Never--we think we may safely say it--never has any true friend of religion and morality been found upholding the theatre as it actually _is_, or _was_, at any particular period. Indeed, this may also be said of its most partial advocates. Their warmest defense is ever coupled with the admission, that, as at present managed, it needs some thorough and decided reform to make it, in all respects, what it ought to be. We do not think that we ever read any thing in advocacy of the stage without some proviso of this kind. It never _is_--it never _was_--what it ought to be, and might be. But then the idea is ever held forth of some future reform. We are told, for example, what the theatre might become, if, instead of being condemned by the more moral and religious part of the community, it received the support of their presence, and could have the benefit of their regulation. So plausible have these arguments appeared, that the experiment has again and again been tried. Reforms have been attempted in the characters of the plays, of the actors, and of the audiences. Good men and good women have written expressly for the stage. Johnson and Hannah Moore, and Young--to say nothing of Buchanan and Addison--have contributed their services in these efforts at expurgation, but all alike in vain. Some of these have afterward confessed the hopelessness of the undertaking, and lamented that by taking part in it they had given a seeming encouragement to what they really meant to condemn. The expected reform has never appeared. If, through great exertion, some improvement may have manifested itself for a time, yet, sooner or later, the relapse comes on. Nature--our human nature--will have its way. The evil elements predominate; and the stage sinks again, until its visible degradation once more arouses attention, and calls for some other spasmodic effort, only to meet the same failure, and to furnish another proof of some radical inherent vitiosity.