could not refift: they regretted to fee the corruptions of Covent-garden extended, and the feats of industry hold forth allurements to vice and debauchery. The principal of thefe was Sir John Barnard, a wife and venerable man, and a good citizen: he, as a magiftrate, had for fome time been watching for fuch information as would bring the actors at Goodman's-fields playhouse within the reach of the vagrant laws; but none was laid before him that he could with prudence, act upon. At length, however, an opportunity offered, which he not only embraced, but made an admirable ufe of: Mr. Henry Fielding, then a young barrister without practice, a dramatic poet, and a patriot, under the extreme preffure of neceffity, had, in the year 1736, written a comedy, or a farce, we may call it either or both, intitled, Pafquin,' a dramatic fatire on the times, and brought it on the stage of the little playhoufe in the Hay-market, which, being calculated to encourage popular clamour, and containing in it many reflections on the public councils, furnished reafons for bringing a bill into the house of commons for prohibiting the acting of any interlude, tragedy, comedy, opera, play, farce, &c. without the authority of his Majefty's letters-patent or a licence from the lord-chamberlain. In this bill a claufe was inferted on the motion of Sir John Barnard, and a very judicious one it was, by which it was made penal, even with any fuch patent or licence, to act or reprefent any fuch interlude, &c. in any part of Great-Britain, except in the city of Weftminfter and fuch other places as his Majefty, in perfon, fhould refide in. Before 1737, the year in which this bill was brought in, the property of Goodman's-fields playhoufe had paffed into the hands of Mr. Henry Giffard, who, encouraged by a fubfcription, pulled it down, and, under the direction of Shephard, the architect, the fame that afterwards F 2 afterwards built Covent-garden theatre, had erected a new one. This man, while the bill was depending, petitioned against it, and, in his printed cafe, represented the injury he was likely to fuftain: all the specious arguments of the great fums he had expended on the purchafe of the house, and rebuilding it, in fcenes, cloaths, &c. were urged with their utmost force, and his right to an equivalent ftated; but all to no effect: the bill paffed, and the ftatute is now part of the law of the land. It is true, an evasion of it was afterwards contrived by an advertisement of a concert, with a play given gratis, but that fubterfuge was foon abandoned. The operation of this ftatute was two-fold; it fubjected theatrical representations to a licence, and suppreffed a nuisance. And here let me observe, that although of plays it is faid that they teach morality, and of the ftage that it is the mirror of human life, these affertions are mere declamation, and have no foundation in truth or experience: on the contrary, a playhouse, and the regions about it, are the very hot-beds of vice how elfe comes it to pass that no fooner is a playhouse opened in any part of the kingdom, than it becomes furrounded by an halo of brothels? Of this truth, the neighbourhood of the place I am now fpeaking of has had experience; one parish alone, adjacent thereto, having to my knowledge, expended the fum of 1300l. in profecutions for the purpose of removing thofe inhabitants, whom, for inftruction in the fcience of human life, the playhoufe had drawn thither. Mr. Brooke, the author above-mentioned, having with his eyes open, and the ftatute of the tenth of George the second staring him in the face, written a tragedy, in which, as will be prefently fhewn, under pretence of a laudable zeal for the caufe of liberty, he inculcates principles, not only anti-monarchical, but fcarcely confiftent with any fyftem of civil fubordina tion; what wonder is it, that, under a monarchical government, a licence for fuch a theatrical reprefentation fhould be refused? or that fuch a refufal should be followed by a prohibition of the acting it? This interpofition of legal authority was looked upon by the author's friends, in which number were includ ed all the Jacobites in the kingdom, as an infraction of a natural right, and as affecting the caufe of liberty. To exprefs their refentment of this injury, they advised him to fend it to the prefs, and by a fubfcription to the publication, of near a thoufand perfons, encouraged others to the like attempts. By means of the printed copy any one is enabled to judge of its general tendency, and, by reflecting on the fentiments inculcated in the following fpeeches therein to be found, to mea fure the injuftice done him: Is it of fate that he who affumes a crown Beyond the fweeping of the proudest train That fhades a monarch's heel, I prize these weeds. our Dalecarlians Have oft been known to give a law to kings. Divide and conquer is the fum of politics. That empire is of titled birth or blood; - thou art the minister, The reverend monitor of vice. F 3 The The fence of virtue is a chief's best caution; Is all the guard that e'er fhall wait Guftavus. The dedication to the play, addreffed to the fubfcribers, gives the reader to understand, that the author had ftudied the ancient laws of his country, though not converfant with her prefent political ftate,' that he is a friend to national liberty and perfonal freedom,' (meaning by the firft, a ftate refulting from virtue or reafon ruling in a breaft fuperior to appetite and paffion,' and, by the laft, a fecurity arifing from the nature of a well-ordered conftitution, for those advantages and privileges that each man has a right to by ' contributing as a member to the weal of that community;') these declarations are interspersed with reflections on the lord-chamberlain, and a complaint that his treatment of the author was fingular and unpre'cedented;' after which follows an effufion of patriotic fentiments ferving to fhew, that a monarch or head of fuch a conftitution as he above has defcribed, is fceptered in the hearts of his people.' ་ Upon occafion of this publication, Johnson was employed by one Corbet, a bookfeller of fmall note, to take up the cause of this injured author, and he did it in a pamphlet, intitled, A Complete Vindication of the Licenfers of the Stage from the malicious and * fcandalous afperfions of Mr. Brooke, author of Gustavus Vafa.' 4to. 1739. Criticism would be ill employed in a minute examination of the Marmor Norfolcienfe, and the Vindication of the Licensers: in general it may fuffice to say that they are both ironical, that they difplay neither learning nor wit, and that in neither of them is there to be discovered a single ray of that brightness which beams fo ftrongly in the author's moral and political effays. effays. Did it become a man of his difcernment, endowed with fuch powers of reafoning and eloquence as he poffeffed, to adopt vulgar prejudices, or, in the cant of the oppofition, to clamor againft place-men, and penfioners and standing armies? to ridicule the apprehenfion of that invafion in favour of the pretender, which himself, but a few years after became a witnefs to, or to compare the improbability of fuch an event with that of a general infurrection of all who were prohibited the ufe of gin? Of all the modes of fatire, I know none fo feeble as that of uninterrupted irony. The reafon of this feems to be, that in that kind of writing the author is compelled to advance pofitions which no reader can think he believes, and to put queftions that can be answered in but one way, and that fuch an one as thwarts the fenfe of the propounder. Of this kind of interrogatories the pamphlet I am speaking of feems to be an example; Is the man without penfion or place to fufpect the impartiality or the judgment of thofe who are entrusted with the adminstration of public affairs? Is he, when the law is not strictly • obferved in regard to him, to think himself aggrieved, to tell his fentiments in print, to affert his claim to better ufage, and fly for redrefs to another tribu<nal ?' Who does not fee that to these several queries the anfwer must be in the affirmative? and, if fo, the point of the writer's wit is, in this inftance, blunted, and his argument baffled. In the course of this mock vindication of power, Johnson has taken a wide scope, and adopted all the vulgar topics of complaint as they were vented weekly in the public papers, and in the writings of Bolingbroke, flimfy and malignant as they are. And here let me note a curious fophifm of that fuperficial thinker, |