Page:The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets.djvu/60

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Member of the Colledge of Physitians, and formerly of Gonvile and Caius College in Cambridge. He has lately Publish'd a Play, call'd,

The Sham Lawyer, or, The Lucky Extravagant, a Comedy, 4to. Acted at the Theatre Royal, 1697. This Play, as it wanted Success, so it is for the most part borrowed from two of Fletcher's, (viz.) The Spanish Curate, and Wit without Money; but whether our Author has improv'd the Materials, or not, I leave to the Criticks. His Gentleman, who was Poet Laureat, and Historiographer to the late King James, is of a good Family, (if I mistake not) in Northamptonshire, was Bred at the University of Cambridge, and had some thoughts once (as I have been told) of entring a more profitable state of Life than Poetry, where Learning met with more Encouragement, I mean the Church: How early his Genius led him to Poetry, I am not able to inform you; but he was above thirty before he gave us his first Play, which met with so little Success, that if he had not had a peculiar force of Inclination to writing, he had been Discouraged, for that Play indeed made no Promises of that great Man he was afterwards to be. He is a Poet that has met with Applause often above his Merit; tho' in many of his writings, it must be confess'd, he deserv'd the highest: But I must own, I think, his Dramatick Pieces, if we must take our Standard of their Excellence from the Ancients, the most incorrect of his Productions. There is generally indeed the sublime, but very rarely the Pathetick; for in all his Plays he has not touch'd Compassion above thrice, and that but weakly; Terror he has often hit on; but 'tis not for me to Censure a Man of no Vulgar Genius; but what is necessary for the making this of a piece in its Impartiality. I shall give some Instances of his playing the Plagiary, omitting all those scurrilous and Digressory Reflections with which Mr. Langbain has bespatter'd him, and through which indeed runs all along a great evidence of private and ungenerous Malice, brought in, tho' nothing to the Business before him.

On the other hand, it must be confess'd, that he has, (where he detects his Thefts) urged a great deal of Truth; for Mr. Dryden has borrow'd from the French, at the same time that he seems to