should be immediately sent to Botany Bay. I would be equally, if not more, severe on some of the female performers. I would have no mercy whatever shewn to that artful baggage Mrs. Jordan.

What

a mixture of vice and wickedness does she exhibit to our young women of fa

shion, which, if not suggested by her

performance, the innocent creatures would never think of! From her they learn how to impose on a tender and anxious parent or faithful guardian. Does she not, when her guardian instructs her to write a letter to a profligate wicked lover, to forbid him from seeing her face again-does she not,

I

say, take the advantage of his momentary absence to whip another letter out of her bosom, full of unchaste and fond expressions, and substitute it in the place of the original one; and then laugh at the poor, old, doating dupe, on making him

the instrument of her infamy? And besides, oh horrible! does she not teach young ladies to tread on young gentlemen's toes under the table*? Oh heavens! how must it shock any moral man to have a young lady take such impudent liberties with him! If any young woman should ever dare to offend my modesty by so indelicate and audacious an act, I swear, by my chastity, that I would not delay a moment in giving information to her parents or guardians, or next of kin, of her disposition to treading, that they might marry her out of hand!

How often have I seen young women of the first fashion delighted to excess at the wonderful skill and powers this seducing actress possesses; in teaching them

* See the Country Girl.

how to play the jilt and coquette, and completing them in the art and science of intrigue. In short, so perfect and skilful is she in her immoral instructions on the stage, and so much libertinism has she insidiously represented to our thoughtless young ladies, that no punishment can be too great for her. I know not how to dispose of her properly, unless she were to be sent to France, where she could do no harm; for there Satan and Sin walk hand in hand.

There is another shocking fellow who should be severely punished; I mean Lewis; who, when playing Archer, has the impudence to ask a lady to permit him to take off her garter to bind the thieves before at least two thousand people.

What wanton and indecent songs are daily sung in our theatres! What pious

VOL. I.

or moral person can hear, without blushing, the fashionable air which begins with the following line:

έσ

I'll kiss you here by this fair light."

To kiss a young lady by the light of the moon!-How indecent! Oh! let me plunge the idea deep in night and darkness. But this is not all: It is bad enough to perform such a duet on the public stage; but it does not end there: for, if it should prove a favourite air with the public, and be encored a few times, as it most probably would be, every young lady in the land sings and plays it on the Piano Forte, With what emphasis, expression, and feeling, have I heard grown misses of sixteen or seventeen, sing what I should be ashamed to write, as it would wound the

feelings of any decent person to read.—

But, alas! so it is, and so it will be-till

my book has been read and studied, and produced all the good effects which I reasonably expect from it.

Then again that impudent, abominable woman, Mrs. Martyr, and in man's clothes, and regimentals, singing

And when in quarters we shall be,

"Oh! how I'll kiss my landlady."

What! kiss the landlady to pay the reckoning! Oh, fye! this is worse even than an officer not paying his quarters at all.

Besides, there is The Beggars Opera; which ought not only to be banished the stage, but burned by the hands of the common hangman, and as severe a penalty inflicted on any person selling it as on the works of Tom Paine; for it is equally as productive of disrespect to our present