common-place these reflections are.

Virtue is thus doubly degraded, both when she speaks and when she is silent.

The purity of the British comedy in modern times has been often contrasted with the drama of our forefathers, in those days of licentiousness and immorality when Wycherly and Congreve wrote for the rakes and libertines of a profligate court. I forbear to cite, in contradiction to this, the ribaldry with which, for some time past, our stage has been infested, in the form of comic operas and burlettas, by which the laugh and the applause of Sadler's Wells and Bartholomew fair have been drawn from the audiences of Covent-Garden and Drury-Lane. But I must observe, that in this comparative estimate no account has been taken of a kind of licentiousness in which some of our latest comedies have indulged, still more dangerous than the indelicacy of the last century: those sometimes violated decency, but these attack principle; those might put modesty to the blush, or contaminate the purity of innocence; but these shake the very foundation of morality, and would harden the mind against the sense of virtue.

It is somewhat remarkable, that the French stage, formerly so proud of its bienseance, should have, nearly at the same period with that of England, assumed the like pernicious licentiousness. Figaro, though a less witty, is as immoral a play as the School for Scandal.

Dramas of this pernicious sort arose upon the fashionable ridicule against what was called sentimental comedy, which it had become customary to decry, as subverting the very intention of that department of the stage, and usurping a name, from which the gravity of its precepts, and the seriousness of its incidents, should have excluded it. This judgment, however, seems to be founded neither on the

critical definition of comedy, nor on the practice of its writers in those periods when it had attained its highest reputation. Menander and Terence wrote comedies of sentiment; nor does it seem easy to represent even follies naturally, without sometimes bringing before us the serious evils which they may produce, and the reflections which arise on their consequences.-Morality may no doubt be trite, and sentiment dull in the hands of authors of little genius; but profligacy and libertinism will as often be silly as wicked, though, in the impudence with which they unfold themselves, there is frequently an air of smartness which passes for wit, and of assurance which looks like vivacity. The counterfeits, however, are not always detected at that time of life which is less afraid of being thought dissipated than dull, and by that rank which holds regularity and sobriety among the plebeian virtues. The people, indeed, are always true to virtue, and open to the impressions of virtuous sentiment. With the people, the comedies in which these are developed still remain favourites; and corruption must have stretched its empire far indeed, when the applauses shall cease with which they are received.

V.

No. 51. SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 1786.

SIR,

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE LOUNGER.

I WAS much pleased with one of your late papers published on the last day of last year, in which you suggested several uses that might be made of a recollection of past events, and of a proper consideration of the power of Time.

The neglect of the improvement of Time is an evil of which every moralist has complained, on which therefore it were presumption in me to attempt to enlarge. But without repeating what has been so often and so well said on its waste or its abuse, permit me to take notice of that forgetfulness of its progress, which affects the conduct and deportment of so many in the different relations of life. In matters of serious concern, we cannot violate the rights of Time without rendering ourselves unhappy; in objects of smaller importance, we cannot withdraw from its jurisdiction without making ourselves ridiculous. Its progress, however, is unfortunately very apt to be unnoticed by ourselves, to whom its daily motion is gradual and imperceptible; but by others it will hardly fail to be marked, and they will expect a behaviour suitable to the character it should stamp upon us.

How often do the old forget the period at which they are arrived, and keep up a behaviour suitable, or perhaps only excusable in that which they have long ago passed? We see every day sexagenary beaux, and gray-haired rakes, who mix with the gay

and the dissipated of the present time, and pride themselves on the want of that thought and seriousness which years alone, if not wisdom, should have taught them. This is the pitiful ambition of the weak and the profligate, who, unable to attain the respect due to virtue, or the credit of usefulness, wish to show the vigour of their minds, and the soundness of their constitutions, at a late period of life, by supporting a character of folly or licentiousness. But they should be told, that they generally fail in their object, contemptible as it is; the world only allows them credit for an attempt at follies, for an affectation of vice. What a fine wicked old dog your father is!' said a young fellow, in my hearing, at the door of a tavern a few nights ago. Why, yes, replied his companion, with a tone of sang froid, he would if he could.'

In the other sex, I confess I feel myself more inclined to make allowance for those rebels against Time, who wish to extend the period of youth beyond its natural duration. The empire of beauty is a distinction so flattering, and its resignation makes so mortifying a change in the state of its possessor, that I am not much surprised if she who has once enjoyed it tries every art to prolong her reign. This indulgence, however, is only due to those who have no other part to perform, no other character to support. She who is a wife or a mother has other objects to which her attention may be turned, from which her respectability may be drawn. I cannot therefore easily pardon those whom we see at public places, the rivals of their daughters, with the airy gait, the flaunting dress, and the playful giggle of fifteen. As to those elderly ladies who continue to haunt the scenes of their early amusements, who sometimes exhibit themselves there in all the gay colours of youth and fashion, like those unnatural

fruit-trees that blossom in December, I am disposed rather to pity than to blame them. In thus attending the triumphs of beauty, they may be of the same use with the monitor who followed the Roman heroes in their triumphal processions, to put them in mind, amidst the shouts of the people, and the parade of conquest, that, for all their glory, they were still but men.

6

But the progress of time is as often anticipated as it is forgotten, and youth usurps the privileges of age as frequently as age would retain the privileges of youth. At no period, perhaps, was this prematurity of behaviour more conspicuous than at present. We have boys discoursing politics, arguing metaphysics, and supporting infidelity, at an age little beyond that when they used to be playing at taw and leap-frog. Nor are these the most hurtful of their pretensions. In vice, as in self-importance, they contrive to get beyond the ignorant present time; and, at the years of boyishness, to be perfect men in licentiousness and debauchery. It is much the same with the young people of the female world. Girls, who formerly used to be found in the nursery, are now brought forward to all the prerogatives of womanhood. To figure at public places, to be gallanted at public walks, to laugh and talk loud at both, to have all the airs and all the ease of a fine lady, are now the acquirements of misses, who, in my younger days, Mr. Lounger, were working their samplers, learning white seam, or were allowed to spoil a mince-pie, by way of an exercise in pastry: and it is no uncommon thing, now-a-days, to see in the corner of a ball-room at midnight, leaning on the arm of her partner, and now and then answering some of his speeches with the rap of her fan, the same ungrown girl, who, not a great many years.