chair. The assuming a character ourselves, or the seeing others
assume an imaginary character, is an enjoyment natural to
humanity. It was implanted in our very nature to take pleasure
from such representations, at proper times and on proper
occasions. In all ages the theatrical art had kept pace with the
improvement of mankind, and with the progress of letters and the
fine arts. As man has advanced from the ruder stages of society,
the love of dramatic representations has increased, and all works
of this nature have keen improved in character and in structure.
They had only to turn their eyes to the history of ancient
Greece, although he did not pretend to be very deeply versed in
its ancient drama. Its first tragic poet commanded a body of
troops at the battle of Marathon. Sophocles and Euripides were
men of rank in Athens when Athens was in its highest renown.
They shook Athens with their discourses, as their theatrical
works shook the theatre itself. If they turned to France in the
time of Louis the Fourteenth--that era which is the classical
history of that country--they would find that it was referred to
by all Frenchmen as the golden age of the drama there. And also
in England in the time of Queen Elizabeth the drama was at its
highest pitch, when the nation began to mingle deeply and wisely
in the general politics of Europe, not only not receiving laws
from others, but giving laws to the world, and vindicating the
rights of mankind. (Cheers.) There have been various times when
the dramatic art subsequently fell into disrepute. Its
professors have been stigmatized, and laws have been passed
against them, less dishonourable to them than to the statesmen by
whom they were proposed, and to the legislators by whom they were
adopted. What were the times in which these laws were passed?
Was it not when virtue was seldom inculcated as a moral duty that