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country, and therefore very easily catches attention. Rhodogune is a perfonage truly tragical, of high fpirit, and violent paffions, great with tempeftuous dignity, and wicked with a foul that would have been heroic if it had been virtuous. The motto feems to tell, that this play was not fuccessful.

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

This play discovers its own date, by a prediction of the Union, in imitation of Cranmer's prophetick promises to Henry the Eighth. The anticipated

bleffings

bleffings of union are not very naturally introduced, nor very happily expreffed.

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

After the Royal Convert (1714) appeared Jane Shore, written, as its author profeffes, in imitation of Shakespeare's flile. In what he thought himself an imitator of Shakespeare it is not cafy to conceive.

The

The numbers, the diction, the fentiments, and the conduct, every thing in which imitation can confift, are remote in the utmost degree from the manner of Shakespeare, whofe dramas it refembles only as it is an English ftory, and as fome of the perfons have their names in hiftory. This play, confifting chiefly of domeftick scenes and private diftrefs, lays hold upon the heart. The wife is forgiven because fhe repents, and the hufband is honoured because he forgives. This therefore is one of those pieces which we ftill welcome on the flage.

His laft tragedy (1715) was Lady Jane Grey. This fubject had been chofen by Mr. Smith, whofe papers were put

into

4

Rowe's

Rowe's hands fuch as he describes them

in his Preface. This play likewife has funk into oblivion. From this time he gave nothing more to the stage.

Being by a competent fortune exempted from any neceffity of combating his inclination, he never wrote in diftrefs, and therefore does not appear to have ever written in hafte. 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 fometimes fupplied others; he afforded help, but did not folicite it.

As his ftudies ncceffarily made him acquainted with Shakespeare, and ac

quaintance

quaintance produced veneration, he undertook (1709) an edition of his works, from which he neither received much praise, nor feems to have expected it; yet, I believe, thofe who 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 paffages are happily restored. He prefixed a life of the author, fuch as tradition then almost expiring could fupply, and a preface, which cannot be faid to discover much profundity or penetration. at least contributed to the popularity of his author.

He

He was willing enough to improve his fortune by other arts than poetry.

He

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