emotions are excited; the dangerous passions of hate, envy, avarice, and
pride, with all their innumerable train of attendant vices, are detected
and exposed. Love, friendship, gratitude, and all those active and
generous virtues which warm the heart and exalt the mind, are held up
as objects of emulation. And what can be a more effectual method of
softening the ferocity, and improving the minds of the inconsiderate?
The heart is melted by the scene, and ready to receive an
impression--either to warn the innocent, or to appal the guilty; and
numbers of those who have neither abilities nor time for deriving
advantage from reading, are powerfully impressed through the medium
of the eyes and ears, with those important truths which while they
illuminate the understanding, correct the heart. The moral laws of the
drama are said to have an effect next after those conveyed from the
pulpit, or promulgated in courts of justice. Mr. Burke, indeed, has gone
so far as to observe that "the theatre is a better school of moral
sentiment than churches." The drama, therefore, has a right to find a
place; and to its professors are we indebted for what may justly be
considered one of the highest of all intellectual gratifications.

F.K.Y.

* * * * *


MEMORY.

(_For the Mirror_.)


How many a mortal bears a heavy chain,