Voltaire or some other French wit) that the primitive fathers of the church anathematized the authors and actors of their times, who were not only pagans, but daily profaners of the most sacred rites of their holy religion. « But why that excommunication should be still in force, and in France only, against a set of people who are neither pagans nor profaners of religion; whose plays are not only free from immorality of every kind, but filled with the most pure and virtuous sentiments; where virtue is rewarded and vice is placed in the most odious light: why either the authors or performers of such plays should, in this age, be treated with such indignity, is, I believe, what the most rigid priest amongst them cannot find any just reason for.