s, is now generally neglected. We have been too early acquainted
with the poetical heroes to expect any pleasure from their revival; to
show them as they have already been shown, is to disgust by repetition;
to give them new qualities, or new adventures, is to offend by violating
received notions.

"The Royal Convert" (1708) seems to have a better claim to longevity.
The fable is drawn from an obscure and barbarous age, to which fictions
are more easily and properly adapted; for when objects are imperfectly
seen, they easily take forms from imagination. The scene lies among
our ancestors in our own country, and therefore very easily catches
attention. Rodogune is a personage truly tragical, of high spirit, and
violent passions, great with tempestuous dignity, and wicked with a soul
that would have been heroic if it had been virtuous. The motto seems to
tell that this play was not successful.

Rowe does not always remember what his characters require. In Tamerlane
there is some ridiculous mention of the God of Love; and Rodogune, a
savage Saxon, talks of Venus and the eagle that bears the thunder of
Jupiter.

This play discovers its own date, by a prediction of the Union, in
imitation of Cranmer's prophetic promises to Henry VIII. The anticipated
blessings of union are not very naturally introduced, nor very happily
expressed. He once (1706) tried to change his hand. He ventured on a
comedy, and produced the Biter, with which, though it was unfavourably
treated by the audience, he was himself delighted; for he is said to
have sat in the house laughing with great vehemence, whenever he had, in
his own opinion, produced a jest. But finding that he and the public had
no sympathy of mirth, he tried at lighter scenes no more.

After the Royal Convert (1714) appeared Jane Shore, written, as its
author professes, IN IMITATION OF SHAKESPEARE'S STYLE. In what he
thought himself an imitator of Shakespeare it is not easy to conceive.
The numbers, the diction, the sentiments, and the conduct, everything
in which imitation can consist, are remote in the utmost degree from
the manner of Shakespeare, whose dramas it resembles only as it is an
English story, and as some of the persons have their names in history.
This play, consisting chiefly of domestic scenes and private distress,
lays hold upon the heart. The wife is forgiven because she repents, and
the husband is honoured because he forgives. This, therefore, is one of
those pi