Few plays owe so much to the pruning-knife for their success as this. In its unexpurgated state, "Venice Preserved" leaves an impression far less favorable to the genius, as well as the moral sense of the author, than in its present abridged and rectified shape. In the language of Campbell, "never were beauties and faults more easily separated than those of this tragedy. The latter, in its purification for the stage, came off like dirt from a fine statue, taking away nothing from its symmetrical surface, and leaving us only to wonder how the author himself should have soiled it with such disfigurements. _Pierre_ is a miserable conspirator, as Otway first painted him, impelled to treason by his love of a courtesan and his jealousy of _Antonio_. But his character, as it now comes forward, is a-mixture of patriotism and excusable misanthropy. Even in the more modern prompt-books, an improving curtailment has been introduced. Until the middle of the last century, the ghosts of _Jaffier_ and _Pierre_ used to come in upon the stage, haunting _Belvidera_ in her last agonies, which, Heaven knows, require no aggravation from spectral agency." This tragedy is believed to have been originally acted about the year 1682. "_Pierre and Jaffier_," says Jackson, in his History of the Scottish Stage, "in the estimation of the theatrical world, are equal in rank, and excel each other in representation only, as the particular talents of the actor elevate or lessen, in the idea of the spectator, the importance of whichever part he assumes. I have seen Garrick and Barry alternately in both parts, and the candid critic was doubtful where to bestow the preference. Mr. Mossop, indeed, raised the character of _Pierre_ beyond all reach, and left any _Jaffier_ I ever saw with him at a distance: out, had he attempted _Jqffier_, I am confident he would with Barry in _Pierre_, have stood far behind." Of this same Mossop in _Pierre_, Davies, the biographer of Garrick, remarks:-- "His fine, full toned voice and strong expression of sentiment, gave uncommon spirit to the warmth and passion of the character. In the interview with the conspirators, in the third act, he threw a gallantry into his action, as striking as it was unexpected. But he greatly excelled in the vehement reproaches, which, in the fourth act, he poured, with acrimony and force, on the treachery and cowardice of Jaffier. The cadences of his voice were equally adapted to the loudest rage and the most deep and solemn reflection, which he judiciously varied." "Mr. Garrick," says Davies, "when fixed in the management of Drury Lane, resigned _Pierre_, in which part his fire and spirit were not equally supported by grandeur and dignity of person, for _Jaffier_, which he acted with great and deserved approbation many years." The temporary frenzy, with which _Jaffier_ is seized, in the fourth act, on fancying that he saw his friend on the rack, has not since been equalled, nor, perhaps, ever will.