On /^THEATRE. 
LETTER XI. 
7 o the fame . 
Madam, 
N OTHING can be more obvious than this : whatever is 
{Locking to decency, to common honefty, and confe- 
quently to the facred regards of religion, is productive of exam- 
ples pernicious to fociety, and ought not only to be avoided, but 
punifhed. This ought to be efteemed the criterion, whether 
a ftate is really civilized or not. With regard to the public, 
all kinds of amufements which tend to dedroy that virtue on 
which the public welfare depends, ought to be guarded 
againd, and as carefully watched in all its fymptoms, as an 
epidemical didemper which endangers the unpeopling a ftate. 
Perhaps novelty and variety were never in greater repute 
amongft us than at prefent, and yet we are not totally de- 
parted from our character of a grave and intelligent nation. So 
at leaft it feems to me, with regard to theatrical reprefenta- 
tions : for tho’ we are extremely faulty in the inftance before 
us, what padages are fo much admired, or, if I may ufe the 
exprefdon, more eagerly devoured, than fuch as contain the 
deeped: reflections on the being of a god, the immortality of 
the foul, and a date of rewards and punidiments ? Who can see 
the incomparable garrick, without thinking they behold the 
very prince of Denmark ? Or who can hear him alk, 
<c IVhether 9 tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
<£ ‘The flings and arrows of outragious fortune • 
“ Or 
