thus they go through their course, traducing every virtuous principle which may fall in their way. For slander lives upon succession,

For ever hous'd where it once gets possession. As I before mentioned, this tribe of declaimers are most easily affected by those who possess superior advantages to themselves. These advantages may consist in manifold objects; but few in the present day act with stronger influence than the possession of riches. If a man has many possessions bestowed on him, either from the sources of others, or acquired by his own industry, he is most exposed to the stings of defamation. Mental acquirements are also a forcible stimulus to their malignity, though they seldom communicate so strong a hatred. This character of men which composes the

society of calumniators is often composed of the idle, petulent, and splenetic, and are little disposed for the sounder acquirements of mental energy. But it matters little in what the excellence of an individual may consist, as long as he retains a superiority, he is subject to calumny :

"I see, the jewel, best enamelled, Will lose his beauty; and though gold 'bides still,

That others touch, yet often touching will Wear gold: and so no man, that hath a name, But falsehood and corruption doth it shame."

This proneness to detract from the high reputation of others, is not only destructive, inasmuch as the character suffers a disparagement; but unfortunately we see numbers who would ornament society by their intellectual endowments, keep themselves aloof from the concerns of the world, merely to evade the stings of calumny. Envy, with its concomitant evils, can only be avoided by a determination to keep every superior qualification from the view of this dissatisfied race of beings. This is the only means which can be carried into effect, though we are aware that it is a resource which will destroy many advantages that would finally prove beneficial to thousands.

Scandal is above all other prevailing vices, the most deleterious in its effects, not only upon those on whom it is practised, but even upon him who practices it. He will himself inhale the poisonous effluvia as it rises from the cup of his malignity, and though he may for a time find an antidote in the society and under the protection of his own class, he will ultimately become defunct in the hands of despair. It is a mortifying result to calumniators to find that all their endeavours to supplant their accomplished neighbours, should prove ineffectual, and at the close of a life drenched in misery they should still be compelled to maintain their voracious desires amidst conflicting passions, when others are still feasting upon the same delicacies which they attempted to overthrow.

When calumny once enters the disposition, it is not easily eradicated: it should therefore be our endeavour to prevent its innovation. To do this is to repel every invasion of enmity, and disperse the gloom of dissatisfaction: to curb the passions under due restrictions, and preserve the heart from contracting

such desires as are inconsistent with our situations. Hasty determinations or an open belief to casualties have a direct tendency to initiate the mind in weak impressions and consequently gives credence to such intelligence as rumour spreads abroad. We should be on our constant guard to resist the temptations of report and accustom ourselves to a minute and proper investigation of those causes which give rise to disparagement of character. By doing this we shall generally secure ourselves from censuring mankind where there is no fault, or at least it will guard us against viewing things in a false light, which too often proves delusive on a superficial examination.

ON AMUSEMENTS. Sunt quos eurriculo pulverem Olympicum Collegisse juvat, metaque fervidis Evitata rotis, palmaque nobilis Terrarum dominos evehit ad Deos.

Hor.

Such is the importance attached to sports and amusements in every age and in every country, that the man who invented a new one was,-is, considered a benefactor of the human race: and, as Horace tells us, the Olympic honours distributed to the victorious charioteer or other winners in the games, raised them almost to a level with the Gods, and made them, in some senses, governors of the world. So distinguished indeed were the victors, that Diagoras, the Rhodian whose three sons had each gained a prize in one day, the populace strewing flowers in his way, accounting him the most honoured and the most happy of men, was so overpowered by his own enraptured emotions that he fell down upon the spot a lifeless corpse. The Israelites in the times of their prosperity ate and drank and rose up to play; and in the time of its kings, that nation equalled in the splendour and variety of its amusements even Greece the land of song and taste, and the more gorgeous but perhaps less chastened embellishments of an Eastern Palace. Song, Dance, the Drama, the Concert, and something not unlike the Tournament may be traced in the time of the second of Israel's monarchs: and the ark of the covenant, and particularly the splendid temple built by

"The wisest man the world e'er saw." gave a showy and theatrical air even to

their religious rites. The mode which Seems to have been sanctioned by the agents of the Most High, and which was certainly practised to a great extent not by the monarch only-of polygamy and concubine-keeping, had a direct tendency to give vigour and variety to the sports and amusements of that people.

The propensity to amusement is not confined to the more ardent cli.mates; it is alike common to all, even to the frigid Scythian and the inmates of the snow-covered caverns of Iceland and Nova Zembla. The difference is only in the kind; and the kind will always depend upon the peculiar circumstances in which the inhabitants of any particular country may be placed. These, too, it must be remarked vary however minutely with every age that passes on, and receive some modification from every new relation which that country bears to other countries.

It is not to the acts of the Monarch, or the cabals of the Aristocracy; neither is it to the popular movements of the great mass in favour of any step, that we must look for a developement of national character:-even the latter, which is more expressive of popular feeling, can only show the degree of enthusiasm which had been excited by some means or other on one or two occasions, and those scarcely connected with the general modes of thought, with native character and with habitual indulgences of feeling, of the people. The national acts, the records of general history may furnish some date for judging of the private character of the heads of the country; but it is amongst the sumptuary laws, the modes of neighbourly communication, and the uncontrolled amusements of the people that we must look for a key to their real character, and indeed to many seemingly inexplicable questions in national History.

