to trace in their plays any systematic | French, or that he should have a sword attempt to associate vice with those at his side. In all this there is no pasthings which men value most and de- sion, and scarcely any thing that can sire most, and virtue with every thing be called preference. The hero inridiculous and degrading. And such trigues just as he wears a wig; because, a systematic attempt we find in the if he did not, he would be a queer felwhole dramatic literature of the gene- low, a city prig, perhaps a Puritan. ration which followed the return of All the agreeable qualities are always Charles the Second. We will take, as given to the gallant. All the contempt an instance of what we mean, a single and aversion are the portion of the subject of the highest importance to unfortunate husband. Take Dryden the happiness of mankind, conjugal for example; and compare Woodall fidelity. We can at present hardly with Brainsick, or Lorenzo with Gocall to mind a single English play, mez. Take Wycherley; and compare written before the civil war, in which Horner with Pinchwife. Take Vanthe character of a seducer of married brugh; and compare Constant with women is represented in a favourable Sir John Brute. Take Farquhar; and light. We remember many plays in compare Archer with Squire Sullen. which such persons are baffled, ex- Take Congreve; and compare Bellposed, covered with derision, and in-mour with Fondlewife, Careless with sulted by triumphant husbands. Such Sir Paul Plyant, or Scandal with is the fate of Falstaff, with all his wit Foresight. In all these cases, and in and knowledge of the world. Such is many more which might be named, the fate of Brisac in Fletcher's Elder the dramatist evidently does his best Brother, and of Ricardo and Ubaldo, to make the person who commits the in Massinger's Picture. Sometimes, injury graceful, sensible, and spirited, as in the Fatal Dowry and Love's and the person who suffers it a fool, Cruelty, the outraged honour of or a tyrant, or both. families is repaired by a bloody revenge. If now and then the lover is represented as an accomplished man, and the husband as a person of weak or odious character, this only makes the triumph of female virtue the more signal, as in Jonson's Celia and Mrs. Fitzdottrel, and in Fletcher's Maria. In general we will venture to say that the dramatists of the age of Elizabeth and James the First either treat the breach of the marriage-vow as a serious crime, or, if they treat it as matter for laughter, turn the laugh against the gallant.

Mr. Charles Lamb, indeed, attempted to set up a defence for this way of writing. The dramatists of the latter part of the seventeenth century are not, according to him, to be tried by the standard of morality which exists, and ought to exist in real life. Their world is a conventional world. Their heroes and heroines belong, not to England, not to Christendom, but to an Utopia of gallantry, to a Fairyland, where the Bible and Burn's Justice are unknown, where a prank which on this earth would be rewarded with the pillory is merely matter for a peal of On the contrary, during the forty elvish laughter. A real Horner, a years which followed the Restoration, real Careless, would, it is admitted, be the whole body of the dramatists in- exceedingly bad men. But to predivariably represent adultery, we do not cate morality or immorality of the say as a peccadillo, we do not say as Horner of Wycherley and the Careless an error which the violence of passion of Congreve is as absurd as it would may excuse, but as the calling of a be to arraign a sleeper for his dreams. fine gentleman, as a grace without "They belong to the regions of pure which his character would be imper-comedy, where no cold moral reigns. fect. It is as essential to his breeding When we are among them we are and to his place in society that he among a chaotic people. We are not should make love to the wives of his to judge them by our usages. No reneighbours as that he should know verend institutions are insulted by

their proceedings, for they have none | Southey of having promoted or inamong them. No peace of families is tended to promote either Islamism violated, for no family ties exist among or Brahminism. them. There is neither right nor wrong, gratitude or its opposite, claim or duty, paternity or sonship."

This is, we believe, a fair summary of Mr. Lamb's doctrine. We are sure that we do not wish to represent him unfairly. For we admire his genius; we love the kind nature which appears in all his writings; and we cherish his memory as much as if we had known him personally. But we must plainly say that his argument, though ingenious, is altogether sophistical.

