The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1804-12-13 00:00:00

TOUNG ROSC'IUS.

Scarcely had the talents of this wondetful boy.
loudly proclaimed through every part of the country,
received the sterling stamp of a London audience,
when, amidst the general enthusiasm, one feeble,

angry, and dissentient voice was heard. Th, Courier,
a Print notorious in the annals of Jacthinism, and
which never had an ides of its own, upon the sub-
jell of the Theatre, but daily copied the critiques of
the Morning Papers, as caprice or partiality direLled
its choice, set up at once as the arbiter of public
taste, and the supreme judge of theatrical per form-
ance. In contempt of public opinion, of until, and
every generous principle that regulates the condua
of man, it declared, at the very moment when the
whole town resounded with his praise, that this idol
of their worsl.ip " was totally destitute of feeling ;"
that he had ■ot one " spark of genius ;" that he was

" a mere puppets" And not only " below medio-

crity," but absolutely contemptible." We own,
that we felt indignant at such an outrage. To rob

a r...uth of his fair fame, of his talents, and of his
prospects in life, appeared to us as ciiminal, as stop-
ping him upon the high road, and, with a sword at

Ms throe, divesting him At once of life and fortune.

The civil law, we know, calls one of these offences
murder ; the other it calls by the less criminal 11/111C
of libel ; but religion acknowledges no such distinc-
tion. It considers the taking away of a man's cha-

raeter equally criminal, in the eye of God, as the
taking away of his life. The sixth commandment
embraces both these sorts of murder ; and, we fear,
the man who could glory in the one, would not
feel much remorst, in committing the other.—
Enamoured with the extraordinary merit of the
Young Roseiut, and fire.. with indignation at this
scandalous attempt to injure and degrade him ; we
lost not a ntemeat to expose the malice and the views
of the miserable scribe by whose foul pen he was
thus assailed. Notice was given, that the attack
would be renewed from day to day, and we were
fi:mly resolved, and had pledged ourselves, to repel
it daily, when, to our astonishment and surprise,
we found the same paper that had thus vented its
abuse upon the Young Roseau:, announce a series of
letters in refutation of its own falsehoods. If the
first as of the abusive farrago in The Courier excited
our indignation, this second aft excited our disgust.
It coat not be considered in the light of an aniendir
homareke, for a reason which we shall shortly as-
gigs s or, however complete our answers were,
did we flatter ourselves that the chastisement,
which we had infliAed, a old larva worked a con-
version in the breast of an incorrgible Jacobi°, and
wrung from him a fair and full confession of hi,
:rime. The praise and the disprai,e, the attack

and the defence, .t-e the conjoint parts of a pre-
meditated plan to deg! Alt this pride of England,
this ornament of the are, in public estimation. A
set of laboured, ate led pedants formerly were in
possession r:f tar stage, under the title of the Old
School. GARRICK appeased, And dcthrow'd these

pretenders. What G A at c K was to the Old School,
the bousz Remiss r, Another favourite child of Nature,
threatens to pt ave to ;he present lords of the Theatre.
All the old parrots and peature-masters are
alarmed, and terror prevails throui,h all the egiJna
of the Green Room. The press has thereto' e been
resorted to in aid of private scandal, to uphold their
tottering thrones, and resist the legitimize claims of
this wonderful boy to the theatrical e: own and seep-

Ire. The pretended defn_c in r‘e Costri, ris
only a ruse de gaterre, an underplot in the piece.
An apology, when fairly made, is always as bread as
the offence ; but in the present ease, the attack is ge.
nei al, while the defence is confined to a few points cf
minor importance If a man be Cll.: ged with
many crimes, ought his advocate to be contem with
accpaitftwer him of one ? If he be charged with a ca-
pital offence, would he be sufficiently defended by
'hewing him only guilty of petty larceny? Such are
the defence and retributive justice afforded by The
Couree to the Tering Reo vie. The charge represents
him as inferior to even our third-rate afters ; and the
defence,while it removes a few aspzrsions,ingeninissly
contrives to leave him in the same relative si:u.3:3;:.
—Having said thus much for the Fotteg Racist, we

hope we may be allowej to say a few w, :Js for our-

,rives. For the fidelity, t::e impartial. , and the
Isvinainatiou of theatrical c:;ti.7ue., as given in the
Newspapers, see JJ not !near, to c• ,itend. The
writers may Se ignorant, private irieildship may
tarp their judgment ; but, whatever may be their
Jeres, they have Ovr.sys p7ofessei sincerity, and
.lartieJ to be uniform. We know oo instance of a
Newspaper abusing Mr. Karessa's likviarrt one

:Lint. and extolling it on the nest; although he

perforated the pan, on bo:;1 in ezaaiy the
vine v. ay. It was reserved 4OT Thr Courier to
anemit to introduce this system 01 wheeling and
turning, of blur:log fru and blowing colsi with tr-e
Jame breath into the theatrical 17.paninent 04 4 news.
paper. This is rank jacobinism, frrin wh.ch the
The.r.re has been hithenn free. Ir, Itzarever, it :an
7.=ia a fn:Jeng, ther thee:intl vostacy will

i

be as common as political apostacy.• The glor will
be hunted by the critic, as the Minister is by the
paragraphist. The praise or dispraise of a news-
paper will not be considered as any proof of merit
or demerit in the performer. There will then be
the opposition critics and the ministerial critics of
the Theatre ; and the public will read an account of a
hew play in the newspapers just as they now read a
report of a new budget. They will be sure to fiad
it praised in one print and aOused in another. It is
disgusting enough to see a paper, that used to rave
against Mr. PITT, now loading him with every
praise. This, however, is an abuse of long stand-
ing. A change of political principles may also be
effetted without a corrupt motive ; but men can-
not be allowed to change their moral principles
without reproach. How great then must be the
degradation of the Press, if a critic shall be at liberty
to eat his own words, to change and to retratt at
pleasure, to assure his readers this day, that all he
said yesterday was false—that all he avers this day,
will be false to-morrow, and thus throw the merits
and demerits of plays and performers into revolu-
tionary confusion

All faith in Newspaper Critiques will then be
completely done away, and the public will read
the Theatrical accounts of The Courier, with just as
much confidence in their truth and candour as they
now place in its political speculations.