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THOMAS OTWAY was the son of the Reverend Humphrey Otway, rector of Woolbeding, and was born at Trotting, in Sussex, on the third of March, 1651. He received his early education at Winchester school, and thence entered a commoner of Christ Church College, Oxford; but he left the university without a degree. In 1672 he made his appearance as an actor on the London stage. To this profession his talents were not adapted, and the result, therefore, was an entire failure. His connection with the stage was, however, attended with this advantage-that he thus acquired a knowledge of the dramatic art, which proved of great service to him when he began to write for the theatre. Otway produced, in rapid succession, three tragedies, Alcibiades, Titus and Berenice, and Don Carlos, all of which were successfully performed; but the proceeds from them were not sufficient to meet the demands of his extravagant habits, or shield him from poverty. In 1677, the Earl of Plymouth procured for him an appointment as cornet of dragoons, and Otway went with his regiment to Flanders. He was, however, soon cashiered for his irregular conduct, and returning to London, resumed dramatic authorship. In 1680 he produced two tragedies, Caius Marcius, and the Orphan; and in the following year the Soldier's Fortune, a comedy. In 1682 he brought out his last and greatest drama, Venice Preserved.

Together with the dramas we have mentioned, Otway wrote a number of poems, and translated from the French the History of the Triumvirate,' and this immense literary labor was all performed before he was thirty-four years of age. His death occurred on the fourteenth of April, 1685, and in a manner too painful to relate. Having been compelled by his necessities to contract debts, and hunted, as is supposed, by the terriers of the law, he retired to a public-house on Tower-hill, where he died of want; or, according to one of his biographers, by swallowing, after a long fast, a piece of bread which charity had supplied. After long concealment he left his retreat in the rage of hunger, and almost naked; and finding a gentleman in a neighboring coffee-house, he asked him for a shilling. The gentleman gave him a guinea; and Otway going away bought a roll, and was choked with the first mouthful.' Poverty and its attendants, sorrow and despondency, pressed hard upon poor Otway in life, and his grave closed a career of almost unparalleled wretchedness.

The dramatic fame of Otway rests almost entirely on his two tragedies, the 'Orphan,' and 'Venice Preserved;' but on these it is immovably fixed. 'His scenes of passionate affection,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'rival, at least, and sometimes excel, those of Shakspeare: more tears have been shed, probably, for the sorrows of Belvidera and Monimia, than for those of Juliet and Desdemona.' The plot of the 'Orphan,' from its inherent indelicacy and painful associations, has driven this play from the stage; but 'Venice Preserved' is still one of the most popular and effective tragedies in the language. The stern plotting character of Pierre is well contrasted with the irresolute, sensitive, and affectionate nature of Jaffier; and the harsh, unnatural cruelty of Priuli serves as a dark shade, to set off the bright purity

and tenderness of his daughter. The pathetic and harrowing plot is well managed, and deepens toward the close; and the genius of Otway particularly shines in his delineation of the passions of the heart, the ardor of love, and the excess of misery and despair. The versification of these dramas is sometimes rugged and irregular, and there are occasional redundancies and inflated expressions, which, had the author's life been longer spared, he would doubtless have corrected. From Venice Preserved' we select the following scene:—

Scene.-St. Marks.

[Enter Priuli and Jaffier.]

Priuli. No more! I'll hear no more! begone and leave me!

Jaffier. Not hear me! by my sufferings but you shall!

My lord-my lord! I'm not that abject wretch

You think me. Patience! where's the distance throws

Me back so far, but I may boldly speak

In right, though proud oppression will not hear me?
Pri. Have you not wrong'd me?

Jaf. Could my nature e'er

Have brook'd injustice, or the doing wrongs,

I need not now thus low have bent myself

To gain a hearing from a cruel father.

Wrong'd you?

Pri. Yes, wrong'd me! in the nicest point,
The honour of my house, you 've done me wrong.
You may remember (for I now will speak,
And urge its baseness) when you first came home
From travel, with such hopes as made you look'd on
By all men's eyes, a youth of expectation;
Pleas'd with your growing virtue, I receiv'd you;
Courted, and sought to raise you to your merits;
My house, my table, nay, my fortune too,
My very self, was yours; you might have us'd me
To your best service; like an open friend
I treated, trusted you, and thought you mine;
When, in requital of my best endeavours,
You treacherously practis'd to undo me;
Seduc'd the weakness of my age's darling,
My only child, and stole her from my bosom.
Oh! Belvidera!

Jaf. 'Tis to me you owe her:

Childless had you been else, and in the grave
Your name extinct; no more Priuli heard of.
You may remember, scarce five years are past,
Since in your brigantine you sail'd to see
The Adriatic wedded by our duke;
And I was with you; your unskilful pilot
Dash'd us upon a rock; when to your boat
You made for safety: enter'd first yourself;
Th' affrighted Belvidera, following next,
As she stood trembling on the vessel's side,
Was by a wave wash'd off into the deep;

When instantly I plung'd into the sea,
Aud buffeting the billows to her rescue,
Redeem'd her life with half the loss of mine.
Like a rich conquest, in one hand I bore her,
And with the other dash'd the saucy waves,
That throng'd and press'd to rob me of my prize.
I brought her, gave her to your despairing arms:
Indeed you thank'd me; but a nobler gratitude
Rose in her soul: for from that hour she lov'd me,

Till for her life she paid me with herself.

Pri. You stole her from me; like a thief you stole her, At dead of night! that cursed hour you chose

To rifle me of all my heart held dear.

May all your joys in her prove false, like mine!

