The only daring departure from the prevailing type, and the most important contribution to the general development of European tragedy in the eighteenth century, came in the success of "George Barnwell, or the London Merchant" (1731). This was the first tragedy of George Lillo, a London jeweler, who had hitherto had no known theatrical or literary connections, save for one unsuccessful play. It was followed within a few years by another domestic tragedy, "Fatal Curiosity," two tragedies of the regular type, "The Christian Hero" and the posthumous "Elmerick," and by adaptations of "Pericles" and "Arden of Feversham." The two domestic tragedies differ somewhat in both form and purpose. "The London Merchant," in prose, tells the story of Barnwell's downfall through the courtesan Millwood, his murder of his uncle at her instigation, and the final execution of both criminals. Barnwell's repentance is much dwelt upon, and the moral lesson is enforced in every line. "The Fatal Curiosity," in blank verse, tells of a frightful murder of a son by a father at the instigation of the mother. From the innocent "curiosity" of the long-lost son in concealing his identity from his parents, there is traced the chain of circumstances which finally drive the poverty-stricken and wretched couple to the murder of the stranger. The play is thus nearer to Greek than modern ideas of tragedy, in that it represents destiny as something separate from character, and it links itself with the German species of _Schicksalstragödie_, which indeed it directly influenced. "The London Merchant," on the contrary, seeks the causes and effects of crime in a crude and popular presentation of character that always makes the most of human will and sentiment. Daring and important as was Lillo's innovation, it was by no means without progenitors and near kinsmen. The relations of his plays to Elizabethan domestic tragedies are evident. Like "Arden of Feversham," which Lillo may have been copying, "The London Merchant" presents a murder, portrays a monstrous woman, and ends with an execution. Like the Elizabethan plays, Lillo's are bald, detailed, and moralizing. The very pleas that he advances in his dedication for realism and liberty had been advanced in "Arden" and the "Warning for Fair Women." Moreover, while since 1660 no tragedies had dealt solely with middle-class society, there had been much chafing against the restrictions that limited tragedy to princes; and from English writers as well as Corneille had come forecasts of the sweeping democracy of Lillo's creed:--