An Essay on the Character and Influence of the Stage

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Williams and Son, 1815 - 234 pàgines

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Pàgina 180 - His onset was violent: those passages which while they stood single had passed with little notice, when they were accumulated and exposed together, excited horror; the wise and the pious caught the alarm, and the nation wondered why it had so long suffered irreligion and licentiousness to be openly taught at the public charge.
Pàgina 87 - Hath fill'd his bosom with that sacred fire, Which in the breasts of his forefathers burn'd : Set him on high like them, that he may shine The star and glory of his native land ! Then let the minister of death descend, And bear my willing spirit to its place.
Pàgina 210 - Cross of Him who prayed for His murderers — "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do...
Pàgina 170 - Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught In chorus or iambic, teachers best Of moral prudence, with delight received In brief sententious precepts, while they treat Of fate, and chance, and change in human life ; High actions and high passions best describing...
Pàgina 64 - It is acknowledged, with universal conviction, that the perusal of his works will make no man better; and that their ultimate effect is to repreient pleasure in alliance with vice, and to relax those obligations by which life ought to be regulated.
Pàgina 145 - The drama's laws the drama's patrons give: And those who live to please must please to live.
Pàgina 215 - It is not less convenient to a profligate, or a coxcomb, whose propriety of character is to be supported by laughing indiscriminately at religion in every form ; the one, to evince that his courage is not sapped by conscience., the other, to make the best advantage of his instinct of catching at impiety as a compensative substitute for sense.
Pàgina 138 - I believe with no other motive than religious zeal and honest indignation. He was formed for a controvertist : with sufficient learning ; with diction vehement and pointed, though often vulgar and incorrect ; with unconquerable pertinacity ; with wit in the highest degree keen and sarcastic ; and with all those powers exalted and invigorated by just confidence in his cause. Thus qualified, and thus incited, he walked out to battle, and assailed at once most of the living writers, from Dryden to D'Urfey....
Pàgina 86 - Snatch'd from the waves, and brings to me my son! Judge of the widow, and the orphan's father! Accept a widow's and a mother's thanks For such a gift ! What does my ANNA think Of the young eaglet of a valiant nest ? How 'soon he gaz'd on bright and burning arms, Spurn'd the low dunghill where his fate had thrown him, And tower'd up to the region of his sire!
Pàgina 47 - The Theatre then, in this view, cannot reasonably be considered as an amusement. Unless it assume a higher character; unless it answer some moral purpose, it would be preposterous to represent it as recreation for intelligent minds, who wish to unbend and relax, that they may attend with more ability and pleasure to the great object for which they are bound to live.

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