dain honest industry; for Norval's first battlehis first deed of blood-and especially his triumphant return from it-taught him to disdain "the shepherd's slothful life." Here, however, the reverend author has shewn his ignorance of the shepherd's life—an ignorance too often betrayed by men who are not well acquainted with the practical reality of what they sometimes theorise or moralise upon; for we happen to know enough of a shepherd's life, to know, that so far from its being "slothful," it is, if faithfully followed, a very laborious and responsible occupation; or at least requiring very great care and vigilance, if not great labor. Mr. Home meant probably inglorious life, as contrasted with the glorious career of your warriors, your menbutchers, instead of lamb-tenders and sheepbutchers. Thus we perceive how easily young men catch from a scene in a tragedy-(a tragedy, too, written by a christian preacher)— the first "warlike" impulse, the first wish they ever had to shed the blood of their fellow-men in battle, to become the enemies instead of the friends of their species, to become murderers on a broad scale, in the ranks of "some warlike Lord," instead of "wise men" and benevolent reformers and improvers of their country and mankind in the mild arts of peace; For the virtuous and peaceful, and highly useful, and

honest industry of "the shepherd's life" is to be spurned at with disdain, in comparison with the vicious and blood-stained career of the retainer of "some warlike Lord ;" the soldier, the legalised, wholesale murderer, who cuts the throats of his fellow-men for hire, and calls it glory!

We cannot, in this essay, attempt to criticise the whole drama; but as the tragedy just referred to, is altogether one of the purest in style and matter, of the British school, we have selected it, together with one more only, for our present purpose; and that one is the tragedy of Cato, by Addison: And if these two pieces, written by two of the most learned and virtuous men of their day, are both eminently calculated to inculcate foul morality and false religion, what good can be expected to come from any of their predecessors or successors in the same line, from Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, down to Lillo, with his tragedy of Barnwell, and the authors of such licentious and infamous scenes as are exhibited in the Beggar's Opera, and in Tom and Jerry.

As Mr. Home chose a British subject, he did not find it necessary to mingle heathenism with his scenes or dialogue—excepting the war spirit, which, though nominal christians have cherished it, is still exclusively a heathen spirit.

But Mr. Addison having chosen a Roman subject, we find both in his scenes and in his dialogue, enough of that mixture of heathen and barbarous superstition, with christian philosophy, of which we have already complained, to confuse and poison the minds of thousands of unstudied youth. In fact, we are certain that if Mr. Addison himself did not perceive the folly of bringing forward on the stage, in a christian land, heathen warriors and statesmen, to talk and act in the peculiar style and manner of heathens, is it likely that his auditors would generally either see the folly or feel the impiety of it. Is it not more likely that most of them would leave the Theatre with notions in their heads, entirely at war with the sound notions that belong to a christian education. For the same reason that it is dangerous for a child to handle sharp tools, it is so for an untaught mind to be brought in contact with false morality or spurious religion.

We christians believe in one God: but an ignorant youth, listening to Mr. Addison's tragedy, would suppose there were as many gods as spectators in the pit and boxes. In the very opening speech of the play by Portius, we have them

"Ye Gods what havoc does ambition make
Among your works."

The same phrase is used by Syphax; and then, again, Sempronius is made to bawl out"My voice is still for war,

Gods! can a Roman Senate long debate," &c.

And so these gods-than which it is impossible to conceive of any term more offensive to an unadulterated christian taste-are made "to dance," as Junius says of certain other objects, "in all the mazes of metaphorical confusion,” through the whole piece: For again, listen to Lucius

"Has not the vow already passed my lips,

The gods have heard it, and 'tis sealed in heaven." Pretty business, truly, for the gods in heaven, to seal the rash or revengeful vows of an impious mortal! Grand philosophy, indeed, and well matched with what had preceded it in a speech of Juba

I'd rather have that man

Approve my deeds, than worlds for my admirers!"

The approbation of his own conscience, or that of his Gods, it seems, in this case, is lost sight of: For what room is there, either for that self respect which every good man ought to possess, or that true devotion which he owes to God, in the breast of a man-worshipper, a tool of Cato, of Rome, or of any other political leader or demagogue, in any age or clime? But now comes the climax, or rather anti-climax, of sublime morality and religion! It is, too, the

dying speech of Sempronius-the last words of

a Roman Senator!

"Curse on my stars !-am I then doomed to fall

By a boy's hand? disfigured in a vile
Numidian dress, and for a worthless woman?
Gods! I'm distracted! this my close of life!

O for a peal of thunder that would make

Earth, sea, and air, and heaven and Cato tremble !"

And this is the balderdash, and the bathos, extracted from heathen philosophy and religion, for the instruction of the polite and intelligent age of Queen Anne in Great-Britain; and which has often been listened to with rapture and applause in this most enlightened country of ours! It is indeed a singular, if not laughable coincidence, that we had scarcely penned the last quotation, when pausing to look a moment at a number of the New-York Sun, that lay upon our table, we cast our eye on the following exclamation of the editor, which we copy word for word, and letter for letter:-"Oh! for a barrel of Harrington's thunder: A number one, to rattle in the common council chamber, till the sapient fathers do something in the wooden pavement line!" Compare this with Mr. Addison's heathen speech of Sempronius-and I think the editor of the Sun bears off the palm! But let us hear the great Cato himself—

"Lucius, the torrent bears too hard upon me:
Justice gives way to force: the conquered world
Is Cæsar's: Cato has no business in it."

Considering these as the actual words of a