It is easy to see why the conventional worlds of Fenelon and Mr. Southey are unobjectionable. In the first place, they are utterly unlike the real world in which we live. The state of society, the laws even of the physical world, are so different from those with which we are familiar, that we cannot be shocked at finding the morality also very different. But in truth the morality of these conventional worlds differs from the morality of the real world only in points where there is no danger that the real world will ever go wrong. The generosity and docility of Telemachus, the fortitude, the modesty, the filial tenderness of Kailyal, are virtues of all ages and nations. And there was very little danger that the Dauphin would worship Minerva, or that an English damsel would dance, with a bucket on her head, before the statue of Mariataly.

Of course we perfectly understand that it is possible for a writer to create a conventional world in which things forbidden by the Decalogue and the Statute Book shall be lawful, and yet that the exhibition may be harmless, or oven edifying. For example, we suppose that the most austere critics would not accuse Fenelon of impiety and immorality on account of his Telemachus and his Dialogues of the The case is widely different with Dead. In Telemachus and the Dia- what Mr. Charles Lamb calls the conlogues of the Dead we have a false re-ventional world of Wycherley and ligion, and consequently a morality Congreve. Here the garb, the manwhich is in some points incorrect. We ners, the topics of conversation are. have a right and a wrong differing those of the real town and of the from the right and the wrong of real passing day. The hero is in all superlife. It is represented as the first duty ficial accomplishments exactly the fine of men to pay honour to Jove and gentleman whom every youth in the Minerva. Philocles, who employs his pit would gladly resemble. The heleisure in making graven images of roine is the fine lady whom every these deities, is extolled for his piety youth in the pit would gladly marry. in a way which contrasts singularly The scene is laid in some place which with the expressions of Isaiah on the is as well known to the audience as same subject. The dead are judged their own houses, in St. James's Park, by Minos, and rewarded with lasting or Hyde Park, or Westminster Hall. happiness for actions which Fenelon The lawyer bustles about with his bag, would have been the first to pronounce between the Common Pleas and the splendid sins. The same may be said Exchequer. The Peer calls for his of Mr. Southey's Mahommedan and carriage to go to the House of Lords Hindoo heroes and heroines. In Tha-on a private bill. A hundred little laba, to speak in derogation of the Arabian impostor is blasphemy: to drink wine is a crime: to perform ablutions and to pay honour to the holy cities are works of merit. In the Curse of Kehama, Kailyal is commended for her devotion to the statue of Mariataly, the goddess of the poor. But certainly no person will accuse Mr.

touches are employed to make the fictitious world appear like the actual world. And the immorality is of a sort which never can be out of date, and which all the force of religion, law, and public opinion united can but imperfectly restrain.

In the name of art, as well as in the name of virtue, we protest against the

principle that the world of pure comedy is one into which no moral enters. If comedy be an imitation, under whatever conventions, of real life, how is it possible that it can have no reference to the great rule which directs life, and to feelings which are called forth by every incident of life? If what Mr. Charles Lamb says were correct, the inference would be that these dramatists did not in the least understand the very first principles of their craft. Pure landscape-painting into which no light or shade enters, pure portrait-painting into which no expression enters, are phrases less at variance with sound criticism than pure comedy into which no moral enters.

unreal world, but of a world which is a great deal too real. It is the morality, not of a chaotic people, but of low town-rakes, and of those ladies whom the newspapers call "dashing Cyprians." And the question is simply this, whether a man of genius who constantly and systematically endeavours to make this sort of character attractive, by uniting it with beauty, grace, dignity, spirit, a high social position, popularity, literature, wit, taste, knowledge of the world, brilliant success in every undertaking, does or does not make an ill use of his powers. We own that we are unable to understand how this question can be answered in any way but one.

It must, indeed, be acknowledged, in justice to the writers of whom we have spoken thus severely, that they were, to a great extent, the creatures of their age. And if it be asked why that age encouraged immorality which no other age would have tolerated, we have no hesitation in answering that this great depravation of the national taste was the effect of the prevalence of Puritanism under the Commonwealth.

