His lordship is author of four plays, which he stiles Monarchic Tragedies, viz. The Alexandræan Tragedy, Cræsus, Darius, and Julius Cæsar, all which in the opinion of the ingenious Mr. Coxeter (whose indefatigable industry in collecting materials for this work, which he lived not to publish, has furnished the present Biographers with many circumstances they could not otherwise have known) were written in his lordship's youth, and before he undertook any state employment. These plays are written upon the model of the ancients, as appears by his introducing the Chorus between the Acts; they are grave and sententious throughout, like the Tragedies of Seneca, and yet the softer and tender passions are sometimes very delicately touched. The author has been very unhappy in the choice of his verse, which is alternate, like the quatrains of the French poet Pibrach, or Sir William Davenant's heroic poem called Gondibert, which kind of verse is certainly unnatural for Tragedy, as it is so much removed from prose, and cannot have that beautiful simplicity, that tender pathos, which is indispensable to the language of tragedy; Mr. Rymer has criticised with great judgment on this error of our author, and shewn the extreme absurdity of writing plays in rhime, notwithstanding the great authority of Dryden can be urged in its defence. Writing plays upon the model of the ancients, by introducing choruses, can be defended with as little force. It is the nature of a tragedy to warm the heart, rouze the passions, and fire the imagination, which can never be done, while the story goes languidly on. The soul cannot be agitated unless the business of the play rises gradually, the scene be kept busy, and leading characters active: we cannot better illustrate this observation, than by an example. One of the best poets of the present age, the ingenious Mr. Mason of Cambridge, has not long ago published a Tragedy upon the model of the ancients, called Elfrida; the merit of this piece, as a poem has been confessed by the general reading it has obtained; it is full of beauties; the language is perfectly poetical, the sentiments chaste, and the moral excellent; there is nothing in our tongue can much exceed it in the flowry enchantments of poetry, or the delicate flow of numbers, but while we admire the poet, we pay no regard to the character; no passion is excited, the heart is never moved, nor is the reader's curiosity ever raised to know the event. Want of passion and regard to character, is the error of our present dramatic poets, and it is a true observation made by a gentleman in an occasional prologue, speaking of the wits from Charles II. to our own times, he says, From bard, to bard, the frigid caution crept, And declamation roared while passion slept. But to return to our author's plays;