The Deputy Moralist. 33 



" Please to omit the following underlined words in the representation 



of the drama, called the 



ACT 1. 



SCENE 2. " I had as soon look' d for an imp in Paradise." 

 SCENE 3. " Thou to a cherub's thoughts dost aad a cheruVsface" 

 Do. " (Last speech in the Act,) " and FORCE her to my purpose." 



ACT 2. 



SCENE 2. " Good angels fly about you." 

 Do. " Heaven knows it /" 

 Do. " Heaven direct me /" 

 SCENE 3." To Heaven be my thanks." 



It must be deemed that these examples of primitive morality would not 

 have belied the character of a Praise-God Barebones, and are a beautiful 

 testimony of the truth of the no less beautiful compliment of " Richard 

 Jones, Comedian, " who, in dedicating a translation to George Colman, 

 Esq., declares that his hand " has the magic power of producing verdure 

 from an unfertile soil!" Verily it has. "His red (ink} right hand" 

 brings forth naughty words, where Irving himself might, with the traveller 

 from Dan to Beersheba, exclaim, " all is barren !" Were it needful that 

 Henry the Fifth, or The Merry Wives of Windsor should be submitted 

 to the deputy, we have no doubt that the drama would be returned, ac- 

 companied with the usual letter of exceptions, containing the following 

 impressive postscript, " omit, by all means, Bardolph's nose !" The office 

 of licenser of plays is unconstitutional, is worse than useless, and we hope, 

 under a reformed parliament, will be speedily abolished. The house need 

 not seek far back for precedents : the wooden men were taken from 

 St. Dunstan's but little more than a twelvemonth ago. 



The debate on free trade in the drama, and dramatic copyright, was 

 opened in an able speech by Mr. Bulwer. His individual advocacy of the 

 questions is alone an evidence of their importance to the proper cultivation 

 of the highest and most difficult branch of letters. Mr. Lamb seemed to 

 smell the business " with a dead man's nose." Sir Charles Wetherell 

 talked about the drama as the unicorns over a stage proscenium, if sud- 

 denly gifted with the tongues, would have declaimed. " He much doubted 

 whether a number of theatres would produce such plays as Steele's Cato, 

 or Johnson's Irene /' to our mind, a sufficient argument for granting the 

 prayer of the petitioners ; nay, we would have a clause inserted in the new 

 act, making it fineable in any theatre that should offer new plays of the 

 like grade. Irene should be, by a strange paradox, to a playhouse, what 

 light weights are to the baker, to be answered by fining or imprisonment. 

 There is one point, however, in which we think our contemporaries have 

 lacked consideration towards Sir Charles ; namely, " Steele's Cato." 

 The mistake was natural and pardonable. The Hon. and learned member 

 must have felt that no one less than " M. P. for Borpughbridge " could 

 have written that glowing tragedy, and it seems to have been forgotten by 

 our brethren, that Sir Richard Steele did once actually represent the 

 " dear deceased" borough. 



M. M. New Series. Vol. XIV. No. 79. D 



