In 1698 William Walker, a lad nineteen years old, the son of a wealthy Barbadoes planter, wrote in three weeks a tragedy entitled _Victorious Love_ (4to, 1698), which is confessedly a close imitation of Southerne’s theme. It was produced at Drury Lane in June, 1698, with the author himself as Dafila, a youth, and young Mrs. Cross as the heroine Zaraida, ‘an European Shipwrack’d an Infant at Gualata’. Possibly Verbruggen acted Barnagasso, the captive king who corresponds to Oroonoko. The scene is laid in the Banze, or Palace of Tombut, whose Emperor, Jamoan, is Barnagasso’s rival in Zaraida’s love. There is a villain, Zanhaga, who after various more or less successful iniquities, poisons the Emperor; whereon hero and heroine are happily united. _Victorious Love_ is far from being entirely a bad play; it is, however, very reminiscent of the heroic tragedies of two decades before. Southerne’s _Oroonoko_ was (with some alterations) translated into German. This version is prose and probably either the work of W. H. von Dalberg or von Eisenthal. It has little merit, but proved popular and was printed in 1789 with a somewhat grotesque frontispiece of Oroonoko and Imoinda, both of whom are black ‘as pitch or as the cole’. [Footnote 1: There were also many chap-books on similar themes which enjoyed no small popularity, e.g., _The Royal African; or, The Memoirs of the Young Prince of Annamaboe_ (circa 1750), the romantic narrative of a negro prince, who became a slave in Barbadoes, from whence he was redeemed and brought to England.] [Footnote 2: Mis-spelt ‘Griffiths’ in the 1800 edition.] [Footnote 3: There was ‘a superior edition on a fine wove paper, Hot-pressed, with Proof Impressions of the Plates. Price only Nine-pence.’] [Footnote 4: The Agitation for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.] Epistle Dedicatory. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD MAITLAND. [Transcriber’s Note: The Epistle Dedicatory was printed as an Appendix; see Note.] My Lord, Since the World is grown so Nice and Critical upon Dedications, and will Needs be Judging the Book by the Wit of the Patron; we ought, with a great deal of Circumspection to chuse a Person against whom there can be no Exception; and whose Wit and Worth truly Merits all that one is capable of saying upon that Occasion.