he ground of comedy, and whose _forte_ was not sympathy,
either with the stronger or softer emotions, but an impatient scorn and
bitter indignation against the vices and follies of men, which vented
itself either in comic irony or in lofty invective. He was properly a
satirist. He was not a favourite with his contemporaries, nor they with
him." Works, V, 224. His chief tragedy is "Antonio and Mellida."

_Middleton_, Thomas (1570?-1627), and _Rowley_, William (1585?-1642?). In
the second lecture on the "Age of Elizabeth," Hazlitt associates these two
names. "Rowley appears to have excelled in describing a certain amiable
quietness of disposition and disinterested tone of morality, carried
almost to a paradoxical excess, as in his Fair Quarrel, and in the comedy
of A Woman Never Vexed, which is written, in many parts, with a pleasing
simplicity and _naivete_ equal to the novelty of the conception.
Middleton's style was not marked by any peculiar quality of his own, but
was made up, in equal proportions, of the faults and excellences common to
his contemporaries.... He is lamentably deficient in the plot and
denouement of the story. It is like the rough draft of a tragedy with a
number of fine things thrown in, and the best made use of first; but it
tends to no fixed goal, and the interest decreases, instead of increasing,
as we read on, for want of previous arrangement and an eye to the
whole.... The author's power is _in_ the subject, not _over_ it; or he is
in possession of excellent materials which he husbands very ill." Works,
V, 214-5. For characters of other dramatists see notes to p. 326.

_How lov'd_. Pope's "Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady."

P. 3. _draw the curtain of time_. Cf. "we will draw the curtain and show
you the picture." "Twelfth Night," i, 5, 251.

_within reasonable bounds_. At this point Hazlitt digresses to reprove the
age for its affectation of superiority over other ages and the passage,
not being relevant, has been omitted.

_less than smallest dwarfs_. "Paradise Lost," I, 779.

_desiring this man's art_. Shakespeare's Sonnets, XXIX.

_in shape and gesture_. "Paradise Lost," I, 590.

_Mr. Wordsworth says_. See Sonnet entitled "London, 1802."

P. 4. _drew after him_. "Paradise Lost," II, 692.

_Otway_, Thomas (1652-1685), author of "Venice Preserved," the most
popular post-Shakespearian tragedy of the English stage. Hazlitt notes in
this play a "power of rivetting breathless a