stance of the absurdity of this violation. In this piece, as in all of Rowe, are many florid fpeeches utterly inconfiftent with the state and fituation of the distressful perfonages who speak them. When Shore first meets with her husband, she says,

* Art thou not rifen by miracle from death?
Thy shroud is fall'n from off thee, and the grave
Was bid to give thee up, that thou might'st come,
The meffenger of grace and goodness to me.

He has then added fome lines, intolerably flowery and unnatural;

Give me your drops, ye foft descending rains,
Give me your ftreams, ye never-ceafing fprings,
That my fad eyes may ftill fupply my duty,
And feed an everlasting flood of forrow.

This is of a far diftant strain from those tender and fimple exclamations she uses, when her husband offers her fome rich conferves;

And again;

† How can you be so good?

* A&t v. Sc. iv.

+ Ibid.

-Have you forgot

The coftly string of pearl you brought me home,
And ty'd about my neck? how could I leave you?

She continues to gaze on him with earnestness, and instead of eating as he entreats her, she observes,

-You're ftrangely alter'd―

Say, gentle Belmour, is he not? how pale

Your visage is become? Your eyes are hollow,-
Nay,

, you are wrinkled too—

To which the inftantly fubjoins, ftruck with the idea that she herself was the unhappy cause of this alteration;

Alas the day!

My wretchedness has cost you many a tear,
And many a bitter pang fince last we parted.

What she answers to her husband, when he asks her movingly,

Why doft thou fix thy dying eyes upon me
With such an earnest, such a piteous look,
As if thy heart was full of fome fad meaning,
Thou couldst not speak !----

Is pathetic to a great degree;

Forgive me! but forgive me!

These few words far exceed the most pompous declamations of Cato. The interview betwixt Jane Shore and Alicia, in the middle of this act, is also very affecting: where the madness of Alicia is well painted. But of all reprefentations of madnefs, that of Clementina, in the History of Sir Charles Grandifon, is the most deeply interefting. I know not whether even the madness of Lear is wrought up, and expressed by so many little strokes of nature, and genuine paffion. Shall I fay it is pedantry to prefer and compare, the madness of Oreftes in Euripides, to this of Clementina?

It is probable, that this is become the most popular and pleafing tragedy of all Rowe's works, because it is founded on our own hiftory. I cannot forbear wifhing, that our writers would more frequently fearch for subjects, in the annals of England, which afford many ftriking and pathetic events, proper for

the

the stage. We have been too long attached to Grecian and Roman ftories. In truth, the DOMESTICA FACTA, are more interesting, as well as more useful: more interesting, because we all think ourselves concerned in the actions and fates of our countrymen; more useful, because the characters and manners, bid the fairest to be true and natural, when they are drawn from models with which we are exactly acquainted. The Turks, the Perfians, and Americans, of our poets, are in reality distinguished from Englishmen, only by their turbans and feathers; and think, and act, as if they were born and educated within the bills of mortality. The hiftorical plays of * Shakespeare, are always particularly grateful to the spectator, who loves to fee and hear our own Harrys and Edwards, better than all the Achillefes or

* Milton has left, in a manufcript, thirty-three fubjects for tragedies, all taken from the English annals; which manufcript the curious reader may see printed in Newton's Edit. of Milton, Oct. Vol. iii. pag. 331. And in Birch's life of Milton, prefixed to his edition of Milton's profe-works, pag. 51; and in Peck's Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Milton, pag. 90.

Cæfars, that ever exifted. In the choice of a domestic story, however, much judgment and circumfpection must be exerted, to felect one of a proper æra; neither of too ancient, or of too modern a date. The manners of times very ancient, we fhall be apt to falfify, as thofe of the Greeks and Romans. And recent events, with which we are thoroughly acquainted, are deprived of the power of impreffing folemnity and awe, by their notoriety and familiarity. Age foftens and wears away all thofe difgracing and depreciating circumftances, which attend modern transactions, merely because they are modern. Lucan was much embarraffed by the proximity of the times he treated of. On this very account, as well as others, the beft tragedy that could be poffibly written on the murder of Charles I. would be coldly received. Racine ventured to write on a recent history, in his Bajazet; but would not have attempted it, had he not thought, that the distance of his hero's country repaired, in fome meafure, the nearness

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