Chapter I: The Immodesty of the Stage
In treating this head, I hope the reader does not expect that I should set down chapter and page and give him the citations at length. To do this would be a very unacceptable and foreign employment. Indeed the passages, many of them, are in no condition to be handled. He that is desirous to see these flowers, let him do it in their own soil. 'Tis my business rather to kill the root than transplant it. But that the poets may not complain of injustice, I shall point to the infection at a distance, and refer in general to play and person.
Now among the curiosities of this kind we may reckon Mrs. Pinchwife, Homer, and Lady Fidget in the Country Wife; Widow Blackacre and Olivia in the Plain Dealer. These, though not all the exceptionable characters, are the most remarkable. I'm sorry the author should stoop his wit thus low and use his understanding so unkindly. Some people appear coarse and slovenly out of poverty. They can't well go to the charge of sense. They are offensive, like beggars, for want of necessaries. But this is none of the Plain Dealer's case; he can afford his Muse a better dress when he pleases. But then the rule is, where the motive is the less, the fault is the greater. To proceed. Jacinta, Elvira, Dalinda, and Lady Pliant, in the Mock Astrologer, Spanish Friar, Love Triumphant, and Double Dealer, forget themselves extremely; and almost all the characters in the Old Bachelor are foul and nauseous. Love for Love and the Relapse strike sometimes upon this sand, and so likewise does Don Sebastian.
I don't pretend to have read the stage through; neither am I particular to my utmost. Here is quoting enough unless 'twere better. Besides, I may have occasion to mention somewhat of this kind afterwards. But from what has been hinted already, the reader may be over-furnished. Here is a large collection of debauchery; such pieces are rarely to be met with. 'Tis sometimes painted at length too and appears in great variety of progress and practice. It wears almost all sorts of dresses to engage the fancy and fasten upon the memory and keep up the charm from languishing. Sometimes you have it in image and description; sometimes by way of allusion; sometimes in disguise; and sometimes without it. And what can be the meaning of such a representation unless it be to tincture the audience, to extinguish shame, and make lewdness a diversion? This is the natural consequence, and therefore one would think 'twas the intention too. Such licentious discourse tends to no point but to stain the imagination, to awaken folly, and to weaken the defenses of virtue. It was upon the account of these disorders that Plato banished poets his Commonwealth. And one of the Fathers calls poetry, Vinum Daemonum, an intoxicating draught made up of the Devil's dispensatory.
I grant the abuse of a thing is no argument against the use of it. However, young people particularly should not entertain themselves with a lewd picture, especially when 'tis drawn by a masterly hand. For such a liberty may probably raise those passions which can neither be discharged without trouble, nor satisfied without a crime. 'Tis not safe for a man to trust his virtue too far, for fear it should give him the slip! But the danger of such an entertainment is but part of the objection; 'tis all scandal and meanness into the bargain. It does in effect degrade human nature; sinks reason into appetite, and breaks down the distinctions between man and beast. Goats and monkeys, if they could speak, would express their brutality in such language as this.
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