exquifite beauties, and he feldom falls into grofs faults. His verfification is fmooth, but rarely vigorous, and his rhymes are remarkably exact. He improved tafte, if he did not enlarge knowledge, and may be nume bered among the benefactors to English lite

rature.

OTWAY

O TWA Y.

F THOMAS OTWAY, one of the first names in the English drama, little is known; nor is there any part of that little which his biographer can take pleasure in relating.

He was born at Trottin in Suffex, March 3, 1651, the fon of Mr. Humphry Otway, rector of Woolbedding. From Winchesterfchool, where he was educated, he was entered in 1669 a commoner of Chrift-church; but left the university without a degree, whether for want of money, or from impatience of academical restraint, or mere eagerness to mingle with the world, is not known.

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It seems likely that he was in hope of being bufy and confpicuous: for he went to London, and commenced player; but found himself unable to gain any reputation on the stage.

This kind of inability he shared with Shakfpeare and Jonfon, as he shared likewise fome of their excellences. It feems reasonable to expect that a great dramatick poet fhould without difficulty become a great actor; that he who can feel, could exprefs; that he who can excite paffion, fhould exhibit with great readiness its external modes: but fince experience has fully proved that of those powers, whatever be their affinity, one may be poffeffed in a great degree by him who has very little of the other; it must be allowed that they depend upon different faculties, or on different use of the fame faculty; that the actor must have a pliancy of mien, a flexibility of countenance, and a variety of tones; which the poet may be easily supposed to want; or that the attention of the poet and the player have been differently employed; the one has been confidering thought, and

the

the other action; one has watched the heart, and the other contemplated the face.

Though he could not gain much notice as a player, he felt in himself fuch powers as might qualify for a dramatick author; and in 1675, his twenty-fifth year, produced Alcibiades, a tragedy; whether from the Alcibiade of Palaprat, I have not means to enquire. Langbain, the great detector of plagiarism, is filent.

In 1677 he published Titus and Berenice, tranflated from Rapin, with the Cheats of Scapin from Moliere; and in 1678 Friendship in Fashion, a comedy, which, whatever might be its first reception, was, upon its revival at Drury-lane in 1749, hiffed off the stage for immorality and obscenity.

Want of morals, or of decency, did not in those days exclude any man from the company of the wealthy and the gay, if he brought with him any powers of entertainment; and Otway is faid to have been at this time a favourite companion of the diffolute wits. But, as he who defires no virtue in

his companion has no virtue in himself, thofe whom Otway frequented had no purpose of doing more for him than to pay his reckoning. They defired only to drink and laugh; their fondnefs was without benevolence, and their familiarity without friendship. Men of wit, fays one of Otway's biographers, received at that time no favour from the Great but to fhare their riots; from which they were difmiffed again to their own narrow circumftances. Thus they languished in poverty without the Support of imminence.

Some exception, however, must be made. The Earl of Plymouth, one of King Charles's natural fons, procured for him a cornet's commiffion in fome troops then sent into Flanders. But Otway did not profper in his military character; for he foon left his commiffion behind him, whatever was the reafon, and came back to London in extreme indigence; which Rochefter mentions with merciless infolence in the Seffion of the Poets:

Tom Otway came next, Tom Shadwell's dear

Zany,

And fwears for heroicks he writes beft of any;