But what will they say then to those gentlemen who neither are supposed to go to our theaters, nor to converse much with those who do, nor to be liable to be corrupted by them? What will they say to these gentlemen if they can be proved to have a considerable share in the two afore-mentioned vices? What can they answer? For it would be ridiculously absurd to reply that the clergy are corrupted by the laity, whom it is their business to convert. But here I think myself obliged to declare that I by no means design this as a reflection upon the Church of England, who, I am satisfied, may more justly boast of its clergy than any other church whatsoever; a clergy that are equally illustrious for their piety and for their learning. Yet may I venture to affirm that there are some among them who can never be supposed to have been corrupted by playhouses, who yet turn up a bottle oftener than they do an hour glass; who box about a pair of tables with more fervor than they do their cushions, contemplate a pair of dice more frequently than the Fathers or Councils, and meditate and depend upon hazard more than they do upon Providence.
And as for that unnatural sin which is another growing vice of the age, it would be monstrous to urge that it is, in the least, encouraged by the stage; for it is either never mentioned there or mentioned with the last detestation.
And now, lastly, for the love of women, fomented by the corruption and not by the genuine art of the stage; though the augmenting and nourishing of it cannot be defended, yet it may be in some measure excused.
1. Because it has more of nature, and consequently more temptation and consequently less malice, than the preceding three, which the drama does not encourage.
2. Because it has a check upon the other vices and peculiarly upon that unnatural sin, in the restraining of which the happiness of mankind is, in so evident a manner, concerned.
So that of the four moral reigning vices, the stage encourages but one, which as it has been proved to be the least of them all, so it is the least contagious and the least universal. For in the country fornication and adultery are seldom heard of, whereas drunkenness rages in almost every house there: from all which it appears how very unreasonable it is to charge the lewdness of the times upon the stage when it is evident that of the four reigning moral vices the stage encourages but one, and that the least of the four and the least universal and a vice which has a check upon the other three, and particularly upon that amongst them which is most opposite and most destructive to the happiness of mankind.
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