Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/179

tic, as to think it would be more for the interests of virtue, if such performances were read, not acted; made rather our companions in the closet, than on the theatre. While we are readers, every moral sentiment strikes us in all its beauty, but the love scenes are frigid, tawdry, and disgusting. When we are spectators, all the persuasives to vice receive an additional lustre. The love scene is aggravated, the obscenity heightened, the best actors figure in the most debauched characters, while the parts of dull morality, as they are called, are thrown to some mouthing machine, who puts even virtue out of countenance, by his wretched imitation. The principal performers find their interest in chusing such parts as tend to promote, not the benefit of society, but their own reputation; and inusing