NICHOLAS ROWE.

Was the son of JOHN ROWE, Esq, Serjeant at Law---A place called Little Berkford in Bedfordshire had the honour of the birth of this Poet in the year 1673.---A private seminary at Highgate gave him the rudiments of learning, and, that he might be perfect as a classic, he was sent to Westminster, under Busby..

His father, designing him for his own profession, entered him at 16 years of age a Student of the Middle Temple, but he was destined to rise alone in the Temple of the Muses-He had some law there is no doubt, but he had more poetry.

Business of a graver nature, however, he at a distant period accepted-he was Under-Secretary to the Duke of Queensberry, when that Nobleman was Secretary of State.

Under the reign of George I. he united two emoluments not often combined, for he became

Poet Laureat and Land-Surveyor of the Customs
-He was, further, Clerk of the Prince's Council,
&c. but death frustrated the honours of Office,
Dec. 6, 1718, in the 45th year
of his age.

He sought the public approbation by various channels-He edited SHAKSPERE-he translated LUCAN, and he composed the following PLAYS. Adapted from Andromagne

Ambitious Step-Mother 1700

Tamerlane

Fair Penitent

Biter

Ulysses

1706

1702

Royal Convert

1708

FAIR PENITENT.

THIS Tragedy has the usual characteristics of Rowe -Suavity-Pomp-a sententious Morality-little action, less passion. He wins upon the ear-he never irresistibly seizes on the heart.

Dramatically, Rowe must be considered as the founder of a subordinate idea of the nature of Tragic structure-He is content to be graceful, and occasionally aims to be grand-his characters sooth and satiate they are wearisomely uniform-Sympathy he has seldom the secret to command-SHORE does draw tears, and only Shore.

This play bespeaks Italian reading, and yet of Italian, Rowe knew so little that he sounds SCIOLTO a trissyllable. What is his merit it may be asked?-moral purpose? not always. Versification is nearly the whole of it. But though majestic and harmonious, it is not the versification best adapted to the Stage.-It is too perpetually polished—his lines are not sufficiently broken by pauses.

PROLOGUE.

LONG has the fate of kings and empires been
The common bus'ness of the tragic scene,
As if misfortune made the throne her seat,
And none could be unhappy, but the great.
Dearly, 'tis true, each buys the crown he wears,
And many are the mighty monarch's cares?
By foreign foes and home-bred fallions prest,
Few are the joys he knows, and short his hours of rest,
Stories like these with wonder we may hear;
But far remote, and in a higher sphere,
We ne'er can pity what we ne'er can share:
Like distant battles of the Pole and Swede,
Which frugal citizens o'er coffee read,
Careless for who should fall or who succeed.
Therefore an humbler theme our author chose,
A melancholy tale of private woes:

No princes here lost royalty bemoan,

But you shall meet with sorrows like your own;
Here see imperious love his vassals treat
As hardly as ambition does the great;
See how succeeding passions rage by turns,
How fierce the youth with joy and rapture burns,
And how to death, for beauty lost, he mourns.

Let no nice taste the poet's art arraign,
If some frail vicious characters he feign:
Who writes, should still let nature be his care,

Mix shades with lights, and not paint all things fair,
But shew you men and women as they are.

With def'rence to the fair, he bade me say,
Few to perfection ever found the way:
Many in many parts are known t' excel,
But 'twere too hard for one to act all well;
Whom justly life would through each scene commend,
The maid, the wife, the mistress, and the friend;
'tis true, has one great instance seen,
And Heav'n, in justice, made that one a queen.

This

age,