Cassius, Cicero, Anthony, &c. together, after the death of Caesar, almost in the same circumstances Shakespear has done in his Play of this name; but the difference between the Anthony and Brutus of Shakespear, and these characters drawn by the earl of Stirling, is as great, as the genius of the former transcended the latter.  This is the most regular of his lordship’s plays in the unity of action.  The story of this Play is to be found in all the Roman Histories written since the death of that Emperor.

His lordship has acknowledged the stile of his dramatic works not to be pure, for which in excuse he has pleaded his country, the Scotch dialect then being in a very imperfect state.  Having mentioned the Scotch dialect, it will not be improper to observe, that it is at this time much in the same degree of perfection, that the English language was, in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth; there are idioms peculiar to the Scotch, which some of their best writers have not been able entirely to forget, and unless they reside in England for some time, they seldom overcome them, and their language is greatly obscured by these means; but the reputation which some Scotch writers at present enjoy, make it sufficiently clear, that they are not much wanting in perspicuity or elegance, of which Mr. Hume, the ingenious author of Essays Moral and Political, is an instance.  In the particular quality of fire, which is indispensible in a good writer, the Scotch authors have rather too much of it, and are more apt to be extravagantly animated, than correctly dull.

Besides these Plays, our author wrote several other Poems of a different kind, viz.  Doomsday, or the Great Day of the Lord’s Judgment, first printed 1614, and a Poem divided into 12 Book, which the author calls Hours; In this Poem is the following emphatic line, when speaking of the divine vengeance falling upon the wicked; he calls it

  A weight of wrath, more than ten worlds could
  bear.

A very ingenious gentleman of Oxford, in a conversation with the author of this Life, took occasion to mention the above line as the best he had ever read consisting of monysyllables, and is indeed one of the most affecting lines to be met with in any poet.  This Poem, says Mr. Coxeter, ’in his Ms. notes, was reprinted in 1720, by A. Johnston, who in his preface says, that he had the honour of transmitting the author’s works to the great Mr. Addison, for the perusal of them, and he was pleased to signify his approbation in these candid terms.  That he had read them with the greatest satisfaction, and was pleased to give it as his judgment, that the beauties of our ancient English poets are too slightly passed over by the modern writers, who, out of a peculiar singularity, had rather take pains to find fault, than endeavour to excel.’

A Paraenaesis to Prince Henry, who dying before it was published, it was afterwards dedicated to King Charles I.[3]