Alcibiades. Don Carlos, prince of Spain. Titus and Berenice. The cheats of Scapin. Friendship in fashion. The soldier's fortune

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F.C. and J. Rivington; T. Payne; Wilkie [a]nd Robinson; Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; Cadell and Davies; J. Murray; J. Mawman; and R. Baldwin., 1812 - English drama

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Page 9 - Its whole power is upon the affections ; for it is not written with much comprehension of thought, or elegance of expression. But if the heart is interested, many other beauties may be wanting, yet not be missed.
Page 11 - ... on Tower-hill where he is said to have died of want ; or, as it is related by one of his biographers, by swallowing, after a long fast, a piece of bread which charity had supplied. He went out, as is reported, almost naked, in the rage of hunger, and, finding a gentleman in a neighbouring coffee-houe, asked him for a shilling. The gentleman gave him a guinea ; and Otway going away bought a roll, and was choaked with the first mouthful.
Page 13 - Whereas Mr. Thomas Otway some time before his death made four acts of a play, whoever can give notice in whose hands the copy lies, either to Mr. Thomas Betterton or Mr. William Smith at the Theatre Royal, shall be well rewarded for hi...
Page 13 - Preserved ; but I must bear this testimony to his memory, that the passions are truly touched in it, though, perhaps, there is somewhat to be desired both in the grounds of them, and in the height and elegance of expression ; but nature is there, which is the greatest beauty. " In the passions," says our author, " we must have a very great regard to the quality of the persons who are actually possessed with them.
Page 11 - All this, I hope, is not true ; and there is this ground of better hope, that Pope, who lived near enough to be well informed, relates, in Spence's Memorials, that he died of a fever caught by violent pursuit of a thief that had robbed one of his friends. But that indigence, and its concomitants, sorrow and despondency, pressed hard upon him, has never been denied, whatever immediate cause might bring him to the grave.
Page 13 - To express the passions which are seated in the heart by outward signs, is one great precept of the painters, and very difficult to perform. In poetry, the same passions and motions of the mind are to be expressed ; and in this consists the principal difficulty, as well as the excellency of that art. This...
Page 12 - He appears by some of his verses to have been a zealous royalist, and had what was in those times the common reward of loyalty ; he lived and died neglected.
Page 13 - is the gift of Jupiter;" and, to speak in the same heathen language, We call it the gift of our Apollo, not to be obtained by pains or study, if we are not born to it: for the motions which are studied are never so natural as those which break out in the height of a real passion. Mr. Otway possessed this part as thoroughly as any of the ancients or moderns. I will not defend...
Page 84 - Igad, he knew not a line in it he .would be author of. But he is a fine facetious witty person, as my friend Sir Formal has it ; and to be even with him, I know a comedy of his, that has not so much as a quibble in it which I would be author of.
Page 7 - It appears, by the lampoon, to have had great success, and is said to have been played thirty nights together. This however it is reasonable to doubt, as so long a continuance of one play upon the stage is a very wide deviation from the practice of that time...

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