Richard is made the central figure, so that the play revolves more closely about him than in Shakspere. A love story, more slightly developed than usual in the adaptations of this period, is introduced at the end of the play in accordance with contemporary usage. The women are made less prominent, the lyric chorus effect of the various scenes in which these women foretell and bewail is omitted, and the whole action is made more simple and direct. Shakspere’s _Richard III_ is full of this lyric element which Cibber has excised. With this curtailment of plot comes likewise a less highly presented delineation of character. Not only is the number of characters diminished, but modifications are made in those that remain. Richard becomes less the unfeeling hypocrite, by use of asides his motives and character are made more clear, and he is influenced more by love; his victims are not so vividly presented, and though their weakness of will and character is not less than in the original, the reader does not feel it so much. Cibber’s _Richard III_, like his _King John_, is more play than poem; in it Cibber has attempted to make everything subservient to dramatic effectiveness. _Perolla and Izadora_ was acted at Drury Lane on December 3, 1705, and published the next year. Lintot had bought the copyright November 14, 1705, a few weeks before its presentation, for thirty-six pounds, eleven shillings, next to the largest amount that he paid Cibber for any of his plays. Cibber explains that he omitted _Woman’s Wit_ from the 1721 edition of his plays because it was so inferior a drama, which was no doubt his reason for omitting _Xerxes_; but why he should not have included _Perolla and Izadora_, which brought him a good third and sixth day at the theatre, though it does not appear to have been presented afterwards, is not clear, unless, as is probable, he included in this edition only such plays as had gained a more or less permanent place on the stage.