lived, and he had illuminated this unreal world with the splendours of his own large and versatile mind. But Nature, while she had amply endowed him with the resources of intellect, had denied him the power of ideal creation. So long as his dramatis persona can be kept within the sphere of oratory, debate, satire, or reflection, he delights us with the greatness of his style, but when they have to speak or act in such a manner as to move the passions, and especially the passion of love, he fails completely. His eminently masculine mind had no sympathy with the softer emotions, and as women were now the most influential factors in the formation of public taste, it is no wonder that the plays of the greatest poet of the day often missed their effect. He was far surpassed in popularity by two of his disciples, of whose genius at this point it may be fitting to give some account.

Nathaniel Lee, the son of Dr. Richard Lee, a clergyman, who took the Parliamentary side in the Civil War, but afterwards recanted his republican opinions, was born, probably, in 1653. Educated at Westminster and afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge, he went upon the stage, as an actor, in 1672, but breaking down through nervousness in the part of Duncan in Macbeth, he gave up all thoughts of a profession for which he was in many respects admirably suited. He had great natural sensibility, and this showed itself in his voice and manner. "If I could only act your plays as you read them!" said Mohun to him on one occasion; and the same emotional quality is reproduced in his plays. He began to write for the stage in 1675, in which year appeared his Nero, which was followed in 1676 by Gloriana and Sophonisba, all three of these plays being composed in Dryden's heroic manner and in rhyme. When Dryden, in his prologue to Aureng Zebe, threw out a hint of his approaching change of style, Lee acted on the suggestion, and his Rival Queens, produced in 1677, anticipated Dryden's adoption of blank verse. This famous play was followed in 1678 by Mithridates, and in 1680 by Theodosius, both of which were almost as popular as their immediate predecessor,

and kept possession of the stage for over a hundred years. In the preface to the former, Lee avowed himself an imitator of the older English poets: "I have endeavoured in this tragedy," says he, "to mix Shakespeare with Fletcher the thought of the former for majesty and true Roman greatness, and the softness and passionate expressions of the latter, which make up half the beauties, are never to be matched." In Theodosius he treats the same subject as Massinger. Other of Lee's dramas in blank verse were Casar Borgia (1680), Lucius Junius Brutus (1681), and Constantine the Great (1684). After this date the loose and dissipated habits to which he had long been inclined mastered him; he lost his senses, and was for five years confined in Bedlam. On his release, he was granted a pension of £10 a year, but he fell again into his drunken ways, and returning to his lodgings one night, in a state of intoxication, is said, by Oldys, to have died in the snow.1 He was buried in the Church of St. Clement's Danes, 6th May 1692.

The power of Lee over the spectators in the theatre is acknowledged by his contemporaries. Dryden says of

him in his generous manner :—

Such praise is yours while you the passions move,
That 'tis no longer feigned, 'tis real love,

When Nature triumphs over wretched Art ;
We only warm the head, but you the heart;
Always you warm; and if the rising year,
As in hot seasons, brings the sun too near,
'Tis but to make your fragrant spices blow,
Which in our cooler climates will not grow.2

It must be observed, however, that this power is con-
fined to the stage. In the action and structure of Lee's
dramas, everything was operatic. Like the French
romanticists and Dryden, he chose his subjects from
history, but conceived them in the spirit and manner of
modern gallantry. His heroes, including even Alexander
and Hannibal, are effeminate fops. Here and there they
1 MS. notes to Langbaine's account of the English Dramatists, p. 320.
Looking, however, to the date of his burial, this seems improbable.
2 Epistle to Mr. Lee on The Rival Queens.

rave about deeds of arms in a vein of tumid enthusiasm, as in the famous passage in The Rival Queens, where Alexander exclaims:

Can none remember? Yes, I know all must-
When Glory, like the dazzling eagle, stood
Perched on my bever on the Granick flood;
When Fortune's self my standard trembling bore,
And the pale Fates stood frighted on the shore ;
When the immortals on the billows rode,

And I myself appeared the leading god.1

But what, as a rule, gave Lee the command over the effeminate imagination of his audience was the ranting sensibility he threw into his love scenes. In his Mithridates, the old king of Pontus is represented as enamoured of Semandra, who is contracted to his son Ziphares; he threatens that if she either receives the latter like a lover, or gives him any explanation of the change in her behaviour, he shall be put to death. The valiant Ziphares, who has been fighting his father's battles with the Romans, returns from the wars, and asks his mistress for a kiss. She refuses him, and the following dialogue

ensues:

SEMANDRA. Your life's too precious; I resolve against it!

