| Citation |
NYJ-N.773.123
8 Jul 1773:31 (1592)
To the Printer, Tis a certain sign of a cordial
correspondence when an author writes letters to himself; --
so that whether Cato addresses the Censor, or the Censor
Cato, we are equally edified.--I join issue intirely with
old Blunderbuss, and hope he will continue popping at our
theatrical mansion, till the powder of his brain is intirely
exhausted. Unhappily for him however, he seems to be no
very skilful engineer, having fixed his battery in a wrong
place: the same kind hand that deals out his turgid
lucubrations, furnishes tickets for a much more rational
entertainment. So, as his namesake says there "The bane and
antidote are both before us." Instead however of attacking
the poor players, whose aim seems innocent in a desire to
please: I would have such talents more suitably exerted, in
demolishing their employers, ---[?]I should feel for poor
Shakespear, Milton, Addison, and Row, if their dramatic
productions were pricked at by so sharp a quill. Like
Falstaff's Raggamuffins, they will be finely peppered. Let
us not strain at knats and swallow camels and if our
shepherds are to be relied upon so to watch the fold, as not
to suffer a single sheep to straggle into a play-house:
Suppose we refer them to the Holy-Ground, even a Theatre
there, I believe would furnish as good neighbours to a
religious seminary, as many of the pious inhabitants of that
sacred spot at present are. Why should we exclaim against
theatre's here, and suffer such nurseries silently to
subsist, which promise amply to supply George Barnwell's to
every theatre in Christendom. Cato, however, may console
himself with this reflection, that his writings will
circulate at the bottom of trunks and band boxes, while
those of the authors hinted at above, will be confined to
the libraries only, of the sensible and discerning.
[Signed] Albany.
|