University of Virginia Library

POSTSCRIPT.

The Tragedy, here offered to the Public, is founded on a passage in Valerius Maximus . We are told by that author, “That a woman of ingenious birth was convicted before the Prætor of a capital crime, and delivered over to the Triumvir to be put to death in prison. The jailor receiv'd her into his custody, but, touched with compassion, did not proceed immediately to execute the sentence. His humanity went so far as to admit the daughter of the unhappy criminal into the goal; but not without a previous search, lest any nourishment should be secretly conveyed. To starve the prisoner to death was his design. Several days passed, when it became matter of wonder how the poor woman subsisted so long. The jailor's curiosity was excited: he watched the daughter narrowly, and saw her give her breast to the famished mother, and with her milk supply the cravings of nature. Touched by the novelty of so affecting a sight, he made his report to the Triumvir, from whom it reached the Prætor, and, the whole matter being referred to the JUDICIAL MAGISTRATES, the mother received a free pardon. What will not filial pity undertake?—What place will it not penetrate?—What will it not devise, when in a dungeon it finds unheard of means to preserve a parent's life?—Is there, in the course of human affairs, a scene so big with wonder, as a mother nourished at the daughter's breast?—The incident might, at the first view, be thought repugnant to the order of nature, if TO LOVE OUR PARENTS were not the FIRST LAW stamped by the hand of Nature on the human heart.” Thus far Valerius Maximus: He goes on in the same place, and tells a Greek tale, in which the heroine performs the same act of piety to a father in the decline of life. For the purposes of the drama,

the latter story has been preferred. The painters long since seized the subject; and by them it has been called Roman Charity. The Author has taken the liberty to place it in the reign of Dionysius the Younger, at the point of time when Timoleon laid siege to Syracuse. The general effect, it was thought, would be better produced, if the whole had an air of real history.

Atque ita mentitur, sic veris falsa remiscet,
Primo 'ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum

The Author does not wish to conceal that the subject of this Tragedy has been touched in some foreign pieces: but he thinks it has been only touched. The Zelmire of Mons. Belloy begins after the daughter has delivered her father out of prison. The play indeed has many beauties; and if the sentiments and business of that piece coincided with the design of the Grecian Daughter, the Author would not have blushed to tread in his steps. But a new fable was absolutely necessary: and, perhaps in the present humour of the times, it is not unlucky that no more than three lines could be adopted from Mons. Belloy. Every writer, who makes up a story with characters and incidents already hackneyed on the English stage, and invents nothing, cries out with an air of triumph, That he has not borrowed from the wits of France. In the Isle of Man, it is said, there is an epitaph in these words: “He who lies here interred, was never out of this island.” The poor man was to be pitied: a similar inscription upon the tomb stone of a modern poet, would, perhaps, do as little honour to the memory of the deceased.

The Author cannot dismiss his Play, without declaring that, though in love with the subject, he has not satisfied even his own ideas of the drama: he laments that he had neither time nor ability to make it better. To heighten it with additional beauties was reserved for the decorations with which the zeal of Mr Garrick has embellished the representation; for the admirable performance of Mr Barry; and, above all, the enchanting powers and the genius of Mrs Barry.