ragedy Mr. Rowe wrote was his Ulysses, acted at the queen's
Theatre, in the Hay Market, and dedicated to the earl of Godolphin. This
play is not at present in possession of the stage, though it deserves
highly to be so, as the character of Penelope, is an excellent example
of conjugal fidelity: Who, though her lord had been ten years absent
from her, and various accounts had been given of his death, yet,
notwithstanding this, and the addresses of many royal suitors, she
preserved her heart for her Ulysses, who at last triumphed over his
enemies, and rescued his faithful queen from the persecution of her
wooers.--This play has business, passion, and tragic propriety to
recommend it.--.

The next play Mr. Rowe brought upon the stage, was his Royal Convert,
acted at the queen's Theatre, in the Haymarket, and dedicated to the
earl of Hallifax.

His next was the Tragedy of Jane Shore, written in imitation of
Shakespear's stile; acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, and
dedicated to the duke of Queensberry and Dover. How Mr. Rowe could
imagine that this play is written at all in imitation of Shakespear's
stile, we cannot conceive; for so far as we are able to judge, it bears
not the least resemblance to that of Shakespear. The conduct of the
design is regular, and in that sense it partakes not of Shakespear's
wildness; the poetry is uniform, which marks it to be Rowe's, but in
that it is very different from Shakespear, whose excellency does
not consist merely in the beauty of soft language, or nightingale
descriptions; but in the general power of his drama, the boldness of the
images, and the force of his characters.

Our author afterwards brought upon the stage his Lady Jane Grey,
dedicated to the earl of Warwick; this play is justly in posession of
the stage likewise. Mr. Edmund Smith, of Christ's-Church, author of
Phaedra and Hyppolitus, designed writing a Tragedy on this subject; and
at his death left some loose hints of sentiments, and short sketches of
scenes. From the last of these, Mr. Rowe acknowledges he borrowed
part of one, and inserted it in his third act, viz. that between lord
Guilford, and lady Jane. It is not much to be regretted, that Mr. Smith
did not live to finish this, since it fell into the hands of one so much
above him, as a dramatist; for if we may judge of Mr. Smith's abilities
of writing for the stage, by his Phaedra and Hyppolitus, it would not
have been so well executed as by Rowe. Phaedra