Not for ten thousand worlds-what was I saying? (Aside) What shall I say? Live, live, thou lost Ziphares ! ZIPHARES. No, thou perfidious maid, thou wretched beauty, Ziphares loves thee still; so well he loves thee, That he will die to rid thee of a torment.

SEM.

ZIPH.

Where are thy vows? O think upon thy father,
How will it cut him this thy cruel change,
And break his aged heart? Or e'er he dies,

Think, if this kindled rage should execute

What he has sworn, to hack thy beauteous limbs,

Tear thy false flesh into a thousand pieces

If that were all my fear!

What, hardened? O my stars!

So quickly perfect in the cursed trade?

I shall go mad with this imagination.

O heart! tho' Heaven had oped the pregnant clouds,
And teemed with all the never-erring gods,

1 Rival Queens, Act ii. Sc. I.

To swear on earth Semandra had been false,
I would not have believed.1

Sometimes the rant was softened into the expression of genuine tenderness, as when Varanes, Prince of Persia, is represented, hesitating whether to marry the low-born Athenais :

VARANES. O Athenais! what shall I say or do,

ATHENAIS.

VAR.

ATH.
VAR.

ATH.

VAR.

To gain the thing I wish?

What's that, my lord?
Thus to approach thee still, thus to behold thee-
Yet there is more.

My lord, I dare not hear you.
Why dost thou frown at what thou dost not know?
'Tis an imagination which ne'er pierced thee;
Yet as 'tis ravishing, 'tis full of honour.

I must not doubt you, sir; but oh! I tremble,
To think if Isdigerdes should behold you,
Should hear you thus protesting to a maid
Of no degree but virtue in the world.
No more of this, no more; for I disdain
All pomp, when thou art by. Far be the noise
Of kings and courts from us, whose gentle souls
Our kinder stars have steered another way.
Free as the forest birds we'll pair together,
Without remembering who our fathers were;
Fly to the arbours, grots, and flowery meads,
And in soft murmurs interchange our souls;
Together drink the crystal of the stream,
Or taste the yellow fruit which autumn yields;
And when the golden evening calls us home,
Wing to our downy nest and sleep till morn.2

Opera-like as the whole situation is, it may be imagined how the passionate language of scenes like these, of which there are many examples in Lee, accompanied by the gestures of the admirable actors and beautiful actresses of the period, must have roused the emotions of the courtly audiences in the Caroline theatre.

Thomas Otway, whose character and fortunes bore in many respects a striking resemblance to Lee's, followed a different course in art. He was the son of Humphrey

1 Mithridates, Act iii. Sc. 2.

2 Theodosius, Act. ii. Sc. 1.

Otway, Curate of Trotton (afterwards Rector of Woolbeding), in Sussex, and was born in 1651. Educated at Winchester, he was entered in 1669 as a commoner at Christ Church, Oxford, but leaving the University without a degree, aspired to the stage, where, a part having been assigned to him in Mrs. Behn's Jealous, Bridegroom, he failed, through nervousness, like Lee, to make his appearance. In his first two plays, Alcibiades (1675) and Don Carlos (1676), he adopted the prevailing heroic style, and the latter is said to have been very successful, but after translating in 1677 a tragedy (Racine's Berenice) and a comedy (Molière's Fourberies de Scapin) from the French, and writing in 1678 an original comedy, Friendship in Fashion, he followed the example of Dryden, who was now endeavouring to imitate Shakespeare. His History and Fall of Caius Marius combines with about the same amount of history as Lee's Mithridates the plot of Romeo and Juliet, and the profound admiration for Shakespeare in the mind of the young poet is expressed in his prologue :

Like greedy beggars that steal sheaves away,
You'll find he's rifled him of half a play.

Amidst his baser dross you'll see it shine,
Most beautiful, amazing, and divine.

Inspired by his study of Shakespeare, he produced the two tragedies on which his fame depends, The Orphan, in 1680, and Venice Preserved, in 1681. After this he wrote only a single comedy, The Soldier's Fortune, in two parts, the first of which appeared in 1681, the second in 1685.

His fortunes had meanwhile been chequered and his manners dissipated. By the help of his patron, the Earl of Plymouth, he had obtained a commission as cornet in a regiment of troops sent to Flanders in 1678; but these, after a few months' service, were disbanded, and Otway, returning to England, fell desperately in love with Mrs. Barry, the beautiful actress, by whom his advances were rejected. The passionate letters which he wrote to her were afterwards published. The manner of his death in