1825.] and of the 
reason, to seek for some other motive 
for the intemperance of the recent pro- 
scription ? 
If further instance were requisite to 
stimulate this inquiry, it is at hand. 
The public press, whatever may have 
been the zeal and diligence of proseli- 
tizing missionaries, (fond of travelling 
into strange lands,) has most assuredly 
not, all atonce, become saintly and puri- 
tanical : witness the zealous support of 
one whom, how justly soever she may 
be entitled to the compassion of the 
liberal, is certainly not quite an object 
of enthusiastic patronage for the austere. 
This is ground -upon‘which we would 
tread with tenderness: a case exceed- 
ingly different from any of the pre- 
ceding; but yet acase in point. We 
once met with the young creature, we 
now allude to, in her days, we believe, 
of unsullied purity; and we looked 
upon her with such eyes as we hope 
we shall always have for such as she 
then seemed to be. She appeared to 
us a thing of light. We thought we 
beheld in her air, her form, her features 
and her motions, the instinctive ex- 
pressions of grace, of intellect, and of 
innocence: we are sure we beheld the 
symmetry and beauty that ought to en- 
shrine such attributes; and we should 
have imagined that even libertinism 
must have become half-demon, ere it 
could cherish, for the simple loveliness 
that stood before us, one selfish or un- 
hallowed thought. We never can recol- 
lect. the vision of that day, without re- 
flecting on what “ Maria’”’* then seemed 
to be, and what she might, and what 
she ought to have become. 
For what has since happened, we 
can have no feeling but of compassion. 
One, indeed, there is for whom we re- 
serve our indignant execration: one, 
before whose darker guilt even the se- 
ducer appears robed in the livery of 
innocence. With him let the whole 
account of crimination rest: the victim, 
is entitled to a forbearing sympathy ; but 
not to enthusiastic patronage. 
Let the past be no impediment to the 
exercise of her professional talents ; but 
let it not be pleaded as a title to exag- 
gerated admiration. This is surely the 
line of discrimination which even the 
most indulgent morality would draw. 
But to what motive are we, then, to 
attribute the outrageous attempt to ea- 
_™ A poetical correspondent, whose con- 
tribution appears in its proper place, chimes 
in with perfect unison to our sentiments 
upon this occasion. 
Public Press. 101 
communicate Mr. Kean from the stage? 
We are disposed to answer—* The in- 
trigues of a theatrical faction.” There 
are, at this time, to the destruction of 
all true dramatic effect, two great 
actors, who alternately appear on these 
boards, and who, by some species of 
narrow policy, (whether originating in 
themselves or in the management,) are: 
never to appear together: the Castor and 
Pollux of the dramatic hemisphere,— 
one setting as the other rises; or the 
two buckets, if yeu will, of the dra- 
matic well, one of which must go down 
that the other may ascend. Each of 
these, we are told, is to have jifty 
pounds a night. Now some of their 
toad-eating friends, or zealous partizans, 
(for players have such as well as kings,) 
may perhaps have taken it into their 
heads, that if one of them could be 
driven from the stage, the other, instead 
of fifty, might have a hundred pounds 
a night ; or, at least, have all the fifty 
pound nights to himself. Through what 
dirty channels, or by what crooked 
ways, (perhaps unsuspected by the 
editors themselves, ) am intrigue so nefa- 
rious could find its way into the columns 
of our newspapers, it may not be very 
easy to shew: most assuredly we do 
not believe it to have originated with 
the rival actor himself; for never did 
we hear even the faintest whisper im- 
pute to Mr. Macready any particle of 
ungentlemanlike feeling. But great 
men, of every description, have their 
little admirers, who judge of the idols, 
they worship, by themselves : as divini- 
ties have their worshippers, who offer 
to them such services as superior nature 
must look down upon with indignant 
loathing, and regard, not as adorations, 
but as insults. Certain, however, it is 
that, of a faction of this description, 
whether concerted or incidental, there 
were symptoms not very equivocal ; and, 
against such a faction, the real lovers of 
the drama cannot too resolutely set 
their faces. If we would not have so 
much of our stage as is not already en- 
croached upon by melodrame and pan- 
tomime, still further degraded, and the 
fine tragedies of Shakspeare reduced to 
asort of monodramas, where every thing 
but the one speaker of the night, might 
just as well be supplied in pasteboard, 
as by the half-breathing automatons that 
surround him, we ought to demand of 
the manager, (who, as being a consti- 
tuted monopolist, is responsible to the 
public for the manner in which he fulfils 
his trust) how it comes that these two 
stars, 
