July’s poem
“Lines in Defence of the Stage”:
No, in the theatre we see vice punished and virtue rewarded, / The villain either hanged or shot, and his career retarded; / Therefore the theatre is useful in every way, / And has no inducement to lead the people astray.
Because therein we see the end of the bad men, / Which must appall the audience – deny it who can / Which will help to retard them from going astray, / While witnessing in a theatre a moral play.
The theatre ought to be encouraged in every respect, / Because example is better than precept, / And is bound to have a greater effect / On the minds of theatre-goers in every respect.
Sometimes in theatres, guilty creatures there have been / Struck to the soul by the cunning of the scene; / By witnessing a play wherein murder is enacted, / They were proven to be murderers, they felt so distracted,
And left the theatre, they felt so much fear, / Such has been the case, so says Shakespeare. / And such is my opinion, I will venture to say, / That murderers will quake with fear on seeing murder in a play.
Hamlet discovered his father’s murderer by a play / That he composed for the purpose, without dismay, / And the king, his uncle, couldn’t endure to see that play, / And he withdrew from the scene without delay.
And by that play the murder was found out, / And clearly proven, without any doubt; / Therefore, stage representation has a greater effect / On the minds of the people than religious precept.
We see in Shakespeare’s tragedy of Othello, which is sublime, / Cassio losing his lieutenancy through drinking wine; / And, in delirium and grief, he exclaims: / “Oh, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!”
A young man in London went to the theatre one night / To see the play of George Barnwell, and he got a great fright; / He saw George Barnwell murder his uncle in the play, / And he had resolved to murder his uncle, but was stricken with dismay.
But when he saw George Barnwell was to be hung / The dread of murdering his uncle tenaciously to him clung, / That he couldn’t murder and rob his uncle dear, / Because the play he saw enacted filled his heart with fear.
And, in conclusion, I will say without dismay, / Visit the theatre without delay, / Because the theatre is a school of morality, / And hasn’t the least tendency to lead to prodigality.
(William McGonagall)
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Good people of high and low degree, / I pray ye all be advised by me, / And don’t believe what the clergy doth say, / That by going to the theatre you will be led astray.No, in the theatre we see vice punished and virtue rewarded, / The villain either hanged or shot, and his career retarded; / Therefore the theatre is useful in every way, / And has no inducement to lead the people astray.
Because therein we see the end of the bad men, / Which must appall the audience – deny it who can / Which will help to retard them from going astray, / While witnessing in a theatre a moral play.
The theatre ought to be encouraged in every respect, / Because example is better than precept, / And is bound to have a greater effect / On the minds of theatre-goers in every respect.
Sometimes in theatres, guilty creatures there have been / Struck to the soul by the cunning of the scene; / By witnessing a play wherein murder is enacted, / They were proven to be murderers, they felt so distracted,
And left the theatre, they felt so much fear, / Such has been the case, so says Shakespeare. / And such is my opinion, I will venture to say, / That murderers will quake with fear on seeing murder in a play.
Hamlet discovered his father’s murderer by a play / That he composed for the purpose, without dismay, / And the king, his uncle, couldn’t endure to see that play, / And he withdrew from the scene without delay.
And by that play the murder was found out, / And clearly proven, without any doubt; / Therefore, stage representation has a greater effect / On the minds of the people than religious precept.
We see in Shakespeare’s tragedy of Othello, which is sublime, / Cassio losing his lieutenancy through drinking wine; / And, in delirium and grief, he exclaims: / “Oh, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!”
A young man in London went to the theatre one night / To see the play of George Barnwell, and he got a great fright; / He saw George Barnwell murder his uncle in the play, / And he had resolved to murder his uncle, but was stricken with dismay.
But when he saw George Barnwell was to be hung / The dread of murdering his uncle tenaciously to him clung, / That he couldn’t murder and rob his uncle dear, / Because the play he saw enacted filled his heart with fear.
And, in conclusion, I will say without dismay, / Visit the theatre without delay, / Because the theatre is a school of morality, / And hasn’t the least tendency to lead to prodigality.
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(William McGonagall)