We often see amusements treated as if they were the causes rather than the consequences of the prevailing disposition: but this is manifestly wrong. Amongst these I was sorry to see your correspondent T. S. D. in his remarks on the influence of theatrical performances and, as his article bears marks of no common mind, I may be pardoned if I bestow a few remarks on the subject of amusements in general, and

endeavour to show that with all hi ingenuity he has not advanced a single argument against that particularamusement which may not be urged against other and equally fashionable modes of spending a leisure hour or two, and of relaxing from the toils of life and business.

There must, then, be a propensity towards an indulgence of the feelings which are gratified by any kind of amusement before that amusement is eithersanctioned or thought of, and though it is only by degrees this amusement is per fected, yet the public must wish its perfec. tion before any efficient steps are taken to accomplish it. The theatre, for instance, must be supported and encouraged, before a single improvement is made upon the motley guises and simple stage of Thespis: but we can scarcely suppose that the mountebank-actors of Athens could create that disposition in the people of that idle and luxurious city by such a humble invention, or that all the splendour and decoration of a Grecian Theatre of the latter ages should owe its existence to any influence which was exercised by the performers of the time, except there had been a principle in the bosom of the people, which demanded that particular amusement. It is not to the influence of the theatre that we must look for this or that bad effect; but must look to the human heart for a corresponding disposition which gave birth to the theatre, demanded it as a source of amusement, and moulded the detail as a picture of its co-existing self.

The elementary forms of the theatre may be traced in almost every country where civilization has made much progress. We may see it in most parts of Christendom in the mysteries, mummeries, guisings, &c. which certainly may be referred to a very remote antiquity. Many humourous stories are told by the older writers of ridiculous mishaps, and laughable bunglings in the performance of some of these representations of the different facts of Scripture and Ecclesiastical History; and it is said-perhaps truly-that Milton's much and long admired Epic was taken from one of these which he saw when in Italy.

Christmas in these northern counties, and southward as far the Seveagh to my knowledge, is even yet kept as a sort of anniversary, for the guisers, or

Mummers to perform certain parts of the feats of the Seven Champions of Christendom:-and other characters are introduced besides what the legend sup. plies, and introduced too in such a manner as shows an evident aim at regular dramatic effect, and at the production of a play founded upon the story, rather than at an exhibition of the legendary version of the circumstances.

Till the time of Shakespeare, however, the stage was but little embellished. Scarcely any notion of good composition in the style and of regular keeping in the effect, was found by that great man and, the over weening sentiment of those who professed to admire fine writing, would be doubtless, ready to weep tears of brine, and perchance, in their fanciful language, of blood too, to see a genius so superlatively divine employed in a manner so unworthy of himself and so offensive to the Being who bestowed upon him those powers. At least, if they did not, they little resembled the modern retailers of hypocritical cant. So far, however, as my opinion of the reformer of the English stage may be properly introduced here, I should say that the world -the moralizing world is under great and irredeemable obligations to the man who severed the stage from the Royal Bear Gardens; who disunited the person of the best performer at the theatre from that of the superintendant of the gladiator like battles in the Tower Court; who rendered the scenes and compositions exhibited for the public amusements attractive without making them "furniture for a brothel." Such was the philantrophic, the glorious career of Shakespeare!- and it may be fairly questioned whether any reformer of more recent times has done a more essential service to his country, to reAigion, and to the laws, both divine and human, than has been done by him! That there are plays which contain objectionable passages I will not deny: but to say that they are brought forward at any respectable theatre, isdo libel in the foulest manner the very respectable members of society that attend those places, by asserting that the cheek of modesty will suffer itself to be wantonly suffused with shame, and that the most unimpeachable virtue will seek enjoyment in the vicious allusions and indecent innuendos con

tained in the plays in question. That these plays are exhibited, is a lamentable fact but we must not on that account indiscriminately censure the frequenters of every theatre. Indeed, as I have before insisted, the character of the play will be a good criterion of the company which frequents that particular place; and when we find the general character of the Drama to be innocent or virtuous, we need not feel much alarm at the consequences of a moderate attendance there.

As to the argument upon which T. S. D. lays so much stress--that the theatre unfits those who attend it, from performing the every-day duties of common life, and that it superinduces a morbid sensibility which is unaffected by the common miseries of the human race and alive only to the improbable, the unnatural, or the vicious state of emotion, I deny it altogether. That a naturally idle and licentious disposition may be so affected I will grant: but that any one really virtuous will be so affected requires more proof than has yet been adduced- or than I think it possi ble to adduce. No youth of industrious habits, has yet thus fallen within the circle of my observation; and T. S.D. will excuse me if I question the correctness of the assertion-not that I would impugn his veracity, but doubt the correctness of the reasoning upon which his conclusion is founded. The question at issue between us, then, is simply whether those individuals whom he so eloquently describes, were originally more inclined to vicious or to virtuous practices-he affirms that the vicious propensities were created by the theatre, and I that the individual was curst by nature with an intensity of passion that nothing virtuous can ever satisfy. I will therefore beg of him to look round again and perchance he then may see himself in error.

I must call upon him, at his own challenge, to forego his belief of the necessary and universal bad tendency of theatrical amusements, not in my own name only, but in the name of the best portion of society. This I do both from experience and observation; but it is needless to dilate.

The line of argument which depends upon the contagious influence of looks and gestures, and the unity of spirit that may pervade the meeting of any hetero