Tamerlane seem to have been arbitrarily assigned him by his poet, for I know not that history gives any other qualities than those which make a conqueror1. The fashion, however, of the time was to accumulate upon Lewis all that can raise horror and detestation; and whatever good was withheld from him, that it might not be thrown away, was bestowed upon king William.

This was the tragedy which Rowe valued most, and that which 6 probably, by the help of political auxiliaries, excited most applause; but occasional poetry must often content itself with occasional praise. Tamerlane has for a long time been acted only once a year, on the night when king William landed 2. Our quarrel with Lewis has been long over, and it now gratifies neither zeal nor malice to see him painted with aggravated features, like a Saracen upon a sign.

The Fair Penitent, his next production (1703), is one of the 7 most pleasing tragedies on the stage, where it still keeps its turns of appearing; and probably will long keep them, for there is scarcely any work of any poet at once so interesting by the fable and so delightful by the language. The story is domestick, and therefore easily received by the imagination, and assimilated to common life; the diction is exquisitely harmonious, and soft or spritely as occasion requires 3.

The character of Lothario seems to have been expanded by 8 Richardson into Lovelace, but he has excelled his original in the moral effect of the fiction. Lothario, with gaiety which cannot be hated, and bravery which cannot be despised, retains too much of the spectator's kindness. It was in the power of Richardson alone to teach us at once esteem and detestation ; to make virtuous resentment overpower all the benevolence which wit, elegance, and courage naturally excite, and to lose at last the hero in the villain 5.

Garth, in a Prologue designed for Tamerlane, says of William :'To valour much he owes, to virtue more;

He fights to save, and conquers to restore;

He strains no text, nor makes dragoons persuade;

He likes religion, but he hates the trade.' Eng. Poets, xxviii. 115. 2 See Appendix H.

3 Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 251), wrote in 1782:-'You would have enjoyed seeing Johnson take me by the hand in the middle of dinner, and repeat, with no small enthusiasm, many passages from The Fair Penitent, &c.'

4

In Clarissa.

5 For Johnson's high opinion of Richardson see Boswell's Johnson, ii. 49, 174.

9

10

11

The fifth act is not equal to the former: the events of the drama are exhausted, and little remains but to talk of what is past'. It has been observed that the title of the play does not sufficiently correspond with the behaviour of Calista, who at last shews no evident signs of repentance, but may be reasonably suspected of feeling pain from detection rather than from guilt, and expresses more shame than sorrow, and more rage than shame.

His next (1706) was Ulysses; which, with the common fate of mythological stories3, is now generally neglected. We have been too early acquainted with the poetical heroes to expect any pleasure from their revival: to shew them as they have already been shewn is to disgust by repetition; to give them new qualities or new adventures is to offend by violating received notions.

The Royal Convert (1708) seems to have a better claim to longevity. The fable is drawn from an obscure and barbarous age, to which fictions are most easily and properly adapted; for when objects are imperfectly seen they easily take forms from imagination. The scene lies among our ancestors in our own country, and therefore very easily catches attention. Rhodogune is a personage truly tragical, of high spirit and violent passions, great with tempestuous dignity, and wicked with a soul that would have been heroic if it had been virtuous. The motto 5 seems to tell that this play was not successful.

12 Rowe does not always remember what his characters require. In Tamerlane there is some ridiculous mention of the God of Love; and Rhodogune, a savage Saxon, talks of Venus, and the eagle that bears the thunder of Jupiter.

18

This play discovers its own date by a prediction of the Union,

''It is a very good play for three acts; but failing in the two last answered not the Company's expectation.' Roscius Ang. p. 62. For a ludicrous accident that one night brought the play to an end 'with immoderate fits of laughter' see Biog. Dram. ii. 213.

2

This play, being all new cloathed and excellently performed, had a successful run.' Roscius Ang. p. 65. Addison wrote to A. Philips in a letter conjecturally, but wrongly, dated 1710:- Mr. Rowe has on the stocks

a tragedy on Penelope's Lovers, where Ulysses is to be the hero.' Works, v. 381.

3

46

Ante, BUTLER, 41.

'Procopius may have suggested to Mr. Rowe the character and situation of Rodogune in the tragedy of The Royal Convert! GIBBON, The Decline and Fall, iv. 158 n.

'Laudatur et alget' (Is praised and starves). JUVENAL, Sat. i. 74.

'It was produced on Nov. 25, 1707, and acted seven times.' Cunningham's Lives of the Poets, ii. 108.

in imitation of Cranmer's prophetick promises to Henry the Eighth '. The anticipated blessings of union are not very naturally introduced, nor very happily expressed.

He once (1706) tried to change his hand. He ventured 14 on a comedy, and produced The Biter, with which, though it was unfavourably treated by the audience, he was himself delighted; for he is said to have sat in the house, laughing with great vehemence whenever he had in his own opinion produced a jest. But finding that he and the publick had no sympathy of mirth he tried at lighter scenes no more.

After The Royal Convert (1714) appeared Fane Shore, written, 15 as its author professes, 'in imitation of Shakespeare's style". In what he thought himself an imitator of Shakespeare it is not easy to conceive. The numbers, the diction, the sentiments, and the conduct, every thing in which imitation can consist, are remote in the utmost degree from the manner of Shakespeare; whose dramas it resembles only as it is an English story, and as some of the persons have their names in history. This play, consisting chiefly of domestick scenes and private distress, lays hold upon the heart. The wife is forgiven because she repents, and the

1 Henry VIII, v. 5.

It was published in 1705. Biog. Dram. ii. 59. Addison wrote in the letter quoted ante, ROWE, 10 n. 2: — 'Mr. Rowe has promised the town a farce this winter, but it does not yet appear.' Works, v. 381.

