Page:A Series of Plays on the Passions Volume 3.pdf/3



an interval of nine years, I offer to the Public a third volume of the "Series of Plays;" hoping that it will be received, as the preceding volumes have been, with some degree of favour and indulgence. This, I confess, is making very slow progress in my promised undertaking; and I could offer some reasonable excuse for an apparent relaxation of industry, were I not afraid it might seem to infer a greater degree of expectation or desire, on the part of my Readers, to receive the remainder of the work, than I am at all entitled to suppose.

With the exception of a small piece, in two acts, at the end of the book, this volume is entirely occupied with different representations of one passion; and a passion, too, which has been supposed to be less adapted to dramatic purposes than any other—Fear. It has been thought that, in Tragedy at least, the principal character could not possibly be actuated by his passion, without becoming so far degraded as to be incapable of engaging the sympathy and interest of the spectator or reader. I am,