Tho several Assaults have been made upon the Comick Poets in Fashion,
and many Batteries have been rais'd against the Theatre, yet hitherto
they have prov'd unsuccessful; the Stage is become Impregnable, where
loose Poets, supported by Numbers, Power, and Interest, in Defiance
of all Rules of Decency and Vertue, still provide new Snares
and Temptations to seduce the People, and corrupt their Manners.
Notwithstanding the earnest Cries of this great City, that importune
these Writers to reform the Theatre, and no longer to infest her
Youth, and draw their Inclinations from their Professions and
Employments; notwithstanding the Sighs and Tears of many once
flourishing, but now disconsolate Families, ruin'd by the dissolute
Lives of their chief Branches, who lost their Vertue by frequenting
the fatal Entertainments of the Theatre; notwithstanding the wise and
sober part of the Kingdom earnestly sollicit them to spare the
People, to stop the spreading Plague and slay the destroying Pen, they
persevere with intrepid Resolution and inexorable Cruelty, to poison
the Minds, and ruin the Morals of the Nation.
The great Archbishop _Tillotson_ has set our present Theatre in a true
Light in his Discourse upon _Corrupt Communication_:
"I shall only speak a few words concerning Plays, which as they are
now order'd among us, are a mighty Reproach to the Age and Nation.
"To speak against them in general, may be thought too severe, and that
which the present Age cannot so well brook, and would not perhaps be
so just and reasonable; because it is very possible they might be
so fram'd and govern'd by such Rules, as not only to be innocently
diverting, but instructing and useful, to put some Vices and Follies
out of Countenance, which cannot perhaps be so decently reprov'd, nor
so effectually expos'd and corrected any other way.
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