people itself are unmercifully turned to ridicule, were the seal of
Athenian freedom. To meet this abuse, Plato, who lived in the very same
Athens, and either witnessed or foresaw the decline of art, proposed the
entire banishment of dramatic poets from his ideal republic. Few states,
however, have conceived it necessary to subscribe to this severe sentence
of condemnation; but few also have thought proper to leave the theatre to
itself without any superintendence. In many Christian countries the
dramatic art has been honoured by being made subservient to religion, in
the popular treatment and exhibition of religious subjects; and in Spain
more especially competition in this department has given birth to many
works which, neither devotion nor poetry will disown. In other states and
under other circumstances this has been thought both objectionable and
inexpedient. Wherever, however, the subsequent responsibility of the poet
and actor has been thought insufficient, and it has been deemed advisable
to submit every piece before its appearance on the stage to a previous
censorship, it has been generally found to fail in the very point which is
of the greatest importance: namely, the spirit and general impression of a
play. From the nature of the dramatic art, the poet must put into the
mouths of his characters much of which he does not himself approve, while
with respect to his own sentiments he claims to be judged by the spirit
and connexion of the whole. It may again happen that a piece is perfectly
inoffensive in its single speeches, and defies all censorship, while as a
whole it is calculated to produce the most pernicious effect. We have in
our own times seen but too many plays favourably received throughout
Europe, over-flowing with ebullitions of good-heartedness and traits of
magnanimity, and in which, notwithstanding, a keener eye cannot fail to
detect the hidden purpose of the writer to sap the foundations of moral
principle, and the veneration for whatever ought to be held sacred by man;
while all this sentimentality is only to bribe to his purpose the
effeminate soft-heartedness of his contemporaries [Footnote: The author it