In opposition to Young, Thomson represents the vogue of classicism both in literary circles and in the theatres. His early tragedies, "Sophonisba" (1730), "Agammemnon" (1738), and "Edward and Eleonora," prohibited by the censor because of its attacks upon Walpole, won little favor except in the circle of wits who attempted to dictate the national taste in letters and among the opponents of Walpole. The first was dedicated to the Queen and the two later to the Princess of Wales, and "Tancred and Sigismunda" (1743) to Frederick, Prince of Wales, the patron of the drama and the hope of the Tories. This play, the presentation of which was fathered and superintended by Lyttleton and Pitt, achieved a large popular success; and portions of "Coriolanus," acted after the author's death in 1749, were combined with Shakespeare's tragedy in versions by Thomas Sheridan and Kemble, and supplied the latter with his greatest part. All Thomson's plays endeavor to retell stories often used in tragedy, in strict accord with the rules, with absolute propriety of diction, some reference to political events, and a due inculcation of moral sentiments. In the language of one of their admirers, they were intended to be "reasonable entertainments becoming virtue itself to behold with tears of approbation."[34] "Sophonisba" is sternly heroic in its subordination of love to patriotic hate of Rome in the character of its heroine, and sternly classic in the simplicity of its plot and the heaviness of its inflated rhetoric. "Agammemnon," also a "She-tragedy," is designed after the school of Racine rather than of Corneille; and its wavering, inconsistent Clytemnestra, who closes the play with a torrent of remorse and a faint, its Melisander saved from a desert island, and its courtly love-sick Egisthus are queer denizens of the house of Atreus. "Edward and Eleanor," telling of the queen who sucked poison from her husband's wound, and of the sultan who, suspected of the attempted murder, bore a truly miraculous antidote to the Christian camp, owes allegiance to Voltaire. Its emotional changes and elaborate intrigue bring it also more closely in accord with the prevailing English type. "Tancred and Sigismunda," based on the story as told in "Gil Blas,"[35] makes the lover a claimant to the throne and the intervention of the father due to reasons of state. The plot is developed with more skill than is usual in Thomson, and the rival lovers, the marriage in revenge, the midnight interview, the duel, and the murder of the heroine are quite in conformity to the prevailing model. "Coriolanus," the subject of many French tragedies and of Shakespearean alterations by Tate and Dennis, illustrates the inferiority of the classic scheme to the Elizabethan in the presentation of history. The action, beginning with the arrival of Coriolanus as a suppliant for Tullus's hospitality, crowds the remaining events and the changes in the two rivals within the impossible confines of the unities of