The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, by
Stephen Cullen Carpenter

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Title: The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor
Volume I, Number 1

Author: Stephen Cullen Carpenter

Release Date: September 2, 2007 [EBook #22488]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Transcriber's Note:

Typographical errors are listed at the end of the text. No attempt
was made to regularize the use of quotation marks.

The printed book contained the six Numbers of Volume I with their
appended plays. The Index originally appeared at the beginning of
the volume; it has been relocated to the end of the journal text,
before the play. Pages 1-108 refer to the present Number.]

THE MIRROR OF TASTE,

AND

DRAMATIC CENSOR.

Neque mala vel bona quae vulgus putet. --_Tacitus._

PROSPECTUS.

The advantages of a correct judgment and refined taste in all matters
connected with literature, are much greater than men in general imagine.
The hateful passions have no greater enemies than a delicate taste and a
discerning judgment, which give the possessor an interest in the virtues
and perfections of others, and prompt him to admire, to cherish, and
make them known to the world. Criticism, the parent of these qualities,
therefore, mends the heart, while it improves the understanding. The
influence of critical knowledge is felt in every department of social
life, as it supplies elegant subjects for conversation, and enlarges the
scope, and extends the duration of intellectual enjoyment. Without it,
the pleasures we derive from the fine arts would be transient and
imperfect; and poetry, painting, music, and that admirable epitome of
life, the stage, would afford nothing more than a fugitive, useless,
pastime, if not aided by the interposition of the judgment, and sent
home, by the delightful process of criticism, to the memory, there to
exercise the mind to the last of life, to be the amusement of our
declinin