| Citation |
PG-P.767.040
2 Jul 1767:23,31 (2010)
[A letter of 202 lines to printers concerning theater and
its long history of receiving negative public opinion
including a 43 line dialogue between Gayless and Sharp,
Guttle, and Melissa].
Gentlemen, The mal-treatment, obloquy, and unmerited
abuse, which the stage has met with from the late
publications against it, give me the more reason to expect
you will not refuse indulging me a few words in its favour;
it will be but doing that justice which is absolutely
requisite for the right understanding of an affair, wherein
two opposite parties are concerned; a conduct agreeable to
that impartiality, for which your paper has ever been
conspicuous.
The theatre has been represented as a public nuisance, the
corruptor of the people's morals, and a school of
debauchery; the actors, as a sett of vagrants; and the
encouragers of them, as the lightest, vainest and most
contemptible part of mankind. . . [189 lines]
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