To see the sufferings of my fellow-creatures,
  And own myself a man:  to see our senators
  Cheat the deluded people with a shew
  Of Liberty, which yet they ne’er must taste of! 
  They say by them our hands are free from fetters,
  Yet whom they please they lay in basest bonds;
  Bring whom they please to infamy and sorrow;
  Drive us like wrecks down the rough tide of power
  Whilst no hold’s left, to save us from destruction: 
  All that bear this are villains, and I one,
  Not to rouse up at the great call of nature,
  And check the growth of these domestic spoilers,
  Who make us slaves, and tell us ’tis our charter.

Jaffier’s wants and distresses, make him prone enough to any desperate resolution, yet says he in the language of genuine tenderness,

  But when I think what Belvidera feels,
  The bitterness her tender spirit tastes of,
  I own myself a coward:  bear my weakness,
  If throwing thus my arms about thy neck,
  I play the boy, and blubber in thy bosom.

Jaffier’s expostulation afterwards, is the picture of all who are partial to their own merit, and generally think a relish of the advantages of life is pretence enough to enjoy them.

  Tell me, why good Heaven
  Thou mad’st me what I am, with all the spirit,
  Aspiring thoughts, and elegant desires
  That fill the happiest man? ah rather why
  Didst thou not form me, sordid as my fate,
  Base minded, dull, and fit to carry burdens.

How dreadful is Jaffier’s soliloquy, after he is engaged in the conspiracy.

  I’m here; and thus the shades of night surround me,
  I look as if all hell were in my heart,
  And I in hell.  Nay surely ’tis so with me;
  For every step I tread, methinks some fiend
  Knocks at my breast, and bids it not be quiet. 
  I’ve heard how desperate wretches like myself
  Have wandered out at this dead time of night
  To meet the foe of mankind in his walk: 
  Sure I’m so curst, that though of Heaven forsaken,
  No minister of darkness, cares to tempt me. 
  Hell, hell! why sleep’st thou?

The above is the most awful picture of a man plunged in despair, that ever was drawn by a poet; we cannot read it without terror:  and when it is uttered as we have heard it, from the late justly celebrated Booth, or those heart-affecting actors Garrick, and Barry, the flesh creeps, and the blood is chilled with horror.

In this play Otway catches our hearts, by introducing the episode of Belvidera.  Private and public calamities alternately claim our concern; sometimes we could wish to see a whole State sacrificed for the weeping Belvidera, whose character and distress are so drawn as to melt every heart; at other times we recover again, in behalf of a whole people in danger.  There is not a virtuous character in the play, but that of Belvidera, and yet so amazing is the force of the author’s skill in blending private and public concerns, that the ruffian on the wheel, is as much the object of pity, as if he had been brought to that unhappy fate by some honourable action.