RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE STAGE. V
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nd in such estimation was Roscius held by Cicero,that in pleading the cause of the poet Archias, hemakes the most honourable mention of that actor. In the days of Augustus, when dramatic entertain-ments were the common public diversions of the peo- E le through all the provinces of that Spacious empire,ad they then been deemed immoral, could they have,passed uncensured by all our apostles, who at that timewent forth by divine command to “ convert all na-tions?” No- vice, no impiety escaped them; not onlysins provoked their censure, they even reproved theindecencies of dress, and indelicacies of behaviour.But we hear not of one poet or actor who received anyreprimand from them. On the contrary, we meetwith several passages in the writings of St. Paul, mwhich he refers to the dramatic poets, citing their ex-pressions in confirmation of nis own sentiments.But to come nearer our own times: — the truly piousand learned archbishop Tillotson, speaking of plavs,gives this testimony in their favour, that “ they might*•* be so framed, and governed by such rules, as not only“ to be innocently diverting, but instructive and nse-<* ful, to put some follies and vices out of countenance,“ which cannot perhaps be so decently reproved, nor“ so effectually exposed and corrected any other way.”It has been contended, that the English stage roselater than the rest of its neighbours. Those who holdthis opinion, will, perhaps, wonder to hear of theatri-cal entertainments almost as early as the Conquest ;and yet nothing is more certain, if we believe an ho-nest monk, one William Stepbanides, or FitzStephen,in- his Dexcriptio nobilissimee Civiiaiis Londoma ?,who writes thus : — “ London, instead of common“ interludes, belonging to the theatre, has plays of a“ more holy subject ; representations of those miracles“ which the holy confessors wrought, or of the suffer-“ ings wherein the glorious constancy of the martyrs“ did appear." Thisauthor was a monk of Canterbury,who wrote in the reign of Henry 1 1. and died in thatof Richard 1. 1 If) l : and as he does not mention these a 3
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