What the advantages are which could be derived from abolishing the stage can only be judged from a view of the moral state of those countries in which the drama has been for ages discouraged and held in disrepute, compared with that of countries where it has been supported and cultivated. Spain comes nearest to a total want of a regular drama of any Christian country in Europe; and if there be any person who prefers the moral state of that country to the moral state of Great Britain or America, we wish him joy of his opinion, and assure him that we admire neither his taste, his argument, nor his inference.
We have thus far entered into a vindication of the stage, not with the slightest hope of changing the opinion of its enemies, nor with the least desire to increase the admiration of its friends; but to awaken public opinion to a sense of its vast importance, and of the advantages which society may derive from giving full and salutary effect to its agency, by generous encouragement, and vigilant control—by directing its operations into proper channels, and fostering it by approbation in every thing that has a tendency to promote virtue, to improve the intellectual powers, and to correct and refine the taste, and the manners of society. This desirable end can only be attained by making it respectable, and sheltering its professors from the insult and oppression of the ignorant, the base-minded, and the illiberal. None will profit by the precepts of those whom they contemn; and the youth of the country will be very unlikely to yield to the authority of the instructor whom they see subjected to the sneers and affronts of the very rabble they themselves despise. Besides, if actors were to be treated with injustice and contumely, young gentlemen of talents and virtue would be deterred from entering into the profession; and the stage would soon become as bad as it is falsely described to be by fanatics—a sink of vice and corruption: but the wisdom and liberality of the British nation, after the example of old Rome, having, on the contrary, given to the gentlemen of the stage their merited rank in society, and raised actors and actresses of irreproachable private character, to associate with the families of peers, statesmen, legislators, and men of the highest rank in the nation, the profession is filled with persons eminently respectable for talents, learning and morals, and estimable as those of other classes in social life—estimable as husbands, fathers, children, friends and companions. But in Great Britain, they have a twofold protection—that of the audience and that of the law—from the insults and injustice of capricious, saucy, or malignant individuals. There, the line that separates the rights of the actor from those of the auditor has been exactly defined by the highest judicial authority.[4] And if an individual assaults a performer by hissing[5] without carrying the audience, or a large majority of it, along with him, the performer has his action against his malicious assailant, and is adjudged damages as certainly as persons of any of the other professions or trades recover for an assault, a calumny, or a libel. Hence the stage is looked up to as a great school, and the eminent actors are universally looked to as the best instructors in action, elocution, orthoepy, and the component parts of oratory. By following the same liberal and wise system with respect to OUR stage, we may reasonably hope soon to bring it to a reputable state of competition with that of Great Britain, and in that as in most other parts of the elegancies of life, not very long hence, to place the new on a complete footing with the old country.
[ BIOGRAPHY—FOR THE MIRROR.]
The passion for inquiring into the lives of conspicuous men is so universally felt, that we cannot help indulging it in cases where not only the person is unknown, but where his actions are so remote, that we can neither form a picture of the one, nor any possible way be affected by the other. The delight with which children themselves read the histories of remarkable characters, and the avidity with which, at every period of life, we read biography, are proofs that this passion has it source in nature, abstracted from any connexion imagined to exist between the object and our own heart. It is, however, more lively when the object lives in our time, and when his actions are the subject of daily conversation in our hearing, or when we have ourselves been witnesses of them; and still more so, when the person being still in existence has found means by the force of his talents to agitate a whole people, to rouse general curiosity and admiration, and to form, as it were, a landmark in any interesting department of civilized life.
That mankind, in general, derive greater pleasure from biography than from most other kinds of writing is universally acknowledged. One of the greatest moral philosophers of Britain justly observes, that of all the various kinds of narrative writing, that which is read with the greatest eagerness, and may with the greatest facility and effect be applied to the purposes of life is biography; and the accomplished and sagacious Montaigne, speaking in raptures, upon the same subject, says “Plutarch is the writer after my own heart, and Suetonius is another, the like of whom we shall never see.”
