Yet, by the end of the 17th century, the Restoration comic style had collapsed : the satiric presentation of English life gave way to the sentimental portrait ( beginning in 1696 with Colley Cibber s " Love's Last Shift " ) ( Bernbaum 72 ) . " A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage " only signaled the swelling of public opposition to the real or imposed indecency of the plays staged over the last three decades ( Cordner 210 ).
22.
Mr Thrale's Sobriety, & the Decency of his Conversation being wholly free from all Oaths Ribaldry and Profaneness make him a Man exceedingly comfortable to live with, while the easiness of his Temper and slowness to take Offence add greatly to his Value as a domestic Man : Yet I think his Servants do not much love him, and I am not sure that his Children feel much Affection for him : low People almost all indeed agree to abhorr him, as he has none of that officious & cordial Manner which is universally required by them nor any Skill to dissemble his dislike of their Coarseness with Regard to his Wife, tho'little tender of her Person, he is very partial to her Understanding, but he is obliging to nobody; & confers a Favour less pleasingly than many a Man refuses to confer one.
23.
Believing that if people were punished for small crimes, ( such as swearing, gambling, or'lewdness'), they would be less likely to drift into more serious crimes such as murder, he approached King George III . The King responded by issuing a Royal Proclamation in June 1787 urging people of honor and authority to set good examples, purposed to " discount and punish all manner of vice, profaneness, and immorality, in all persons, of whatsoever degree or quality, within this our realm, " prohibited gambling on the Lord's Day, declared that all people should attend church, that all persons who drank in excess, blasphemed, swore, cursed, were lewd or profaned the Lord's Day should be prosecuted, ordered that public gambling, disorderly houses . unlicensed places of entertainment, and publishers and vendors of loose and licentious books should be suppressed, and that the rules against commerce on Sunday should be enforced.
24.
Now, know ye, that we, being willing to encourage the hopeful undertaking of our said loyal and loving subjects, and to secure them in the free exercise and enjoyment of all their civil and religious rights, appertaining to them, as our loving subjects and to preserve unto them that liberty, in the true Christian faith and worship of God, which they have sought with so much travail, and with peaceable minds, and loyal subjection to our royal progenitors and ourselves, to enjoy; and because some of the people and inhabitants of the same colony cannot, in their private opinions, conform to the public exercise of religion, according to the liturgy, forms and ceremonies of the Church of England, or take or subscribe the oaths and articles made and established in that behalf; and for that the same, by reason of the remote distances of those places, will ( as we hope ) be no breach of the unity and uniformity established in this nation : Have therefore thought fit, and do hereby publish, grant, ordain and declare, that our royal will and pleasure is, that no person within the said colony, at any time hereafter shall be any wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any differences in opinion in matters of religion, and do not actually disturb the civil peace of our said colony; but that all and every person and persons may, from time to time, and at all times hereafter, freely and fully have and enjoy his and their own judgments and consciences, in matters of religious concernments, throughout the tract of land hereafter mentioned, they behaving themselves peaceably and quietly, and not using this liberty to licentiousness and profaneness, nor to the civil injury or outward disturbance of others, any law, statute, or clause therein contained, or to be contained, usage or custom of this realm, to the contrary hereof, in any wise notwithstanding ."
