Though Mr. Otway possessed this astonishing talent of moving the passions, and writing to the heart, yet he was held in great contempt by some cotemporary poets, and was several times unsuccessful in his dramatic pieces.  The merits of an author are seldom justly estimated, till the next age after his decease; while a man lives in the world, he has passion, prejudice, private and public malevolence to combat; his enemies are industrious to obscure his fame, by drawing into light his private follies; and personal malice is up in arms against every man of genius.

Otway was exposed to powerful enemies, who could not bear that he should acquire fame, amongst whom Dryden is the foremost.  The enmity between Dryden and Otway could not proceed from jealousy, for what were Otway’s, when put in the ballance with the amazing powers of Dryden? like a drop to the ocean:  and yet we find Dryden declared himself his open enemy; for which, the best reason that can be assigned is, that Otway was a retainer to Shadwell, who was Dryden’s aversion.  Dryden was often heard to say, that Otway was a barren illiterate man, but ’I confess, says he, he has a power which I have not;’ and when it was asked him, what power that was? he answered, ‘moving the passions.’  This truth was, no doubt, extorted from Dryden, for he seems not to be very ready in acknowledging the merits of his cotemporaries.  In his preface to Du Fresnoy’s Art of Painting, which he translated, he mentions Otway with respect, but not till after he was dead; and even then he speaks but coldly of him.  The passage is as follows, ’To express the passions which are seated on the heart by outward signs, is one great precept of the painters, and very difficult to perform.  In poetry the very same passions, and motions of the mind are to be expressed, and in this consists the principal difficulty, as well as the excellency of that art.  This (says my author) is the gift of Jupiter, and to speak in the same Heathen language, is the gift of our Apollo, not to be obtained by pains or study, if we are not born to it; for the motions which are studied, are never so natural, as those which break out in the heighth of a real passion.  Mr. Otway possessed this part as thoroughly as any of either the ancients or moderns.  I will not defend every thing in his Venice Preserved, but I must bear this testimony to his memory, that the passions are truly touched in it, though, perhaps, there is somewhat to be desired, both in the grounds of them, and the heighth and elegance of expression; but nature is there, which is the greatest beauty.’  Notwithstanding our admiration of Dryden, we cannot, without some indignation, observe, how sparing he is in the praises of Otway, who, considered as a tragic writer, was surely superior to himself.  Dryden enchants us indeed with flow’ry descriptions, and charms us with (what is called) the magic of poetry; but he has seldom drawn a tear, and millions of radiant eyes have been witnesses for Otway, by those drops