ſeems to be a very cold Writer, while you may find in Aphra both Fire and Eaſineſs, which Mrs. Philips wanted. She dy’d of the Small Pox, June, 22. 1664. Aged 31.
Horace, a Tragedy, Fol. 1678. Tranſlated from the French of Corneille. This Authreſs leaving the Play unfiniſh’d at her Death, Sir John Denham compleated it, by adding the fifth Act; after which, it was acted at Court by Perſons of Quality. Plot from Livy, lib. 1. c. 2. L. Florus, &c.
Pompey, a Tragedy, fol. 1678. acted at the Duke’s Theatre, with great Applauſe. There was uſually at the End acted a Farce of Sir William Davenant’s, which you may find in his Play-Houſe to be Lett. The Earl of Orrery, and Counteſs of Cork, were the Chief Inſtruments of bringing this Play in Engliſh, to light. Tranſlated alſo from Corneille, and Plot from Lucan’s Pharſalia.
Mrs. Mary Pix.
THis is a Lady yet living, and in this Poetick Age, when all Sexes and Degrees venture on the Sock or Buskins, ſhe has boldly given us an Eſſay of her Talent in both, and not without Succeſs, tho’ with little Profit to her ſelf.
Ibrahim, the Thirteenth Emperor of the Turks, a Tragedy, acted at the Theatre Royal, 1696. 4 to. and dedicated to Richard Minchal, of Burton, Eſq; This Play, if it want the Harmony of Numbers, and the Sublimity of Expreſſion, has yet a Quality, that at leaſt ballances that Defect, I mean the Paſſions; for the Diſtreſs of Morena never fail’d to bring Tears into the Eyes of the Audience; which few Plays, if any ſince Otway’s, have done; and yet, which is the true End of Tragedy. She informs us, that by miſtake it was called Ibrahim the Thirteenth, when it ſhould have been called, Ibrahim the Twelfth, the Story you may find in Sir Paul Ricaut’s Continuation of the Turkiſh Hiſtory.
The Innocent Miſtreſs, a Comedy, acted at the Theatre in Little Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, by his Majeſty’s Servants, 1697. 4 to. The Prologue and Epilogue writ by Mr. Motteux. This is a diverting Play, and met with good Succeſs, tho’ acted in the hot Seaſon of the Year, our Poetreſs has endeavoured to imitate the Eaſineſs and Way of the Author of Vertue in Danger, and The Provok’d Wife. She has borrowed ſome Incidents from other Plays; as Mrs. Beauclair’s carrying of Mrs. Flywife from Sir Francis Wildlove, from the Vertuous Wife doing the ſame to her Husband’s Miſtreſs. Then the Scene in the Park betwixt Sir Francis and her in her Mask, is a kind of Copy in young Bellair, and Harriots in Sir Fopling. Miſs Peggy seems a Copy of Miſs Hoyden, as Chattal is of ſeveral of the parts written of late for Mr. Dogget. But notwithſtanding theſe