But it is not the fact that the world of these dramatists is a world into which no moral enters. Morality constantly enters into that world, a sound morality, and an unsound morality; the sound morality to be insulted, derided, associated with every thing mean and hateful; the unsound moality to be set off to every advantage, and inculcated by all methods, direct and indirect. It is not the fact that none of the inhabitants of this conventional world feel reverence for sacred To punish public outrages on morals institutions and family ties. Fondle- and religion is unquestionably within wife, Pinchwife, every person in short the competence of rulers. But when of narrow understanding and disgust- a government, not content with reing manners, expresses that reverence quiring decency, requires sanctity, it strongly. The heroes and heroines, too, oversteps the bounds which mark its have a moral code of their own, an ex-proper functions. And it may be laid ceedingly bad one, but not, as Mr. down as a universal rule that a goCharles Lamb seems to think, a code vernment which attempts more than it existing only in the imagination of dramatists. It is, on the contrary, a code actually received and obeyed by great numbers of people. We need not go to Utopia or Fairyland to find them. They are near at hand. Every night some of them cheat at the hells in the Quadrant, and others pace the Piazza in Covent Garden. Without flying to Nephelococcygia or to the Court of Queen Mab, we can meet with sharpers, bullies, hard-hearted impudent debauchees, and women worthy of such paramours. The morality of the Country Wife and the Old Bachelor is the morality, not, as Mr. Charles Lamb maintains, of an

ought will perform less. A lawgiver who, in order to protect distressed borrowers, limits the rate of interest, either makes it impossible for the objects of his care to borrow at all, or places them at the mercy of the worst class of usurers. A lawgiver who, from tenderness for labouring men, fixes the hours of their work and the amount of their wages, is certain to make them far more more wretched than he found them. And so a government which, not content with repressing scandalous excesses, demands from its subjects fervent and austere piety, will soon discover that, while attempting to render an impossible

at

during Lent, and communicate Easter. Madame de Maintenon, who had a great share in the blessed work, boasted that devotion had become quite the fashion. A fashion indeed it was; and like a fashion it passed away. No sooner had the old king been carried to St. Denis than the whole court unmasked. Every man hastened to indemnify himself, by the excess of licentiousness and impudence, for years of mortification. The same persons who, a few months before, with meek voices and demure looks, had consulted

service to the cause of virtue, it has | Lewis the Fourteenth in his old age in truth only promoted vice. became religious: he determined that For what are the means by which a his subjects should be religious too: government can effect its ends? Two he shrugged his shoulders and knitted only, reward and punishment; power- his brows if he observed at his levee ful means, indeed, for influencing the or near his dinner-table any gentleexterior act, but altogether impotent man who neglected the duties enjoined for the purpose of touching the heart. by the church, and rewarded piety with A public functionary who is told that blue ribands, invitations to Marli, gohe will be promoted if he is a devout vernments, pensions, and regiments. Catholic, and turned out of his place Forthwith Versailles became, in every if he is not, will probably go to mass thing but dress, a convent. The pulevery morning, exclude meat from his pits and confessionals were surrounded table on Fridays, shrive himself re-by swords and embroidery. The Margularly, and perhaps let his superiors shals of France were much in prayer; know that he wears a hair shirt next and there was hardly one among the his skin. Under a Puritan govern- Dukes and Peers who did not carry ment, a person who is apprised that good little books in his pocket, fast piety is essential to thriving in the world will be strict in the observance of the Sunday, or, as he will call it, Sabbath, and will avoid a theatre as if it were plague-stricken. Such a show of religion as this the hope of gain and the fear of loss will produce, at a week's notice, in any abundance which a government may require. But under this show, sensuality, ambition, avarice, and hatred retain unimpaired power, and the seeming convert has only added to the vices of a man of the world all the still darker vices which are engendered by the constant prac-divines about the state of their souls, tice of dissimulation. The truth cannot be long concealed. The public discovers that the grave persons who are proposed to it as patterns are more utterly destitute of moral principle and of moral sensibility than avowed libertines. It sees that these Pharisees are farther removed from real goodness than publicans and harlots. And, as usual, it rushes to the extreme opposite to that which it quits. It considers a high religious profession as a sure mark of meanness and depravity. On the very first day on which the restraint of fear is taken away, and on which men can venture to say what they think, a frightful peal of blasphemy and ribaldry proclaims that the short-sighted policy which aimed at making a nation of saints has made a nation of scoffers.