As a master key to the study of the human heart, the biographical account of particular individuals is infinitely superior to history. History, in fact, is not a just picture of man and nature, but a registry of prominent actions which derive conspicuity from their name, place, and date, while the inward nature of the agent, the secret springs, the slow and silent causes of those actions, being left unnoticed and undistinguished, remain forever unknown. The man himself is seen only here and there, and now and then, and lies hidden from view, except in those points in which his conduct is connected with those actions. But biography follows him from his public exhibition into his private retreat, haunts him in his closet concealments, accompanies him through his house, where his desires, passions, irregularities, vices, virtues, foibles, and follies take their full swing—sits by his fireside—watches for his unsuspecting, unguarded moments,—catches and lays up all the ebullitions of his heart, when it is freed from all restraint by domestic confidence—scans all his expressions when he is mixing in free social converse with his friends and family, and thus penetrates into his heart—detects every secret emotion of the man’s soul, even when he thinks himself most effectually concealed, and in every glance of his eye, every whisper, every unpremeditated act and expression, dives to the very bottom of his designs and brings up his real character.
In the regulation of life, therefore, or the improvement of moral sentiment, little benefit is to be derived from a knowledge of the events of history, the subjects of which are so far removed from the ordinary business of the world, that they seldom address a salutary example to the heart or understanding—seldom present an action in any way applicable to the ordinary transactions of the world, or which men in general can hope or wish to imitate, and which are therefore read with comparative indifference, and passed by without improvement, while biography conveys the best instruction for the conduct of life, by a happy mixture of precept and example.
Doctor Johnson has, in some of his writings, given it as his opinion that “a life has rarely passed, of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful; for not only, says he, every man has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients would be of immediate and apparent use; but there is such a uniformity in the state of man considered apart from adventitious and separable decoration and disguises, that there is scarce any possibility of good or ill but is common to human kind.” How much more beneficial as a mass of precept and example, and how much more captivating as a narrative must be the biography of any person who has held a conspicuous place for any length of time in the eye of the world, particularly if, by the industrious exercise of vigorous or brilliant talents, he has contributed more than his share to the happiness, the improvement, or the innocent pleasure of society. In that case a mixed sentiment of admiration and gratitude insensibly fills the public mind, from which there arises a lively interest in all that concerns the person and an eager curiosity to learn his origin, his early education, private opinions and habits, the fortunes and incidents of his life, and, above all, the singularities of his temper, and the peculiarities of his manners and deportment. Few men in society stand so much in the public eye, or have such opportunities to engage popular interest and personal admiration as celebrated actors. In the general account current of life, casting up the debtor and creditor between individual and individual, the balance between the auditor and actor will be found largely in favour of the latter. There are few, we know, to whom this assertion will not appear paradoxical, because few have given themselves time to consider that there is no place where a person, having an hour or two to bestow on relaxation, can obtain so much delight and improvement with so little concurrence of his own efforts as at the theatre. “At all other assemblies,” says Dr. Johnson, “he that comes to receive delight will be expected to give it; but in the theatre nothing is necessary to the amusement of two hours but to sit down and be willing to be pleased.” Where the private deportment and moral character of a celebrated actor, therefore, are not at great variance with the general feelings, he becomes by the very nature of his profession and talents an object of general interest, and his life, character, and every circumstance belonging to him are inquired into with earnest curiosity and solicitude.
He who fairly considers the requisites indispensable to a tolerable actor, will allow that the professors of that art must be persons of intellectual capacity and personal endowments much superior to the common herd of mankind. The vivid intelligence, the high animal spirits, the aspiring temper, and the resolute intrepidity, which impel them to the stage and support them under its difficulties, are generally associated with an eccentricity of character and a giddy disregard of prudential considerations, which generate adventure and chequer their lives with a greater variety of incidents and whimsical intercourse with the world than falls to the lot of men of other professions. Hence it follows that the stage presents the most ample field for the biographer; and that whether he writes for the instruction or the entertainment of his readers, he will not be able to find in any other department of society men whose lives comprise such an interesting variety as the actors.
In selecting the persons with whose lives it is intended to enrich this work, the editors find it necessary in the very first instance to depart from the rule which their original purpose and strict justice, as well as a due regard to priority, had prescribed to them. The biography of the deceased Mr. Hallam, as the father of the American stage, no doubt lays claim to the first place. There were others too, whose priority to Mr. Cooper cannot be contested; but, as the materials were not to be immediately had they have been obliged to postpone them.