Concerning _Capochio and Dorinna_, _The Biographia Dramatica_ has the following note: “A piece with this title, but without a date, is, in Mr. Barker’s catalogue, ascribed to Colley Cibber. It was probably an abridgment from _The Temple of Dullness_.” This statement concerning the source of _Capochio and Dorinna_ would seem plausible from the supplementary title of _The Temple of Dullness_,--_With the Humours of Signor Capochio and Signora Dorinna_. _Capochio and Dorinna_ is no doubt the two scenes from Theobald’s _The Happy Captive_ which had been used in _The Temple of Dullness_, as is stated above. Cibber’s operatic writings belong chiefly to the English type of pastoral drama, rather than to the type of Italian opera. In fact, they are not operas either in the Italian or in the modern sense, but are rather plays interspersed with songs appropriate to the characters who sing them. They show the common characteristics of the pastoral drama of the time.[10] They possess the court element, have the same plot devices, and their characters belong to the same general types. It is noticeable that Cibber here, as well as in his comedies, arrays himself with the moralists, as is seen in his introduction of a moral purpose in _Love in a Riddle_. These pieces are in verse of varying meters. In _Venus and Adonis_ and _Myrtillo_ there is apparent imitation of the versification of Dryden’s _Alexander’s Feast_; in _Love in a Riddle_ and _Damon and Phillida_ the dialogue is in blank verse, but in neither case is the verse inspired. His operas are neither intrinsically nor historically important; they are merely representative of a vogue which was popular but which left no permanent impress on the English drama. 3. TRAGEDIES. Cibber’s seven tragedies appeared in the following order: _Xerxes_, 1699; his adaptation of Shakspere’s _Richard III_, 1700; _Perolla and Izadora_, 1705; the three translations of Corneille, _Ximena_, acted 1712, but not published until 1719, _Cinna’s Conspiracy_, 1713, and _Caesar in Egypt_, 1725; and finally _Papal Tyranny_, an adaptation of Shakspere’s _King John_, 1745. The best stage play is _Richard III_, but those that make the most agreeable reading are the alterations of Corneille. _Xerxes_ (1699), which was a failure, belongs to the type of the tragedies of the last decade of the century, in which the material of the heroic play is handled in blank verse, in which there is no comedy, and in which there is in general a following of French models.[11] In its presentation of a story of distressed womanhood, it allies itself with the sentimental tragedy of the school of Southerne and Otway. In its use of the supernatural, in its puerile use of claptrap, and in the bombast and extravagance of emotion, it follows the general usage of the tragedies of the time.