Those who dissent from us on other propositions, will agree with us at least in this, that the highest degree of attention ought to be paid to the morals, the manners, the address and the language of youth; and that nothing which has a tendency to mislead them, in any of those essentials, should be submitted to their eyes or ears; but that on the contrary, every thing should be done, as a great moral philosopher has instructed us, "to secure them from unjust prejudices, from perverse opinions, and from incongruous combinations of images." Let it be kept in mind that we are not now discussing the question whether the stage be beneficial to society or not. Though it be a fair subject of inquiry, and will hereafter engage a share of our attention, we have no use for it, at present; since be our opinions or those of our readers what they may, the stage exists, and will continue to exist and attract the regards of mankind. The true point of consideration, therefore, is, not how far it is beneficial or how far injurious; but in what way its benefits may be enhanced, and its mischiefs, if any, be abated. He who should demonstrate that it has a pernicious tendency, would but the more strongly enforce our propositions; since he would thereby show the expediency of diminishing that tendency and of mitigating that evil which the public will forbids to be entirely prevented. It is not merely on account of its effects upon the audience, but on that of the actors themselves, that the theatre calls loudly for a strict critical regimen. An actor resigned to his own opinion, and committed to the unrestrained licentious exercise of his own judgment, if he be not one in a million, sinks into negligence, becomes wilful, and if, as is nine times in ten the case, he should obtain the casual applause of a few stupid and injudicious spectators, becomes headstrong, refractory, and incorrigibly hardened in error. If by means of the oversight of critical judges, or the false adjudication of applause, an actor insensibly slides into popularity, he is erected into a standard of taste, by those who have not seen better; instead of being himself tested by sound principles of criticism and estimated by comparison, with the best models, he becomes gradually absolved from submission to all authority, is held up as a criterion for determining the merit of other actors, and dubbed the Roscius of his little theatre by a number of confident pretenders who know just as much about dramatic character and acting, and on the very same grounds too, as the poor islander of St. Kilda did of architecture, when he sagaciously concluded that the great church of Glasgow was excavated out of a rock, because he had never before seen an edifice made of hewn stone and mortar. Thus not only a false taste is circulated among the youth at large, but the very fountain of taste is itself polluted. This is an evil which nothing but a well-regulated body of competent critical authority can prevent. In