His next was the Tragedy of Jane Shore, written in imitation of Shakespear’s stile; acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, and dedicated to the duke of Queensberry and Dover.  How Mr. Rowe could imagine that this play is written at all in imitation of Shakespear’s stile, we cannot conceive; for so far as we are able to judge, it bears not the least resemblance to that of Shakespear.  The conduct of the design is regular, and in that sense it partakes not of Shakespear’s wildness; the poetry is uniform, which marks it to be Rowe’s, but in that it is very different from Shakespear, whose excellency does not consist merely in the beauty of soft language, or nightingale descriptions; but in the general power of his drama, the boldness of the images, and the force of his characters.

Our author afterwards brought upon the stage his Lady Jane Grey, dedicated to the earl of Warwick; this play is justly in posession of the stage likewise.  Mr. Edmund Smith, of Christ’s-Church, author of Phaedra and Hyppolitus, designed writing a Tragedy on this subject; and at his death left some loose hints of sentiments, and short sketches of scenes.  From the last of these, Mr. Rowe acknowledges he borrowed part of one, and inserted it in his third act, viz. that between lord Guilford, and lady Jane.  It is not much to be regretted, that Mr. Smith did not live to finish this, since it fell into the hands of one so much above him, as a dramatist; for if we may judge of Mr. Smith’s abilities of writing for the stage, by his Phaedra and Hyppolitus, it would not have been so well executed as by Rowe.  Phaedra and Hyppolitus, is a play without passion, though of inimitable versification; and in the words of a living poet, we may say of it, that not the character, but poet speaks.

It may be justly said of all Rowe’s Tragedies, that never poet painted virtue, religion, and all the relative and social duties of life, in a more alluring dress, on the stage; nor were ever vice or impiety, better exposed to contempt and abhorrence.

The same principles of liberty he had early imbibed himself, seemed a part of his constitution, and appeared in every thing he wrote; and he took all occasions that fell in his way, to make his talents subservient to them:  His Muse was so religiously chaste, that I do not remember, says Dr. Welwood, one word in any of his plays or writings, that might admit of a double meaning in any point of decency, or morals.  There is nothing to be found in them, to flatter a depraved populace, or humour a fashionable folly.

Mr. Rowe’s Plays were written from the heart.  He practised the virtue he admired, and he never, in his gayest moments, suffered himself to talk loosely or lightly upon religious or moral subjects; or to turn any thing sacred, or which good men reverenced as such, into ridicule.