Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 011.djvu/570

 the offer, and in this struggle of feeling she exclaims—"Give my little sister shelter, and you will be rewarded—our family—God will reward you!"—and here you zealously strike out the word, thereby effectually blunting, in delivery, the point and force of the passage, and so far injuring the author; and for what reason? Is the name here used irreverently, or lightly? Is it an imprecation or a wantonness? George, is this twaddle, or is it not?

Again; the name may be harmlessly used; as, for example, in Shakspeare, too; during the pathetic description of Richard the Second's entry into York, it is said

This union of the word to other words, merely for the purpose of preserving the simple yet forcible phrase, is assuredly innocent; yet, in the same drama by H., where the persecuted Irishman, before spoken of, comes up to two strangers, in the street, with his "God save yez, kindly"—out goes the word again. Why, man, after this, "God save—the King," is either an immorality or a treason, or both.

But if your Licenser's bill gives you power (denied) to blot that name "wherever" you find it, whence do you derive your warrant for striking out words and phrases, absolutely substituted to avoid the too frequent occurrence of the very name? You dash your pen over "Power omnipotent!" &c. in H.'s pieces; and where find you an act of parliament for that? And do you remember expressions you have since allowed to take place of those? Do you remember them?—One is—"oh heaven!"—and in another place, where a man in a passion swears "by Him that is to judge between us!" you reject "Him," and afterwards permit "by heaven!" Pray, Georgy, if the first was immorality, is the second moral? What do you mean, or what do you flatter yourself you mean, by this—consistency?

But, abandoning many other illustrations of this particular feature of your morality, let me follow you into more open ground, where (a fico for the act!) you are moral by wholesale. Listen. A silly, superstitious valet, conceiving that his master is a wizard, or some such thing, says of him, in soliloquy—"He shall repeat a prayer with me, to-night, which no devil dares, or I'll meet my death for not knowing catechism." And this blasphemous sentence you dash out. A few scenes on, the servant is found on his knees by his master, who remarks—"I did not think you so godly,"—to which is answered—"A sinner, but I believe and fear;"—and all this, blasphemy again, you again dash out: and in the progress of the play, where the same servant, carrying into effect his first determination with the same master, says to him—"I did not say my prayers last night, master;"—the master replying—"What then, idiot?"—and the other rejoining—"I would say them now, therefore; aloud; and if you love me, join;"—every word of the shocking impiety here quoted, you also, in a fine, religious frenzy, exterminate. To continue a little. A ruffianly soldier who has inflicted wrong upon two defenceless girls, feels a twitch of conscience, and says, in the idiom of character and of nature—Tis a damned unhandsome trick I have played those girls;" and away goes, as a piece of horrid profligacy—"damned:"—his comrade says, in a different scene—"damn coachee,” and away with the word here, too. But