(_For the Mirror_.)
It is remarkable with what difference actors were treated among the
ancients. At Athens, they were held in such esteem, as to be sometimes
appointed to discharge embassies and other negotiations; whereas, at
Rome, if a citizen became an actor, he thereby forfeited his freedom.
Among the moderns, actors are best treated in England; the French having
much the same opinion of them that the Romans had; for though an actor
of talent, in Paris, is more regarded than here, he nevertheless is
deeply degraded. He may die amid applauses on the stage, but at his
natural death, he must pass to his grave, without a prayer or _de
profundis_, unless a minister of religion receives his last sigh.
Cromwell and his Puritans had a holy horror of actors. They pronounced
them Sons of Belial! and professors of abomination. During the whole
reign of the Republican Parliament, and Protectorate, the theatres of
that day were closed, or, if opened by stealth, were subject to the
visits of the emissaries of "Praise God Barebones," "Fight the Good
Fight," and their crew. The actors were driven off the stage by
soldiers, and the cant word of that period is still recorded, "Enter
red coat, exit hat and cloak." William Prynne was celebrated for his
writings against the immorality of the stage, and the furious invectives
of Jeremy Collier, are still extant; his pen was roused by Dryden's
_Spanish Friar_, and Congreve's witty, but licentious comedies. Collier
inveighed without mercy, but he certainly did much to reform the stage.
Our Evangelicals and Methodists denounce the histrionic art to this day,
with more than the zeal of the Church of Rome. But a follower of Wesley
or Whitfield would not enter the den of abomination. Here, however, we
take care all our comedies shall be purified, and our tragedies free,
even from an oath; both are subject to the censor's unsparing pen, and
must be subsequently licensed by the Lord Chamberlain.
The actors in England, have, it is true, only become respectable
within the last half century, and though they are termed his majesty's
servants, yet an _unrepealed_ statute denounces them as vagabonds.
As a body, numerous in itself, they are as free from crime as any other
associated body or profession of men, and yet do they "his majesty's
servants" continue to lay under the stigma which the above unrepealed
act fixes upon them. This is perfectly anomalous, and it was spiritedly
denounced by Sir Walter Scott, when on a recent and interesting occasion
he nobly and manfully declared "Its professors had been stigmatized; and
laws had been passed against them less dishonourable to them than to the
statesman by whom they were proposed, and to the legislators by whom
they were passed." To repeal, therefore, an act nugatory in itself,
would not add to the reputation of the profession, nor give a license to
further abuse; but it would be an act of justice, and remove a prejudice
unjustly attached to the professors of a difficult art.
The critical pen of Mrs. Inchbald justly remarks, "To the honour of
a profession long held in contempt by the wise--and still contemned
by the weak--Shakspeare, the pride of Britain, was a player." To the
illustrious bard, the modern drama is indebted for its excellence. His
writings will remain for ever the grandest monument of a genius which
opened to him the whole heart of man, all the mines of fancy, all the
stores of nature, and gave him power beyond all other writers, to move,
astonish, and delight mankind. In the drama, the most interesting
emotions are excited; the dangerous passions of hate, envy, avarice, and
pride, with all their innumerable train of attendant vices, are detected
and exposed. Love, friendship, gratitude, and all those active and
generous virtues which warm the heart and exalt the mind, are held up
as objects of emulation. And what can be a more effectual method of
softening the ferocity, and improving the minds of the inconsiderate?
The heart is melted by the scene, and ready to receive an
impression--either to warn the innocent, or to appal the guilty; and
numbers of those who have neither abilities nor time for deriving
advantage from reading, are powerfully impressed through the medium
of the eyes and ears, with those important truths which while they
illuminate the understanding, correct the heart. The moral laws of the
drama are said to have an effect next after those conveyed from the
pulpit, or promulgated in courts of justice. Mr. Burke, indeed, has gone
so far as to observe that "the theatre is a better school of moral
sentiment than churches." The drama, therefore, has a right to find a
place; and to its professors are we indebted for what may justly be
considered one of the highest of all intellectual gratifications.