A TRAGEDY, IN FIVE ACTS; BY NICHOLAS ROWE, Esq. AS PERFORMED AT THE THEATRES ROYAL, DRURY LANE, AND COVENT GARDEN. PRINTED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE MANAGERS FROM THE PROMPT BOOK. WITH REMARKS BY MRS. INCHBALD. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORMES PATERNOSTER ROW, raise horror and detestation; and whatever good was withheld from him, that it might not be thrown away, was bestowed on King William." It was the custom, till within a very few years, to perform this tragedy constantly on the 5th of November, in honour of the landing of the Prince of Orange, afterwards King William-but as that political fire, which once gave brightness to its gloomy scenes, no longer blazes, it is now seldom acted, and never with strong marks of approbation. As Rowe was a good man; a religious man; his chief delight the study of divinity, and ecclesiastical history with such propensities, and such a capacious mind to improve by them, it is to be deplored that he should hope to compliment a christian king, and strictly pious as William was known to be, by a calumnious representation of his declared enemy:that title alone should have made the character of his royal adversary sacred. As the author's most religious and moral intentions are, in this respect, unwarily blemished; so has he, as incautiously, preserved his wicked Bajazet from utter detestation, by endowing him with one endearing quality he has frankness. This is a virtue so congenial to every Englishman, that, now all the party zeal which once made this tyrant hated, has subsided, Bajazet is more favoured by the audience, and every actor would sooner represent him, than the self-approving Tamerlane. The sorrows of love, in this play, areinteresting to read, but childishly insipid in the action. Arpasia |