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THE THEATRE.--I approach a subject, on which a great variety of opinion
exists, and that is the theatre. In its present state the theatre
deserves no encouragement. It is an accumulation of immoral influences.
It has nourished intemperance and all vice. In saying this, I do not
say that the amusement is radically, essentially evil. I can conceive
of a theatre which would be the noblest of all amusements, and would
take a high rank among the means of refining the taste and elevating the
character of a people. The deep woes, the mighty and terrible passions,
and the sublime emotions of genuine tragedy, are fitted to thrill us
with human sympathies, with profound interest in our nature, with a
consciousness of what man can do, and dare, and suffer, with an awed
feeling of the fearful mysteries of life. The soul of the spectator
is stirred from its depths, and the lethargy in which so many live
is roused, at least for a time, to some intenseness of thought and
sensibility. The drama answers a high purpose when it places us in the
presence of the most solemn and striking events of human history, and
lays bare to us the human heart in its most powerful, appalling, glorious
workings. But how little does the theatre accomplish its end! How often
is it disgraced by monstrous distortions of human nature, and still more
disgraced by profaneness, coarseness, indelicacy, low wit, such as no
woman, worthy of the name, can hear without a blush, and no man can take
pleasure in without self-degradation!--_Dr Channing on Temperance._
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CONSECRATED IRISH BELLS.--Consecrated bells were formerly held in great
reverence in Ireland, particularly before the tenth century. Cambrensis,
in his Welsh Itinerary, says, “Both the laity and clergy in Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales, held in such great veneration portable bells, and
staves crook’t at the top, and covered with gold, silver, and brass,
and similar relics of the saints, that they were much more afraid of
swearing falsely by them than by the gospels, because from some hidden
and miraculous power with which they were gifted, and the vengeance of
the saint, to whom they were particularly pleasing, their despisers and
transgressors are severely punished.” Miraculous portable bells were very
common; Giraldus speaks of the _Campana fugitiva_ of O’Toole, chieftain
of Wicklow; and Colgan relates, that whenever St Patrick’s portable bell
tolled, as a preservative against evil spirits and magicians, it was
heard from the Giants’ Causeway to Cape Clear, from the Hill of Howth to
the Western shores of Connemara.--_Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy._
Printed and Published every Saturday by GUNN and CAMERON, at
the Office or the General Advertiser, No. 6. Church Lane,
College Green, Dublin.--Agents--R. GROOMBRIDGE, Panyer Alley,
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Birmingham. M. BINGHAM, Broad Street, Bristol. FRASER and
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Glasgow.