complacence of N. could ever procure him. At that same ball I mentioned, it would have done one's heart good to have seen how Mr. H.'s eyes glistened, when he saw two of his daughters make a most elegant appearance in a cotillon, and heard every one around the place where he and Mrs. H. were seated asking whose pretty children these were. He led them out of the room himself, and was particularly careful that they should be protected from the cold air in getting out. I went away at the same time; and we left poor N. in his corner, with the same grave face as ever, seemingly weary of being there, but afraid to go home.

After all, N.'s fate is a hard one; for on the whole he has many good qualities, which might have been put to a very good account. What is worse, he is now sensible of this himself.-I knew not whether to smile or to cry, when, the other day, I heard him say, he was now growing old; but one comfort he had, that die when he would, he would not leave one sad heart behind him on that account. I shall slip out of the world,' said he, without being missed.'

S.

No. 27. SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1785,

Maxima pars vatum, pater, et juvenes patre digni,
Decipimur specie recti.

HOR.

IN forming the minds and regulating the conduct of men, nothing seems to be of greater importance than a proper system of what may be termed domestic morality; the science of those relative duties, which do not apply only to particular situations, to large fortunes, to exalted rank, to extensive influence, but which constitute that part and character in life which almost every one is called to perform.

Of all above the lower ranks, of all who claim the station or the feelings of a gentleman, the knowledge of this science is either inculcated by family precept and example, or is endeavoured to be instilled by reading. In the latter case, the works made use of for that purpose are either purely didactic, which speak the language of authoritative wisdom; historical, which hold forth the example of past events to the judgment; or they are of that sort which are calculated to mould the heart and the manners through the medium of the imagination. Of this last class, the principal are stories or novels. I have in a former paper delivered a few general remarks, calculated to ascertain their moral tendency. In this I propose extending my consideration to dramatic writing; and, as it is nearest to the novel, at least to that species which I principally considered in the paper alluded to, I shall begin with a similar examination of tragedy.

The engines which tragedy professes to use for moral instruction are the passions. The father of dramatic criticism has told us, that tragedy' purges the passions by exciting them:' a proposition which, from its short apothegmatical form, is subject to considerable obscurity. A modern writer, in his defence of tragedy as a moral exhibition, explains its meaning, by the analogy of the Spartan custom of making their slaves drunk, and showing them in that beastly state to their children, in order to inspire a detestation for the vice of intemperance. But if this is to furnish us with an illustration of Aristotle's assertion, I am afraid it will not aid the cause of tragedy as a school of morals. It was from the previous contempt of the rank and manners of the drunkard, that the Spartan boy was to form his estimate of drunkenness. The vice of a slave could hardly fail to disgust him. But had they shown him the vice itself, how loathsome and degrading soever in its own nature, in a person of superior respect and estimation, what would have been the consequence? The fairest answer may be drawn from the experience of those countries where freemen get drunk, where senators and leaders of armies are sometimes intoxicated. The youths who behold these examples the oftenest are not the least liable to follow them. I am afraid it is even so with tragedy. Scenes presenting passions and vices, round which the poet throws the veil of magnanimity, which he decorates with the pomp of verse, with the splendour of eloquence, familiarise the mind to their appearance, and take from it the natural disgust which the crimes, presented in their native form, would certainly excite. Cruelty, revenge, and murder, are often the attributes of the hero; for he must always be the hero on whom the principal stress of the action lies. What punishment awaits, or what misfortunes attend his crimes, is little to the purpose; if the

villain is the prominent figure of the piece, he will be the hero of the tragedy, as the robber, though he is about to be hanged, is the hero of the trial or the execution. But even of the nobler characters does not the morality of sentiment often yield to the immorality of situation? Treachery is often the fruit of wisdom and of resolution; murder, an exertion of valour; and suicide, the resource of virtuous affliction. It will be remembered, that it is not so much from what the hero says, as from what he does, that an impression is drawn. The repentant lines which Cato speaks when he is dying are never regarded. It is the dagger only we remember, that dagger by which he escaped from chains, and purchased immortality.

But the leading passion of modern tragedy is one to which Aristotle could scarce have meant his rule to apply; because in ancient tragedy it was almost unknown. The passion I allude to is love. The manners and society of modern times necessarily led to this change in the drama. For the observation which some authors have made is perfectly just, that the sentiments of the stage will always be such as are flattering, rather than corrective of national manners and national failings; superstition in Greece, gallantry in France, freedom and courage in England. In every popular exhibition this must be the case. Even the sacredness and authority of the pulpit is not exempted from its influence. In polite chapels, preachers exhort to morality; in crowded churches of less fashionable people, they enlarge on doctrinal subjects, on faith and sanctification. But the very existence of the stage depends on that public opinion which it is not to reform but to conciliate: and Dr. Johnson's expression is not the less true for its quaintness;

They that live to please, must please to live.'

To this necessary conformity to the manners of the

audience is owing the introduction of love into almost all our dramatic compositions; and those, as might be expected, are most in favour with the young, where this passion is allowed the most extensive influence, and the most unlimited power. It was this which, when it was the fashion for genteel people to pay attention to tragedies, drew such audiences to Lee's Theodosius, and to Dryden's Anthony and Cleopatra, where the length of the speeches, and the thinness of the incidents, would have been as tiresome to them as a sermon, had it not been for a tenderness and an extravagance of that passion, which every girl thought she could feel, and believed she could understand. The moral consequences of such a drama it is unnecessary to question. Even where this passion is purified and refined to its utmost degree, it may be fairly held that every species of composition, whether narrative or dramatic, which places the only felicity of life in successful love, is unfavourable to the strength and purity of a young mind. It holds forth that single object to the ambition and pursuit of both sexes, and thus tends to enfeeble and repress every other exertion. This increases a source of weakness and corruption, which it is the business of a good instructor to correct and overcome, by setting before the minds of his pupils other objects, other attainments, of a nobler and less selfish kind. But in that violence, in that tyranny of dominion, with which Love is invested in many of our tragedies, it overbears every virtue and every duty. The obligations of justice and of humanity sink before it. The king, the chief, the patriot, forgets his people, his followers, and his country; while parents and children mention the dearest objects of natural attachment only to lead them in the triumph of their love.

It is the business of tragedy to exhibit the passions, that is, the weaknesses of men. Ancient tra