solution. The most amiable, personage is Timandra, who is characterized by invincible fidelity and attachment to her lover, and that heroic courage which was not uncommon among the females of antiquity. Tissaphernes (really a Persian viceroy, and according to Plutarch, one of the dupes of Alcibiades) is the villain of the piece. The rest have few traits to discriminate them from the usual subordinates of the drama.

Dr. Johnson conjectures, in his Life of Otway, that this piece was taken from the Alcibiade of John Palaprat, a French writer. But the latter published no dramatic work till after the production of Otway's Alcibiades.

It was represented in 1675, and report says, with some success.

1.1

UNIVITY

TO

THE RIGIIT HONOURABLE

CHARLES, EARL OF MIDDLESEX.

MY LORD,

I AM sufficiently sensible of my own arrogance, in that being almost a stranger to every thing of you

but your fame, I durst obtrude so abject a trifle as this, under the patronage of so eminent a person. But that generous candour, wherewith you oblige all the world, gave me courage to hope you might at least pardon this first offence in me: and though, perhaps, the best presents of this nature may not be more than ordinary grateful ; yet I have here my wishes, if the sincerity of my zeal may atone for the meanness of the offering : that is the farthest prospect I take, which, whilst I have in view, I dare not (though, perhaps, as justly as some others have done, I might) complain of the censures of the world; for since I have heard that your lordship proved indulgent, I were unworthy the favours you bestowed, should I be concerned at the malice or petulancy of those, who (alas!) will needs think it modish to be critical; but, in the mean while, forget it is as genteel to be civil. No, my lord, it is under your umbrage only I would court protection, to whom heaven has given a soul, whose endowments are as much above flattery, as itself abhors it; and which are as impossible to be described, as I am unable to compreliend them. But as poorest pilgrims, when they visit shrines, will make some presents where they kneel; so I have here brought mine, by your own goodness

only made worthy to be preserved: in whose defence I can say nothing more, than that with it all my best endeavours are, and ever shall be, ready to testify how much I am,

MY LORD,

The most earnest of

your

Servants and admirers,

THO. OTWAY.

:

In quest

not

Never did rhymer greater hazard run
Mongst us by your severity undone:
Tho' we, alas! t'oblige you have done most,
And bought ye pleasures at your own sad cost;
Yet all our best endeavours have been lost.
So oft a statesman, lab'ring to be good,
His honesty's for treason understood;
Whilst some false, flatt'ring minion of the court,
Shall play the traitor, and be honour'd for’t*.
To you, known judges of what's sense and wit,
Our author swears he gladly will submit:
But there's a sort of things infest the pit,
That will be witty, spite of nature too,
And to be thought so, haunt and pester you.
Hither sometimes these would-be wits repair

of
you;
where if

you appear,
Cries one;" Pugh! damn me, what do we do here?".
Straight up he starts;- his garniture then puts
In order, so he cocks, and out he struts
To th' coffee-house, where he about him looks;
Spies friend; cries “ Jack! I've been to-night at th’ Duke's :
« The silly rogues are all undone, my dear,
“ I'gad! not one of sense that I saw there."
Thus to himself he'd reputation gather
Of wit, and good acquaintance, but has neither.
Wit has indeed a stranger been of late,
'Mongst its pretenders nought so strange as that.
Both houses too, too long a fast have known,
That coarsest nonsense goes most glibly down.
Thus, tho' this trifler never wrote before,
Yet, faith! he ventur'd on the common score :
Since nonsense is so gen'rally allow'd,
He hopes that his may pass amongst the crowd.

* This remarkable expression probably pointed to the Duke of Buckingbam ; or to the notorious Captain Blood, whose villanies, though of the worst kind, recommended him the more at Court. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Agis, King of Sparta.
ALCIBIADES, General of Athens, but fled thence in discon-