in one of the churches of Kingston-uponHull, in the year 1792. I take it verbatim, from Mr. Wilkinson's Wandering Patentee, (the late manager of the York and Hull theatres.)

"NO PLAYER or any of his CHILDREN ought to be intitled to a CHRISTIAN BURIAL, or even to lie in a CHURCH YARD! Not ONE of them can be saved!-And THOSE Who ENTER a play-house, are equally certain with the players of ETERNAL DAMNATION!-No player can be an honest

man !!"

It is utterly undeserving of any comment; if the man should be now living and capable of reflection, I leave him to the comforts of his own consolation.If he has departed, it is my duty to forgive him, and leave the above on record, as a memento of his crime!

I cannot in justice close my retrospective examination, without registering the opinion of Jeremy Collier upon the drama. The praise of an enemy, Madam, must be ever valuable.-Collier was our severe accuser, yet he says, "The business of plays, is to commend virtue, and discountenance vice; to shew the uncertainty of human greatness, the sudden turns of fate, and the unhappy conclusions of violence and injustice; 'tis to expose the singularities of pride aud fancy, to make folly and falsehood contemptible, and to bring every thing that is ill under infamy and neglect." He further says, "The wit of man cannot invent any thing more conducive to virtue and destructive of vice than the drama, and I grant the ABUSE of a THING is no ARGUMENT against the USE of it."-I have kept this by way of a bonne bouche. He was the most formidable of our opponents, and like Prynne, has furnished

the subsequent vain antagonists with food for calumny and aspersion.

And now permit me to congratulate you and myself, for having at length waded through this strange medley; and you will now possibly inquire for the necessity of collecting all these absurdities? My good Madam, the obliquy thrown upon the stage professors has originated from these extravagant flights. From this source the Romish clergy imbibed the presumptuous audacity to withhold christian interment from actors. From these mouldy documents the puritans pertinaciously and zealously have contended for the demolition of the stage, and the suppression of the drama. To these antiquated notions I am indebted for slights that disgrace me in my own eyes, and depreciate me in the estimation of the world.-I therefore entertain a hope, that by this candid view of the ancient stage, with the minute

t

examination into the opinions of its cotemporary accusers, I shall have fully exposed the impropriety of calling them in to decide upon any dispute that may arise, on this long contended subject, in the nineteenth century. I likewise wish to lead the contending parties to a more rational exercise of their energies, by urging them to a calm investigation of the thing itself, its merits and its defects; the good derived, or the evils arising from its existence, for the last TWO CENTURIES. If we are to be abused, let me entreat them to exercise their ingenuity, and furnish us with some novelty in their censures. Do not let us be stunned by the repetition of quotations incapable of application; sentences without sense, and philippics without poignancy. I received much amusement in meeting with an attack upon the stage by a CHINESEwriter, with great pleasure and frankness I present it to our English assailants, and hope it will stimulate them to emulation.

Plays are fire-works of wit, to be viewed only on the night of leisure. They

degrade and dirty those who let them off; they fatigue the delicate eyes of the sages; they supply dangerous ruminations to idleness; they stain the women and the children who approach too often and too near; they make a smoke and a stink more lasting than the gaiety of their light; they dazzle but to mislead; and they often occasion ruinous conflagration!"

This, Madam, is a brilliant display of philosophical fire-works, for the amusement of our friends!-Its coruscations will not be dimmed, nor its figurative excellence be diminished, by my declaring the Chinese stage is exactly upon a par with the original cart of Thespis, constructed in the same manner, and degraded by a similar jumble of puerilities, indecencies, and improbabilities, the witnessing of which would excite as much indignation