extremely amusing. 5. ‘The Maid's Last Prayer, or any rather than fail’ (1692), is a comedy in the same style as the preceding; the song contributed by Congreve to the last act is supposed to have been his first acknowledged production. 6. ‘The Fatal Marriage, or the Innocent Adultery’ (1694), owing to its pathetic plot, which is founded on Mrs. Behn's novel of ‘The Nun, or the Fair Vow-breaker,’ and to the acting of Mrs. Barry in the character of Isabella, the innocent bigamist, achieved an extraordinary success. The play held the stage through the earlier half of the eighteenth century. In 1757 it was revived by Garrick, who omitted, as ‘immoral,’ the comic scenes including the outrageous scene borrowed from Fletcher's ‘Night-Walker.’ Its pathos is stagey without being hollow, and in the speeches of Isabella there is a relic of Elizabethan intensity. 7. ‘Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave’ (1696), was likewise frequently performed both in its original form and as altered in 1759 by Hawkesworth, who removed the comic scenes by which, as he says, the author had ‘stain'd his sacred page.’ The last performance noted by Genest was in 1829. The original performer of ‘the unpolished hero’ was ‘Jack’ Verbruggen (see Colley Cibber, Apology, ed. Lowe, ii. 311). Mrs. Behn's ‘History of the Royal Slave,’ on which the play was based, was itself founded on fact; and the sentiment of both story and play was creditable to an age unfamiliar with philanthropic efforts on behalf of the negro race. 8. ‘The Fate of Capua,’ acted at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1700, though a fine historical tragedy, well constructed and carried out, failed to hit the taste of the town. 9. ‘The Spartan Dame’ Southerne commenced, at the request of the Duke of Berwick, in 1684, but he laid it aside as dangerous in subject. Even when he produced it in 1719 he omitted four hundred lines as likely to give offence. The tragedy, which is founded on Plutarch's ‘Life of Ægis,’ has some fine passages, but is inferior to its predecessor. Southerne sold the complete printed copy for 120l., and is said to have altogether made 500l. by the play. 10. ‘Money the Mistress,’ acted at Drury Lane in 1726, was unsuccessful, and though the plot, taken from the Countess Dunois or d'Anois' ‘The Lady's Travels into Spain,’ is not devoid of interest, its complicated story and the character of its heroine (a kind of potential Becky Sharp) are alike unsuited to dramatic presentment; moreover, the scene in which the action takes place (Tangier) had long become unfamiliar to the English public. In the prologue the author is introduced to the public as ‘the poets' Nestor,’
Great Otway's peer, and greater Dryden's friend.
[Plays written by Thos. Southerne, with an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author, dedicated to David Garrick, 3 vols. 1774; Dryden's Works, ed. Scott and Saintsbury; Pope's Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope; Colley Cibber's Apology, ed. R. W. Lowe, 1889; Genest's Account of the English Stage; Baker's Biographia Dramatica, 1812 edit.; Notes and Queries, 9th ser. i. 323.]
SOUTHESK, Earl of. [See Carnegie, Sir David, 1575–1658.]
SOUTHEY, Mrs. CAROLINE ANNE (1786–1854), poetess, second wife of Robert Southey [q. v.], was born at Lymington, Hampshire, on 7 Oct. 1786, and baptised on 10 Jan. 1787 in Lymington church (parish register). Her father, Captain Charles Bowles of the East India Company's service, appears to have retired soon after her birth, and to have bought and settled at Buckland Cottage, a small, old-fashioned house enveloped in elms. Here she grew up with him, her mother, Anne, daughter of George Burrard, and sister of General Sir Harry Burrard [q. v.], her maternal grandmother, and her great-grandmother. The mother died in 1816, and her death, which left Caroline alone in the world, was followed by loss of property through the dishonesty of a guardian. Fortunately her father had an adopted son, Colonel Bruce, then resident at Bushire, who, hearing of her misfortunes, insisted on settling an annuity of 150l. upon her, and regretted that she would accept no more. She was thus enabled to preserve her cottage, which, but for one short and sad episode, continued her home for life. While in apprehension of poverty she had resolved to support herself if possible by her pen, and had sent a manuscript poem to Robert Southey, encouraged to the step by his kindness to Henry Kirke White. Southey thought well of it and recommended it to John Murray, who also admired, but would not publish. It was eventually brought out anonymously by Longman under the title of ‘Ellen Fitzarthur: a Metrical Tale’ (London, 1820, 8vo). Like most of her works, it is a simple tale whose strength is in its pathos. ‘The Widow's Tale, and other Poems’ (1822, 12mo) marked an advance in poetic art. Southey, who had become warmly interested in his correspondent, met her for the first time in 1820, and proposed that she should assist in his projected poem of ‘Robin Hood.’ Not much came of the partnership, owing to Southey's stress of occupation and Caroline's inability to master the rhymeless stanza of Thalaba, in which
