The ſame year alſo his tragedy, entitled Heroic Love, was acted at the Theatre. Mr. Gildon obſerves, “That this tragedy is written after the manner of the Ancients, which is much more natural and eaſy than that of our modern dramatiſts.” Though we cannot agree with Mr. Gildon that the ancient model of tragedy is ſo natural as the modern, yet this piece muſt have very great merit, ſince we find Mr. Dryden addreſſing verſes to the Author upon this occaſion, which begin thus,
Auſpicious Poet! wert thou not my friend,
How could I envy what I muſt commend?
But ſince ’tis Nature’s law, in love and wit,
That youth ſhould reign, and with’ring age ſubmit,
With leſs regret thoſe laurels I reſign,
Which dying on my brow revive on thine.
Our Author wrote alſo a dramatic poem called The Britiſh Enchanters,[1] in the preface to which he obſerves, “That it is the firſt eſſay of a very infant Muſe, rather as a taſk at ſuch hours as were free from other exerciſes than any way meant for public entertainment. But Mr. Betterton, having had a caſual ſight of it, many years after it was written, begged it for the ſtage, where it found ſo favourable a reception as to have an uninterrupted run of at leaſt forty days.” To this Mr. Addiſon wrote the epilogue. Lord Lanſdowne altered Shakeſpeare’s Merchant of Venice, under the title of The Jew of
- ↑ It was called A Dramatic Opera, and was decorated at a great expenſe, and intermixed with ſongs, dances, &c.
