destroy. An indolent and presuming age, instead of following up the laborious researches of its predecessors, professes a taste for books with an affectation of general knowledge, which are periodically supplied by familiar analyses of new publications in every department of literature, and by compendious treatises of science, from which the merest trifler may obtain proficiency, and be distinguished among his equals. The whole order of learning is inverted; and while there are masters, who

k Advertisements in the style of the following extracts are not unusual: .. "The superiority of this se"lect establishment consists in its systematic disci

pline; in the writing of shorthand; in judicial and "parliamentary speaking; and in the lectures which are "given on law, divinity, logic, rhetoric, natural and "moral philosophy." Times, Jan. 13, 1816 ... “Gen"tlemen are boarded and instructed in the various "branches of classical, mathematical, and commercial "education, with monthly lectures in philosophy, chy"mistry, mechanics, with the use of an extensive appa"ratus.. it is presumed the plan of the school is liberal " and genteel, calculated to promote with unusual facility the improvement of the pupil, &c." Ibid. Jan. 3, 1817. "The encyclopædia, or universal system of edu"cation, which proposes the well-grounded acquire

profess their ability to teach, what it is not possible that children should learn; it hath also become the fashion of persons in maturer years to listen to lectures, for which they have made no preparation, and from which it is seldom intended, and seldom practicable, that they should receive any ultimate improvement. Romance and fable are employed to give new attraction to the simple narrative of fact, and the falsest and most delusive views of life are circulated in the unnumbered volumes of fictitious history. The theatre, with the impurity which disgraced a former age',

"ment of the ancient and principal modern languages, "and the elements of every branch of literature and "science, during the years usually spent under tui❝tion, pursued at School, Middlesex, is detailed in prospectuses. . the academy commands a view into "twelve counties, is large and modern, &c." Ibid. July 13, 1818.

1 The present age has also been disgraced by a regular trade in obscene prints and publications, which were introduced into schools for girls, through the connivance of servants, or gratuitously thrown into carriages at public places. This trade was principally conducted by foreigners, and not less than six hundred agents are supposed to have been concerned in it. Its efforts have

hath thrown aside the manly vigour of sentiment which instructed it, and glares with meretricious ornament, and disgusts every finer feeling by exhausting the strength of childhood, and doing violence to animal instinct; and at the same time, it forbids the entrance of every woman who is jealous of her virtue, her character, or her reputation, by the easy and voluptuous accommodation of the prostitute, whose support is deemed essential to the relief of its embarrassments. The opportunities of vice and intrigue, which the masquerade affords, are annually patronized by the higher classes of the community, and, that its corrupting influence may not be restricted, they are accommodated to the convenience of the lowest. The price which a needy foreigner receives for a specified series of

m

been successfully counteracted by the Society for the Suppression of Vice. See Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on the Police of the Metrópolis for 1817. p. 525. 565.605.714.717. 721.

m See the Report of Proceedings at a Meeting of the Proprietors of Drury Lane Theatre, in the Times, Sept. 22, 1817.

performances, exceeds the revenue of many an useful institution, and the low state of the Italian opera, which is the result of these exorbitant demands, and to which an importance is attached by no means proportionate to the unnatural, unmeaning, and uninstructive nature of the entertainment", is suffered to engage the atten

n Among the forms which are destitute of the power of godliness, there is no act of more sanctimonious hypocrisy than the practice which obtains at this theatre, of dropping the curtain whenever the performances are prolonged to twelve o'clock on the Saturday night. This practice has been commended for its decency: be it so. In the virtual acknowledgment of the claims of the Sabbath-day, it is singular that no recollection should be had of the servants and the horses that are waiting in the streets, and that the ballet-dancers alone should be entitled to rest, because it is the holy day of the Lord. The day thus begun is consistently spent in vain ostentation, in travelling, in luxury and play, and in every thing which can tend, through the influence of high authority and example, to demoralize the country by profaning the Sabbath. Numerous instances of this violation of the Sabbath among the lower orders in acts of drunkenness, gambling, cruel sports, and the utter neglect of the public worship of God, are recorded in the Police Report for 1816. p. 222. and in that for 1817. p. 527.553.547.565-8.586.

tion of able and experienced statesmen, while nobles of inferior attainments are content to become the managers and administrators of an ordinary theatre. Amusements, adapted to every period and condition of life, are multiplied in the metropolis and in the provinces: every place affords an asylum in which the gamester may pursue his occupation with impunity; and periodical scenes of the most unrestrained licentiousness are suffered to continue, when there is no pretext of policy for their continuance, and every moral motive to demand their entire and immediate suppression.

In the private house, a plain and simple hospitality is superseded by magnificent entertainments, in which the seasons are severally anticipated by artificial produc

66

"The number of low fairs in the vicinity of London occupy eighty days in the year." Police Report for 1817. p. 564. For the mischievous effects of these public nuisances, see p. 563. 590. 604. 754; Report for 1816. p. 67. 250; Report of the Committee of the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline, and for the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders, p. 15.