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the Minijier of Schiller, and the play of Kotzehue beft known by 

 the name of Lovers Vovos, and you will find this exemplified in a 

 manner, that implies a fyftematic and rancorous hoftility to virtue, 

 fobriety, decency and good order. Indeed, fome parts of thefe 

 admired Dramas may be ranked with the moft vicious eff'ufions of 

 the prefs. In the Robbers, the author, that he may make the 

 murderous crew, the affociates of his hero, talk in charader, fills 

 the dialogue with horrid oaths and imprecations, with blafphemy 

 and ribaldry, worthy of the refufe of a guard-houfe, or a gaol. 

 Nor do the German plays confine the ufe of oaths and impreca- 

 tions, the difplay of profane and impious fentiments, to charaflers 

 which are meant and profefi"ed to be drawn as ferocious and cen- 

 furable, to robbers and aflTaflins. We find them afcribed to females, 

 nay, to females which the poet announces as feminine, good, and 

 amiable, and exhibits, as objeds of imitation, to their fex. This 

 hurts probability, as a violation, of dramatic decorum, and confifien- 

 cy ofcharader, and of that adherence to the appropriate manners, 

 which the Drama requires. But every man, who has a fenfe of 

 religion, or a regard to decency and good morals, will find much 

 more weighty objedions, to a pradice which fjaorts irreverently 

 with the name of God, and leads to irreligion and profanation ; 

 and which muft be particularly injurious, as holding out to the 

 female world, an example, which I fear is fuperfluous to many 

 among them, of mannifh manners, and bold ferocity. 



But amidfi all the liberty, which the German writers arrogate 

 to thtmrelves, of outfiepping the pale of modefly., and decorum, 



and 



