ion of all that is valuable
in the mind and character of woman.'

The following fact is worthy of being considered by the friends and
patrons of theatres. During the progress of one of the most ferocious
revolutions which ever shocked the face of heaven, theatres, in Paris
alone, multiplied from six to twenty-five. Now one of two conclusions
follow from this: Either the spirit of the times produced the
institutions, or the institutions cherished the spirit of the times;
and this will certainly prove that they are either the parents of vice
or the offspring of it.

The philosopher Plato assures us, that 'plays raise the passions, and
prevent the use of them; and of course are dangerous to morality.'

'The seeing of _Comedies_,' says Aristotle, 'ought to be forbidden to
young people, till age and discipline have made them proof against
debauchery.'

Tacitus says, 'The German women were guarded against danger, and
preserved their purity by having no play-houses among them.'

Even Ovid represents theatrical amusements as a grand source of
corruption, and he advised Augustus to suppress them.

The infidel philosopher Rousseau, declared himself to be of opinion,
that the theatre is, in all cases, a school of vice. Though he had
himself written for the stage, yet, when it was proposed to establish a
theatre in the city of Geneva, he wrote against the project with zeal
and great force, and expressed the opinion that every friend of pure
morals ought to oppose it.

Sir John Hawkins, in his life of Johnson, observes:--'Although it is
said of plays that they teach morality, and of the stage that it is the
mirror of human life, these assertions are mere declamation, and have
no foundation in truth or experience. On the contrary, a play-house,
and the regions about it, are the very hot-beds of vice.'

Archbishop Tillotson, after some pointed and forcible reasoning against
it, pronounces the play-house to be 'the devil's chapel,' 'a nursery of
licentiousness and vice,' and 'a recreation which ought not to be
allowed among a civilized, much less a Christian people.'

Bishop Collier solemnly declared, that he was persuaded that 'nothing
had done more to debauch the age in which he lived, than the stage
poets and the play-house.'

Sir Matthew Hale, having in early life experienced the pernicious
effects of attending the theatre, resolved, when he came to London,
never to see a play again, and to this resolution he adhered th