562 SOUTHWELL. gedy, and was with reason highly flattered by this mark of the author's confidence and esteem. Of all Southern's plays, ten in number, the most finished is “Oroonoko; or, the Royal Slave;” which is built upon a real fact, related by Mrs. Behn in a novel. Besides the tender and delicate strokes of passion in this play, there are many noble sen timents poetically expressed. Southern died May 26, 1746, aged eighty-five. He lived the last ten years of his life in Tothill-street, Westminster, and attended the Abbey service very constantly; being particularly fond of church music. He is said to have died the oldest and the richest of his dramatic brethren. Oldys says, that he remembered Mr. Southern “a grave and venerable old gentleman. He lived near Covent-garden, and used often to frequent the evening prayers there, always neat and decently dressed, commonly in black, with his silver sword and silver locks; but latterly it seems he resided at Westminster.” The late poet Gray, in a letter to Mr. Walpole, dated from Burnham in Buckinghamshire, in September 1737, has also the following observation concerning this author: “We have old Mr. Southern at a gentleman's house a little way off, who often comes to see us: he is now seventy-seven years old, and has almost wholly lost his memory; but is as agreeable an old man as can be; at least I persuade myself so when I look at him, and think of Isabella and Oroonoko.” Mr. Mason adds in a note on this passage, that “Mr. Gray always thought highly of his pathetic powers, at the same time that he blamed his i l l taste for mixing them s o injudiciously with farce, i n order t o produce that monstrous species o f composition called Tragi-comedy.” SIR THOMAS SOUTHWELL, Distinguished b y h i s biographer Floyd for his gallant behaviour, and the imminent dangers t o which h e was exposed during the war between William and James i n Ireland, i s introduced here a s entitled t o the gratitude o f
