prize is gone.

To this account may be added the following passage from Davies'
"Dramatic Miscellanies."

"Dryden's last and most perfect rhiming tragedy was 'Aureng-Zebe.' In
this play, the passions are strongly depicted, the characters well
discriminated, and the diction more familiar and dramatic than in any
of his preceding pieces. Hart and Mohun greatly distinguished
themselves in the characters of Aureng-Zebe, and the Old Emperor. Mrs
Marshall was admired in Nourmahal, and Kynaston has been much extolled
by Cibber, for his happy expression of the arrogant and savage
fierceness in Morat. Booth, in some part of this character, says the
same critical historian, was too tame, from an apprehension of raising
the mirth of the audience improperly.

"Though I pay great deference to Cibber's judgment, yet I am not sure
whether Booth was not in the right. And I cannot help approving the
answer which this actor gave to one, who told him, he was surprised,
that he neglected to give a spirited turn to the passage in question:

_Nour._ 'Twill not be safe to let him live an hour.
_Mor._ I'll do it to shew my arbitrary power.

"'Sir,' said Booth, 'it was not through negligence, but by design,
that I gave no spirit to that ludicrous bounce of Morat. I know very
well, that a laugh of approbation may be obtained from the
understanding few, but there is nothing more dangerous than exciting
the laugh of simpletons, who know not where to stop. The majority is
not the wisest part of the audience, and therefore I will run no
hazard.'

"The court greatly encouraged the play of 'Aureng-Zebe.' The author
tells us, in his dedication, that Charles II. altered an incident in
the plot, and pronounced it to be the best of all Dryden's tragedies.
It was revived at Drury-Lane about the year 1726, with the public
approbation: The Old Emperor, Mills; Wilkes, Aureng-Zebe; Booth,
Morat; Indamora, Mrs Oldfield; Melesinda, the first wife of Theophilus
Cibber, a very pleasing actress, in person agreeable, and in private
life unblemished. She died in 1733."--Vol. I. p. 157.

The introduction states all that can be said in favour of the
management of the piece; and it is somewhat amusing to see the anxiety
which Dryden uses to justify the hazardous experiment, of ascribing to
emperors and princesses the language of nature and of passion. He
appears with difficulty to have satisfied himself, that the decorum of
the scene was not as peremptory a