The Ambitious Step-mother, being the first, is conducted with less judgment than any other of Rowe’s tragedies; it has an infinite deal of fire in it, the business is precipitate, and the characters active, and what is somewhat remarkable, the author never after wrote a play with so much elevation.  Critics have complained of the sameness of his poetry; that he makes all his characters speak equally elegant, and has not attended sufficiently to the manners.  This uniformity of versification, in the opinion of some, has spoiled our modern tragedies, as poetry is made to supply nature, and declamation characters.  Whether this observation is well founded, we shall not at present examine, only remark, that if any poet has a right to be forgiven for this error, Mr. Rowe certainly has, as his cadence is the sweetest in the world, his sentiments chaste, and his language elegant.  Our author wrote several other Tragedies, but that which he valued himself most upon, says Welwood, was his Tamerlane; acted at the Theatre in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, and dedicated to the marquis of Hartington.

In this play, continues Welwood, ’He aimed at a parallel between the late king William and Tamerlane, and also Bajazet, and a monarch who is since dead.  That glorious ambition in Tamerlane, to break the chains of enslaved nations, and set mankind free from the encroachments of lawless power, are painted in the most lively, as well as the most amiable colours.  On the other side, his manner of introducing on the stage a prince, whose chief aim is to perpetuate his name to posterity, by that havock and ruin he scatters through the world, are all drawn with that pomp of horror, and detestation, which such monstrous actions deserve.  And, since nothing could be more calculated for raising in the minds of the audience a true passion for liberty, and a just abhorrence of slavery, how this play came to be discouraged, next to a prohibition, in the latter end of queen Anne’s reign, I leave it to others to give a reason.’

Thus far Dr. Welwood, who has endeavoured to point out the similiarity of the character of Tamerlane, to that of king William.  Though it is certainly true, that the Tamerlane of Rowe contains grander sentiments than any of his other plays; yet, it may be a matter of dispute whether Tamerlane ought to give name to the play; for Tamerlane is victorious, and Bajazet the sufferer.  Besides the fate of these two monarchs, there is likewise contained in it, the Episode of Moneses, and Arpasia, which is of itself sufficiently distressful to make the subject of a tragedy.  The attention is diverted from the fall of Bajazet, which ought to have been the main design, and bewildered in the fortunes of Moneses, and Arpasia, Axalla and Selima:  There are in short, in this play, events enough for four; and in the variety and importance of them, Tamerlane and Bajazet must be too much neglected.  All the characters of a play should be subordinate to the leading one, and their business in the drama subservient to promote his fate; but this performance is not the tragedy of Bajazet, or Tamerlane only; but likewise the tragedies of Moneses and Arpasia, Axala and Selima.  It is now performed annually, on the 4th and 5th of November, in commemoration of the Gun-powder Treason, and the landing of king William in this realm, when an occasional prologue is spoken.