gent of Scotland; by her he
had one son, who died his Majesty's Resident in Nova Scotia in the
life time of his father, and left behind him a son who succeeded his
grandfather in the title of earl of Stirling.

His lordship is author of four plays, which he stiles Monarchic
Tragedies, viz. The Alexandraean Tragedy, Craesus, Darius, and
Julius Caesar, all which in the opinion of the ingenious Mr. Coxeter
(whose indefatigable industry in collecting materials for this work,
which he lived not to publish, has furnished the present Biographers
with many circumstances they could not otherwise have known) were
written in his lordship's youth, and before he undertook any state
employment.

These plays are written upon the model of the ancients, as appears
by his introducing the Chorus between the Acts; they are grave and
sententious throughout, like the Tragedies of Seneca, and yet the
softer and tender passions are sometimes very delicately touched. The
author has been very unhappy in the choice of his verse, which is
alternate, like the quatrains of the French poet Pibrach, or Sir
William Davenant's heroic poem called Gondibert, which kind of verse
is certainly unnatural for Tragedy, as it is so much removed from
prose, and cannot have that beautiful simplicity, that tender pathos,
which is indispensable to the language of tragedy; Mr. Rymer has
criticised with great judgment on this error of our author, and shewn
the extreme absurdity of writing plays in rhime, notwithstanding the
great authority of Dryden can be urged in its defence.

Writing plays upon the model of the ancients, by introducing choruses,
can be defended with as little force. It is the nature of a tragedy to
warm the heart, rouze the passions, and fire the imagination, which
can never be done, while the story goes languidly on. The soul cannot
be agitated unless the business of the play rises gradually, the
scene be kept busy, and leading characters active: we cannot better
illustrate this observation, than by an example.

One of the best poets of the present age, the ingenious Mr. Mason of
Cambridge, has not long ago published a Tragedy upon the model of the
ancients, called Elfrida; the merit of this piece, as a poem has
been confessed by the general reading it has obtained; it is full of
beauties; the language is perfectly poetical, the sentiments chaste,
and the moral excellent; there is nothing in our tongue can much
exceed it in the flowry enchant