But he was already growing weary of the
stage itself as well as of the rhymed heroic drama; and, though he put
an end to the species to which he had given temporary vitality, he
failed effectively to point the way to a more legitimate development of
English tragedy. Among the other tragic poets of this period, N. Lee, in
the outward form of his dramas, accommodated his practice to that of
Dryden, with whom he occasionally co-operated as a dramatist, and like
whom he allowed political partisanship to intrude upon the stage.[220]
His rhetorical genius was not devoid of genuine energy, nor is he to be
regarded as a mere imitator. T. Otway, the most gifted tragic poet of
the younger generation contemporary with Dryden, inherited something of
the spirit of the Elizabethan drama; he possessed a real gift of tragic
pathos and melting tenderness; but his genius had a worse alloy than
stageyness, and, though he was often happy in his novel choice of
themes, his most successful efforts fail to satisfy tests supplementary
to that of the stage.[221] Among dramatists who contributed to the vogue
of the "heroic" play may be mentioned J. Bankes, J. Weston, C. Hopkins,
E. Cooke, R. Gould, S. Pordage, T. Rymer and Elkanah Settle. The
productivity of J. Crowne (d. c. 1703)[222] covers part of the earlier
period as well as of the later, to which properly belong T. Southerne, a
writer gifted with much pathetic power, but probably chiefly indebted
for his long-lived popularity to his skill in the discovery of
"sensational" plots; and Lord Lansdowne ("Granville the polite") (c.
1667-1735). Congreve, by virtue of a single long celebrated but not
really remarkable tragedy,[223] and N. Rowe, may be further singled out
from the list of the tragic dramatists of this period, many of whom
were, like their comic contemporaries, mere translators or adapters from
the French. The tragedies of Rowe, whose direct services to the study of
Shakespeare deserve remembrance, indicate with singular distinctness the
transition from the fuller declamatory style of Dryden to the calmer and
thinner manner of Addison.[224] In tragedy (as to a more marked degree
in comedy) the excesses (both of style and subject) of the past period
of the English drama had produced an inevitable reaction; decorum was
asserting its claims on the stage as in society; and French tragedy had
set the example of sacrificing what passion--and what vigour--it
retained in favour of qualities