It was thus in France about the beginning of the eighteenth century.

now surrounded the midnight table where, amidst the bounding of champagne corks, a drunken prince, enthroned between Dubois and Madame de Parabère, hiccoughed out atheistical arguments and obscene jests. The early part of the reign of Lewis the Fourteenth had been a time of license; but the most dissolute men of that generation would have blushed at the orgies of the Regency.

It was the same with our fathers in the time of the Great Civil War. We are by no means unmindful of the great debt which mankind owes to the Puritans of that time, the deliverers of England, the founders of the American Commonwealths. But in the day of their power, those men committed one great fault, which left deep and lasting traces in the national character and manners. They mistook the end and overrated the force of

government. They determined, not nose, and showed the whites of his merely to protect religion and public morals from insult, an object for which the civil sword, in discreet hands, may be beneficially employed, but to make the people committed to their rule truly devout. Yet, if they had only reflected on events which they had themselves witnessed and in which they had themselves borne a great part, they would have seen what was likely to be the result of their enterprise. They had lived under a government which, during a long course of years, did all that could be done, by lavish bounty and by rigorous punishment, to enforce conformity to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England. No person suspected of hostility to that church had the smallest chance of obtaining favour at the court of Charles. Avowed dissent was punished by imprisonment, by ignominious exposure, by cruel mutilations, and by ruinous fines. And the event had been that the Church had fallen, and had, in its fall, dragged down with it a monarchy which had stood six hundred years. The Puritan might have learned, if from nothing else, yet from his own recent victory, that governments which attempt things beyond their reach are likely not merely to fail, but to produce an effect directly the opposite of that which they contemplate as desirable.

eyes; whether he named his children Assurance, Tribulation, and Mahershalah-hash-baz; whether he avoided Spring Garden when in town, and abstained from hunting and hawking when in the country; whether he expounded hard scriptures to his troop of dragoons, and talked in a committee of ways and means about seeking the Lord. These were tests which could easily be applied. The misfortune was that they were tests which proved nothing. Such as they were, they were employed by the dominant party. And the consequence was that a crowd of impostors, in every walk of life, began to mimic and to caricature what were then regarded as the outward signs of sanctity. The nation was not duped. The restraints of that gloomy time were such as would have been impatiently borne, if imposed by men who were universally believed to be saints. Those restraints became altogether insupportable when they were known to be kept up for the profit of hypocrites. It is quite certain that, even if the royal family had never returned, even if Richard Cromwell or Henry Cromwell had been at the head of the administration, there would have been a great relaxation of manners. Before the Restoration many signs indicated that a period of license was at hand. The Restoration crushed for a time the Puritan party, and placed supreme power in the hands of a libertine. The political counter-revolution assisted the

All this was overlooked. The saints were to inherit the earth. The theatres were closed. The fine arts were placed under absurd restraints. Vices which had never before been even misde- moral counter-revolution, and was in meanors were made capital felonies. It was solemnly resolved by Parliament "that no person shall be employed but such as the House shall be satisfied of his real godliness." The pious assembly had a Bible lying on the table for reference. If they had consulted it they might have learned that the wheat and the tares grow together inseparably, and must either be spared together or rooted up together. To know whether a man was really godly was impossible. But it was easy to know whether he had a plain dress, lank hair, no starch in his linen, no gay furniture in his house; whether he talked through his

turn assisted by it. A period of wild and desperate dissoluteness followed. Even in remote manor-houses and hamlets the change was in some degree felt; but in London the outbreak of debauchery was appalling; and in London the places most deeply infected were the Palace, the quarters inhabited by the aristocracy, and the Inns of Court. It was on the support of these parts of the town that the playhouses depended. The character of the drama became conformed to the character of its patrons. The comic poet was the mouthpiece of the most deeply corrupted part of a corrupted society