marriage of comedy is generally of that sort which holds forth the worst example to the young; not an union the result of tried attachment, of sober preference, sanctified by virtue, and by prudence. These are the matches which comedy ridicules. Her marriages are the frolics of the moment, made on the acquaintance of a day, or of some casual encounter. In many comedies, amidst the difficulties of accomplishing the marriage, on which the intrigue of the piece turns, and in the course of which its incidents are displayed, the restraints of parents and guardians are introduced only to be despised and outwitted; age, wisdom, experience, every thing which a well-educated young person should respect and venerate, is made a jest of; pertness, impudence, falsehood, and dishonesty, triumph and laugh; the audience triumphs and laughs along with them; and it is not till within a few sentences of the conclusion, that the voice

of morality is uttered, not heard. The interest of the play is then over, the company is arranging its departure; and if any one listens, it is but to observe how dull and 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 CoventGarden, 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 foundations 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 obtained 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,

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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.