Rowe had, in his "Tamerlane," thundered, after the manner of Dryden: had tried to be as pathetic as Otway, and had employed some of the bombast of Lee. But he lacked strength to make either of the heroes of that resonant tragedy vigorous. In devoting himself, henceforth, to illustrate the woes and weaknesses of heroines, he discovered where his real powers lay; and Calista is one of the most successful of his portraitures. There is gross and unavowed plagiarism from Massinger's "Fatal Dowry," but there is a greater purity of sentiment in Rowe, who leaves, however, much room for improvement in that respect, by his successors. Richardson saw this, when he made of his Lovelace a somewhat purified Lothario. Rowe, however, notwithstanding the weak point in his Fair Penitent, who is more angry at being found out, than sorry for what has happened, has been eminently successful; for all the sympathy of the audience is freely rendered to Calista. The tragedy may still be called an acting play, though it has lost something of the popularity it retained during the last century, when even Edward, Duke of York, and Lady Stanhope, enacted Lothario and Calista, in the once famous "private theatre" in Downing Street. Johnson's criticism is all praise, as regards both fable and treatment. The style is purely English, as might be expected of a writer who said of Dryden, that-- "Backed by his friends, th' invader brought along A crew of foreign words into our tongue, To ruin and enslave our free-born English song. Still, the prevailing faction propped his throne, And to four volumes let his plays run on."