But youth have no such power of discrimination.
Like inexperienced mariners, they know not where to look for the deep and the shallow water, and, allured by enchanting circumstances, they may, like those who are reported to have been enticed by the voices of the fabulous Syrens, easily overlook the danger, that assuredly awaits them in their course.
CHAP.IV.SECT.

I.
_The theatre--the theatre as well as music abused--plays respectable in their origin--but degenerated--Solon, Plato, and the ancient moralists against them--particularly immoral in England in the time of Charles the second--forbidden by George Fox--sentiments of Archbishop Tillotson--of William Law--English plays better than formerly, but still objectionable--prohibition of George Fox continued by the Quakers._ It is much to be lamented that customs, which originated in respectable motives, and which might have been made productive of innocent pleasure, should have been so perverted in time, that the continuation of them should be considered as a grievance by moral men.

As we have seen this to be the case, in some measure, with respect to music, so it is the care with respect to plays.
Dramatic compositions appear to have had no reprehensible origin.

It certainly was an object with the authors of some of the earliest plays to combine the entertainment with the moral improvement of the mind.
Tragedy was at first simply a monody to Bacohus.

But the tragedy of the ancients, from which the modern is derived, did not arise in the world, till the dialogue and the chorus were introduced.