A sterile fortune and a barren bed

Attend you both continual discord make
Your days and nights bitter, and grievous still:
May the hard hand of a vexatious need
Oppress and grind you; till at last you find
The curse of disobedience all your portion.

Jaf. Half of your curse you have bestow'd in vain.
Heav'n has already crown'd our faithful loves

With a young boy, sweet as his mother's beauty:
May he live to prove more gentle than his grand-sire,
And happier than his father!

Pri. Rather live

To bait thee for his bread, and din your ears
With hungry cries; whilst his unhappy mother
Sits down and weeps in bitterness and want.
Jaf. You talk as if 'twould please you.
Pri. 'Twould, by heaven!

Jaf. Would I were in my grave!

Pri. And she, too, with thee;

For, living here, you 're but my curs'd remembrancers
I once was happy!

Jaf. You use me thus, because you know my soul
Is fond of Belvidera. You perceive

My life feeds on her, therefore thus you treat me.
Were I that thief, the doer of such wrongs

As you upbraid me with, what hinders me

But I might send her back to you with contumely,
And court my fortune where she would be kinder.
Pri. You dare not do 't.

Jaf. Indeed, my lord, I dare not.

My heart, that awes me, is too much my master:

Three years have past since first our vows were plighted,

During which time the world must bear me witness

I've treated Belvidera like your daughter,

The daughter of a senator of Venice:

Distinction, place, attendance, and observance,

Due to her birth, she always has commanded:

Out of my little fortune I've done this;

Because (though hopeless e'er to win your nature,)

The world might see I lov'd her for herself;
Not as the heiress of the great Priuli.

Pri. No more.

Jaf. Yes, all, and then adieu forever.

There's not a wretch that lives on common charity,
But 's happier than me; for I have known
The luscious sweets of plenty; every night
Have slept with soft content about my head,
And never wak'd but to a joyful morning:

Yet now must fall, like a full ear of corn,

Whose blossom 'scaped, yet 's wither'd in the ripening.
Pri. Home, and be humble; study to retrench;
Discharge the lazy vermin in thy hall,

Those pageants of thy folly:

Reduce the glittering trappings of thy wife

To humble weeds, fit for thy little state:
Then to some suburb cottage both retire;

Drudge to feed loathsome life; get brats and starve.
Home, home, I say.

Jaf. Yes, if my heart would let me

This proud, this swelling heart; home I would go,
But that my doors are hateful to my eyes,
Fill'd and damm'd up with gaping creditors:
I've now not fifty ducats in the world,
Yet still I am in love and pleas'd with ruin.
O Belvidera! Oh! she is my wife-

And we will bear our wayward fate together,
But ne'er know comfort more.

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Were in their spring! Has, then, my fortune chang'd thee?

Art thou not, Belvidera, still the same,

Kind, good, and tender, as my arms first found thee?

If thou art alter'd, where shall I have harbour?
Where ease my loaded heart? Oh! where complain?

Bel. Does this appear like change, or love decaying,
When thus I throw myself into thy bosom,

With all the resolution of strong truth?

I joy more in thee

Than did thy mother, when she hugg'd thee first,

And bless'd the gods for all her travail past.

Jaf. Can there in woman be such glorious faith?
Sure, all ill stories of thy sex are false !

Oh, woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man: we had been brutes without you!
Angels are painted fair, to look like you:

[Exit.

There's in you all that we believe of Heav'n;
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,

Eternal joy and everlasting love!

Bel. If love be treasure, we'll be wondrous rich;
Oh! lead me to some desert, wide and wild,
Barren as our misfortunes, where my soul
May have its vent, where I may tell aloud

To the high heavens, and ev'ry list'ning planet,
With what a boundless stock my bosom 's fraught.
Jaf. Oh, Belvidera! doubly I'm a beggar:

Undone by fortune, and in debt to thee.

Want, worldly want, that hungry meagre friend,

Is at my heels, and chases me in view.

Canst thou bear cold and hunger? Can these limbs,
Fram'd for the tender offices of love,

Endure the bitter gripes of smarting poverty?
When banish'd by our miseries abroad

(As suddenly we shall be.) to seek out

In some far climate, where our names are strangers,
For charitable succour, wilt thou then,

When in a bed of straw we shrink together,

And the bleak winds shall whistle round our heads;
Wilt thou then talk thus to me? Wilt thou then
Hush my cares thus, and shelter me with love?

Bel. Oh! I will love, even in madness love thee!
Though my distracted senses should forsake me,
I'd find some intervals when my poor heart
Should 'suage itself, and be let loose to thine.
Though the bare earth be all our resting place,
Its roots our food, some cliff our habitation,

I'll make this arm a pillow for thine head;

And, as thou sighing liest, and swelled with sorrow,

Creep to thy bosom, pour the balm of love

Into thy soul, and kiss thee to thy rest;

Then praise our God, and watch thee 'till the morning.

Jaf. Hear this, you Heav'ns, and wonder how you made her!

Reign, reign ye monarchs, that divide the world;

Busy rebellion ne'er will let you know

Tranquillity and happiness like mine;

Like gaudy ships, the obsequious billows fall,

And rise again, to lift you in your pride;

They wait but for a storm, and then devour you!

I, in my private bark already wreck'd,

Like a poor merchant, driven to unknown land,

That had, by chance, pack'd up his choicest treasure

In one dear casket, and sav'd only that:

Since I must wander farther on the shore,

Thus hug my little, but my precious store,
Resolv'd to scorn and trust my fate no more.

[Exeunt.]

NATHANIEL LEE, another tragic poet of this period, and also the son of a clergyman, was born in Hertfordshire in 1651. He was instructed in classical learning at Westminster school, and thence passed to Trinity College, CamVOL. II.-F

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