notwithstanding the blustering Lothario, and the superior dignity of Horatio; for there is something in Altamont, to create our pity, and work upon our compassion. So many players failing of late, in the this character, leaves it a matter of doubt, whether the actor is more mistaken in his performance; or the manager in the distribution of parts. The next tragedy Mr. Rowe wrote was his Ulysses, acted at the queen's Theatre, in the Hay Market, and dedicated to the earl of Godolphin. This play is not at present in possession of the stage, though it deserves highly to be so, as the character of Penelope, is an excellent example of conjugal fidelity: Who, though her lord had been ten years absent from her, and various accounts had been given of his death, yet, notwithstanding this, and the addresses of many royal suitors, she preserved her heart for her Ulysses, who at last triumphed over his enemies, and rescued his faithful queen from the persecution of her wooers.--This play has business, passion, and tragic propriety to recommend it.--. The next play Mr. Rowe brought upon the stage, was his Royal Convert, acted at the queen's Theatre, in the Haymarket, and dedicated to the earl of Hallifax. His next was the Tragedy of Jane Shore, written in imitation of Shakespear's stile; acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, and dedicated to the duke of Queensberry and Dover. How Mr. Rowe could imagine that this play is written at all in imitation of Shakespear's stile, we cannot conceive; for so far as we are able to judge, it bears not the least resemblance to that of Shakespear. The conduct of the design is regular, and in that sense it partakes not of Shakespear's wildness; the poetry is uniform, which marks it to be Rowe's, but in that it is very different from Shakespear, whose excellency does not consist merely in the beauty of soft language, or nightingale descriptions; but in the general power of his drama, the boldness of the images, and the force of his characters. Our author afterwards brought upon the stage his Lady Jane Grey, dedicated to the earl of Warwick; this play is justly in posession of the stage likewise. Mr. Edmund Smith, of Christ's-Church, author of Phædra and Hyppolitus, designed writing a Tragedy on this subject; and at his death left some loose hints of sentiments, and short sketches of scenes. From the last of these, Mr. Rowe acknowledges he borrowed part of one, and inserted it in his third act, viz. that between lord Guilford, and lady Jane. It is not much to be regretted, that Mr. Smith did not live to finish this, since it fell into the hands of one so much above him, as a dramatist; for if we may judge of Mr. Smith's abilities of writing for the stage, by his Phædra and Hyppolitus, it would not have been so well executed as by Rowe. Phædra and Hyppolitus, is a play without passion, though of inimitable versification; and in the words of a living poet, we may say of it, that not the character, but poet speaks.