As Thorndike[40] has pointed out, during this period two influences are at work--the influence of the Elizabethan romantic drama, and the influence of the French classical drama; and Cibber rather fairly represents both of these. _Xerxes_ shows some French influence in the construction, though it is probably more Elizabethan in the handling of the material; but _Perolla and Izadora_ and the three plays from Corneille conform to French usage almost entirely in material as well as in method. The restraint in _Richard III_--for notwithstanding Hazlitt, this play is not as brutal as Shakspere’s--is due to the change brought about through the imitation of French tragedy. In accordance with contemporary usage, all these tragedies are in blank verse; but the verse is of no great merit. Cibber’s verse for the most part is not musical nor subtle, but it has few mannerisms. He sometimes uses alliteration, but not to an objectionable or excessive degree, and although his style has been called alliterative, his use of this device in his verse is so infrequent as to make the term a misnomer. Cibber conforms to the custom of the time in respect to rime. Occasionally he introduces a couplet in the midst of a scene, but this is seldom and for no apparent reason. The exits, except those of minor importance, are marked by rime. This device, descended from the Elizabethan drama, where it was probably used to mark more strongly the ends of scenes because of the lack of a curtain which concealed the whole stage, is continued during and after the Restoration period without any valid reason and becomes for the most part a mere convention, which is not confined to tragedy but appears in comedy and even in farce. Cibber shows a tendency to increase the number of couplets with the increased importance of the exits,[41] and in _Ximena_ and _Caesar in Egypt_ we find several scenes closing with as many as three. It has perhaps been made sufficiently evident that Cibber was not a great writer of tragedy. He lacked any deep philosophy of life, tragic consciousness, and deep poetic feeling. He was not without power of thought, but his thought concerned itself with the obvious and the external, and had an element of friskiness, so that when he turned to tragedy his work became labored and even commonplace. Nor does he show originality in his themes. The story of _Xerxes_ is apparently derived from history,[42] and aside from _Perolla and Izadora_, whose story is taken from a romance, is the only one of his tragedies which is not based on the work of greater men than himself. Although _Richard III_ is a better stage play than its source, the other adaptations are inferior to the originals both as acting versions and as pure literature. 4. COMEDIES.