Mr. Charles Gildon, in his Laws of Poetry, stiles Mr. Otway a Poet of the first Magnitude, and tells us, and with great justice, that he was perfect master of the tragic passions, and draws them every where with a delicate and natural simplicity, and therefore never fails to raise strong emotions in the soul.  I don’t know of a stronger instance of this force, than in the play of the Orphan; the tragedy is composed of persons whose fortunes do not exceed the quality of such as we ordinarily call people of condition, and without the advantage of having the scene heightened by the importance of the characters; his inimitable skill in representing the workings of the heart, and its affection, is such that the circumstances are great from the art of the poet, rather than from the figure of the persons represented.  The whole drama is admirably wrought, and the mixture of passions raised from affinity, gratitude, love, and misunderstanding between brethren, ill usage from persons obliged slowly returned by the benefactors, keeps the mind in a continual anxiety and contrition.  The sentiments of the unhappy Monimia are delicate and natural, she is miserable without guilt, but incapable of living with a consciousness of having committed an ill act, though her inclination had no part in it.  Mrs. Barry, the celebrated actress, used to say, that in her part of Monimia in the Orphan, she never spoke these words, Ah! poor Castalio, without tears; upon which occasion Mr. Gildon observes, that all the pathetic force had been lost, if any more words had been added, and the poet would have endeavoured, in vain, to have heightened them, by the addition of figures of speech, since the beauty of those three plain simple words is so great by the force of nature, that they must have been weakened and obscured by ’the finest flowers of rhetoric.

The tragedy of the Orphan is not without great blemishes, which the writer of a criticism on it, published in the Gentleman’s Magazine, has very judiciously and candidly shewn.  The impetuous passion of Polydore breaks out sometimes in a language not sufficiently delicate, particularly in that celebrated passage where he talks of rushing upon her in a storm of love.  The simile of the bull is very offensive to chaste ears, but poor Otway lived in dissolute times, and his necessity obliged him to fan the harlot-face of loose desire, in compliance to the general corruption.  Monimia staying to converse with Polydor, after he vauntingly discovers his success in deceiving her, is shocking; had she left him abruptly, with a wildness of horror, that might have thrown him under the necessity of seeking an explanation from Castalio, the scene would have ended better, would have kept the audience more in suspence, and been an improvement of the consequential scene between the brothers; but this remark is submitted to superior judges.

Venice Preferred is still a greater proof of his influence over our passions, and the faculty of mingling good and bad characters, and involving their fortunes, seems to be the distinguished excellence of this writer.  He very well knew that nothing but distressed virtue can strongly touch us with pity, and therefore, in this play, that we may have a greater regard for the conspirators, he makes Pierre talk of redressing wrongs, and repeat all the common place of male contents.