THE BRITISH THEATRE; OR, A COLLECTION OF PLAYS, WHICH ARE ACTED AT THE THEATRES ROYAL, DRURY LANE, COVENT GARDEN, AND HAYMARKET. PRINTED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE MANAGERS FROM THE PROMPT BOOKS. WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL REMARKS, legale GICAL REM BY MRS. INCHBALD. PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATERNOSTER ROW. BEnglish Canner REMARKS. This tragedy was first acted in the year 1680, and, for a hundred years, had possession of the stage, and the hearts of the public. There is a domestic interest in the fable, characters, and occurrences of this play, which forces attention and admiration; whilst it partakes of a certain horror, not perfectly consonant with delicacy, which forbids its final effect to be gratifying. Dr. Johnson had just observed of Otway's "Orphan," "That it had pleased for near a century, through all the vicissitudes of dramatic fashion," when fashion cast it aside. But there appears to be such a degree of good taste, and even good manners, in no longer giving countenance to its representation, that it is to be hoped, its present mode of treatment will never change.-Yet, some wholesome lessons will infallibly be learned in the perusal of this faulty work. It is uncivil to say, to a whole dramatis personæ, that "they are all guilty of speaking falsehood;" and yet, excepting old Acasto, and his young daughter, Serina, this may be said to every personage in the tragedy-therefore, it is proper it should be a tragedy, as such despicable conduct deserves exemplary punishment. But the guilt of Castalio's falsehood is so ponderous, that the offences against truth, committed by his associates, are light in the balance with his duplicity-the wicked origin from whence came all subsequent deceit. Otway borrowed his plot from the history of Brandon, in a novel, called, " English Adventures." After having chosen such a hazardous subject, few poets could have treated it even with his decorumnone could have rendered it so pathetic. In those parts of the drama, where the peculiar tendency of the story has not beguiled him into licentiousness, he is chiefly to blame, in having made Chamont so exactly that which Acasto calls him, 66 an ungrateful ruffian”—and for having made Serina so sudden in her love, and so unabashed in the repeated declaration of it, before all her friends. She appears even more amorous than idiots are generally supposed to be. She wants capacity for a foil, and must not be named with the charming Monimia. Many objections have been made by the critics, to the improbability of that mistake of one brother for the other, which produces the most fatal event of the whole play--but amongst the mistakes of the selfsame kind, which Shakspeare, and a number of other dramatists, have introduced in their works, this, by |