The Mirror of taste and dramatic censor Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: proper to credulity. Saint Jerom, with his lion in the wilderness, Saint Antony, his pig, and diabolical temptations, or Saint Paul, preaching before Felix, were... more » to them equally true. " Such historical facts as these, respecting the change of ages and the progress of the human mind, truly interpreted, are awful: they should warn us that it is the propensity of the mind to hold opinions, which are common to the age in which men live; that, while they are only entertained as opinions, though absurd, they are innocent and ought to be respected; and, that persecution for opinion is the most dangerous of the mistakes of man." BIOGRAPHY. LIFE OF GEORGE FREDERICK COOKE. The justly celebrated actor. IT may be considered as a proof, not the least satisfactory, of the superior greatness of a man, that nations contend for the credit of having given him birth. Seven illustrious cities of Greece disputed the claim of having given birth to Homer: or to use the expressive lines of the poet, Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Salamis, Rhodes, Argos, Athena:, Orbis de patria certit, Homere. And the English, with Dr. Johnson at their head, have endeavoured to steal the cradle of Swift from a small court in Castle street Dublin, where Letitia Pilkington has in her Memoirs, and Mr. Thomas Sheridan, who knew all about it much better than Dr. Johnson could, has in his life of the Dean, nailed it down for ever. Respecting the birth of Mr. Cooke, there was for a short time some contention, between England and Ireland; the former claiming his birth because he owed his education to her, while the latter laid claim to his education because she gave him birth. The truth however is now publicly ascertained in different biographical sketches; and, to such honour as a nation can derive from the birth ...« less