3 There is an ingenious tribe of men sprung up of late years who are for making April fools every day in the year. These gentlemen are commonly distinguished by the name of Biters; a race of men that are perpetually employed in laughing at those mistakes which are of their own production.' ADDISON, The Spectator, No. 47.

4

Post, ROWE, 30. 'It had a six days' run; the six days running it out of breath, it sickened and expired.' Roscius Ang. p. 62. Congreve wrote on Dec. 9, 1704:-'Rowe writ a foolish farce called The Biter, which was damned.' G. M. Berkeley's Lit. Relics, P. 342. It was printed in 1705.

It was produced on Feb. 2, 1713-4, and was acted nineteen times. Genest's Hist. of the Stage, ii. 524.

16

husband is honoured because he forgives.

This therefore is one

of those pieces which we still welcome on the stage'.

His last tragedy (1715) was Lady Fane Grey. This subject had been chosen by Mr. Smith, whose papers were put into Rowe's hands such as he describes them in his Preface 2. This play likewise has sunk into oblivion. From this time he gave nothing more to the stage3.

17 Being by a competent fortune

18

exempted from any necessity of combating his inclination he never wrote in distress, and therefore does not appear to have ever written in haste. His works were finished to his own approbation, and bear few marks of negligence or hurry. It is remarkable that his prologues and epilogues are all his own, though he sometimes supplied others: he afforded help, but did not solicit it.

As his studies necessarily made him acquainted with Shakespeare, and acquaintance produced veneration, he undertook (1709) an edition of his works, from which he neither received much praise nor seems to have expected it'; yet, I believe, those who

declamations of Cato Essay on Pope, i. 274.

'Dr. Johnson told me he hated to hear people whine about metaphysical distresses, when there was so much want and hunger in the world. I told him I supposed then he never wept at any tragedy but Jane Shore, who had died for want of a loaf of bread. He called me a saucy girl, but did not deny the inference.' HANNAH MORE, Memoirs, i. 249.

Macready, in his Reminiscences, ii. 443, speaking of 'the physical pain of the stage,' says:-'In its coarsest display there will always be a large portion of the audience upon whom it will tell. Even in Paris... I recollect when Miss Smithson, as Jane Shore, uttered the line, "I have not tasted food these three long days," a deep murmur ran through the house-"Oh, mon Dieu!"'

' Macready brought it out at Drury Lane in 1842-3. Ib. ii. 208.

2

Ante, SMITH, 24, 54, 66. 'One scene there was, and one only, that seemed pretty near perfect. . . . I could not take above five and twenty, or thirty lines at the most, and even

compare it with former copies will find that he has done more than he promised, and that, without the pomp of notes or boasts of criticism, many passages are happily restored. He prefixed a life of the author, such as tradition, then almost expiring, could supply, and a preface which cannot be said to discover much profundity or penetration'. He at least contributed to the popularity of his author 2.

He was willing enough to improve his fortune by other arts 19 than poetry. He was under-secretary for three years when the duke of Queensberry was secretary of state3, and afterwards applied to the earl of Oxford for some publick employment*. Oxford enjoined him to study Spanish; and when, some time afterwards, he came again, and said that he had mastered it, dismissed him with this congratulation, 'Then, Sir, I envy you the pleasure of reading Don Quixote in the original.'

This story is sufficiently attested; but why Oxford, who 20 desired to be thought a favourer of literature, should thus insult a man of acknowledged merit, or how Rowe, who was so keen a Whigs that he did not willingly converse with men of the

The Life and Preface, which are in one, are in Johnson's Shakespeare, Preface, p. 145. Johnson, in a note to the Dramatis Personae of Twelfth Night, says :-'The Persons of the Drama were first enumerated, with all the cant of the modern Stage, by Mr. Rowe.' Ib. ii. 352.

['He improved the text by some happy guesses, while from overhaste and negligence he left it still deformed by many palpable errors. The best part of the work is that with which his experience of the stage as a dramatic poet had made him familiar.' Cambridge Shakespeare, vol. i, Preface, 28. 'The first attempt really to edit Shakespeare's Plays was made by Rowe, 1709, who published a second and much improved edition in 1714. Merchant of Venice, edited by W. G. Clark and W. A. Wright, Clarendon Press, Introd. p. 7.]

2

Johnson says that Pope, by his edition, drew the public attention upon Shakespeare's works, which though often mentioned, had been little read.' Post, POPE, 128.

3 The second Duke became third

Secretary of State in Feb. 1708–9. He died on July 6, 1711. Collins's Peerage, i. 484; post, ROWE, 25. According to Peter Wentworth, the Duke of Somerset stickled hard for Rowe to be in the Duke of Q-'s office; so much that he had like to have quarrelled with the Duke, who had a mind to have shuffled him off.' Wentworth Papers, p. 140.

* Johnson gives Spence (Anec. p. 178) as his authority, who had the anecdote from Pope. It is not there stated that Rowe had first applied to the Earl for employment. See also Cibber's Lives, iii. 280. In the first Auction Catalogue of his Library in the British Museum the only Spanish work is a Dictionary. His Don Quixote was in French.

5 Prior turned from a strong Whig (which he had been when most with Lord Halifax) to a violent Tory; and did not care to converse with any Whigs after, any more than Rowe did with Tories.' POPE, Spence's Anec. p. 3. See also Pope's Works (Elwin and Courthope), vi. 108.