Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/355

Otway opinion in such a matter.' Betterton took the part of Beaugard, a reckless gallant, and Mrs. fearry that of Lady Dunce, the wife of a city alderman, who seeks to become Beaugard's mistress. The printed edition was dedicated to Thomas Bentley the publisher. The piece was revived at Drury Lane in 1708 and 1716; ran for six nights at Lincoln's Inn Fields, with Quin as Beaugard, in January 1722 ; and, reduced to two acts, was performed at Covent Garden on 8 March 1748.

In February 1681-2 Otway's supreme effort in tragedy, 'Venice Preserved,' saw the light at the theatre in Dorset Gardens. In prologue and epilogue he scattered contemptuous re- ferences to the popish plot, and sneers at the whigs, and he drew a repulsive portrait of Shaftesbury in the character of Antonio, a lascivious senator. Betterton appeared as Jaffier,and Mrs. Barry as Belvidera; the piece was at once published by Hindmarsh, and was dedicated to the Ducness of Portsmouth (cf. a facsimile reprint by Rowland Strong, Exeter, 1885). When performed anew on 21 April 1682, Dryden, whose relations with Otway had become friendly, contributed a prologue welcoming the Duke of York's return to London; and Otway wrote a special epilogue for the occasion, which was published as a broadside.

Otway's last play was a comedy called 'The Atheist,' a continuation of 'The Soldier's Fortune.' A portion of the confused plot is drawn from the novel of 'The Invisible Mistress,' assigned to Scarron. It was produced at Dorset Gardens in 1684. Betterton appeared as Beaugard, and Mrs. Barry as Porcia. When published it was dedicated to Lord Elande, son of the Marquis of Halifax.

Otway's growing reputation does not seem to have substantially increased his means of subsistence. But the accepted stories of his habitual destitution are apparently exaggerated. For the acting rights of 'The Orphan' and 'Venice Preserved' the theatrical manor paid him 100l. apiece ; and Tonson is said to have paid hrm 15l. for the copyright of the latter. In dedicating his 'Soldier's Fortune' to the publisher Bentley, Otway commended him for duly paying for the copy. At the same time he derived small sums by writing prologues and epilogues for other dramatists productions. In 1682 he contributed the prologue to Mrs. Behn's 'City Heiress,' and in 1684 that to Nathaniel Lee's 'Constantino the Great,' when Dryden wrote the epilogue. Verses by him preface Creech's translation of 'Lucretius,' 1682, and in 1680 he contributed an English rendering of Ovid's 'Epistle of Phoedra to Hippolytus' to the co-operative translation of Ovid's 'Epistles,' in which Dryden took part. A few poems by Otway found a place in Tonson's 'Miscellany Poems,' 1684, and he published in a separate volume an autobiographical meditation in verse, 'The Poet's Complaint of his Muse, or a Satire against Libels, a poem by Thomas Otway,' London, 1680, 4to. But his pecuniary resources fell below his needs, and on 30 June 1683 he borrowed of Tonson 11l., for which the receipt, with Otway's signature, is still extant (Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. p. 71). 'Kind Banker Betterton' is also saia to have lent him money on 'the embrio of a play,' and to have repaid himself by appropriating the profits due, according to custom, to the author from the third day's performance (Poems on Affairs of State, 1698, pt. iii. p. 55).

Altnough Mrs. Barry's obduracy was an enduring torment to him, there is some evidence that he sought the good graces of a more notorious personage, Nell Gwynne. On 1 June 1680 he witnessed Nell's signature to a power of attorney which enabled one James Fraizer to receive her pension (Memorial of Nell Gwynne, ed. W. H. Hart, 1868). The strength of his political opinions brought upon him another kind of anxiety. His support of the Duke of York excited the enmity of the whig poetaster, Elkanah Settle, with whom, according to Shad well, he fought a duel.

Otway's harassed life reached its close in April 1686, when he was little more than thirty-three years old. The manner of his death is matter of controversy. The earliest account is supplied by Anthony a Wood, who says that ' he made his last exit in an house in Tower Hill, called the Bull, as I have heard.' According to Oidys, the Bull was a sponging-house ; Giles Jacob describes it as a public-house. Dennis the critic, writing in 1717, asserts (Remarks on Pope's Homer, p. 6) that Otway 'languished in adversity unpitied, and dy'd in an alehouse unlamented.' Dennis is also credited with the statement that Otway had an intimate friend, 'one Blackstone, who was shot. The murderer fled towards Dover, and Otway pursued him. In his return he drank water when violently heated, and so got a fever which was the death of him' (, Anecdotes, p. 44). According to the well-known story which first appeared in the 'Lives of the Poets' assigned to Theophilus Cibber, 1753 (ib. 336), Otway's end was more sensational. Cibber agrees with his predecessors in stating that, to avoid the importunity of creditors, Otway had retired in his last days to a public-house on Tower Hill. But, he adds, 'it is reported 'that, after suffering the