’and as the strongest proof of it
we find that upon the stage, and in
the dramatic contests, such tragedies,
if they succeed, have always
the most tragic effect.’
Poetics, Part II. Sec. 12.]
[Footnote 2: Of the two plays in this list, besides
‘Othello’, which have not been mentioned
in the preceding notes, ‘All for Love’,
produced in 1678, was Dryden’s ‘Antony
and Cleopatra’, ‘Oroonoko’, first
acted in, 1678, was a tragedy by Thomas Southerne,
which included comic scenes. Southerne, who held
a commission in the army, was living in the ‘Spectator’s’
time, and died in 1746, aged 86. It was in his
best play, ‘Isabella’, or the Fatal Marriage,
that Mrs. Siddons, in 1782, made her first appearance
on the London stage.]
[Footnote 3: Congreve’s ‘Mourning
Bride’ was first acted in 1697; Rowe’s
‘Tamerlane’ (with a hero planned in complement
to William III.) in 1702; Rowe’s ‘Ulysses’
in 1706; Edmund Smith’s ‘Phaedra’
and ‘Hippolitus’ in 1707.]
[Footnote 4: The third Act of ‘OEdipus’
was by Dryden, the fourth by Lee. Dryden wrote
also the first Act, the rest was Lee’s.]
* * * *
*
Having spoken
of Mr. Powell,
as sometimes raising himself Applause from the ill
Taste of an Audience;
I must do him the Justice to own,
that he is excellently formed for a Tragoedian,
and, when he pleases, deserves the Admiration
of the best Judges;
as I doubt not but he will in the Conquest
of Mexico,
which is acted for his own Benefit To-morrow
Night.
C.
* * * *
*
No. 41. Tuesday, April 17, 1711.
Steele.
‘Tu non inventa reperta
es.’
Ovid
Compassion for the Gentleman who writes the following
Letter, should not prevail upon me to fall upon the
Fair Sex, if it were not that I find they are frequently
Fairer than they ought to be. Such Impostures
are not to be tolerated in Civil Society; and I think
his Misfortune ought to be made publick, as a Warning
for other Men always to Examine into what they Admire.
SIR,
Supposing you to be a Person of general
Knowledge, I make my Application to you on a very
particular Occasion. I have a great Mind to
be rid of my Wife, and hope, when you consider my Case,
you will be of Opinion I have very just Pretensions
to a Divorce. I am a mere Man of the Town,
and have very little Improvement, but what I have got
from Plays. I remember in The Silent Woman
the Learned Dr. Cutberd, or Dr. Otter
(I forget which) makes one of the Causes of Separation
to be Error Personae, when a Man marries a Woman,
and finds her not to be the same Woman whom he intended
to marry, but another. [1] If that be Law, it is,
I presume, exactly my Case. For you are to
