gentleman, who had fled to Venice for some unknown cause, and there became acquainted with the Marquis de Bedmar. Though poor, he esteemed virtue more than riches, and glory more than virtue. He had abilities, courage, a contempt for life, and a passion for distinction. The affront towards Belvidera, of which Otway makes him guilty, was a pure invention of the author, unsupported by any trait which history ascribes to Renault.     

[iv]

       Few plays owe so much to the pruning-knife for their success as this. In its unexpurgated state, "Venice Preserved" leaves an impression far less favorable to the genius, as well as the moral sense of the author, than in its present abridged and rectified shape. In the language of Campbell,       "never were beauties and faults more easily separated than those of this tragedy. The latter, in its purification for the stage, came off like dirt from a fine statue, taking away nothing from its symmetrical surface, and leaving us only to wonder how the author himself should have soiled it with such disfigurements. Pierre is a miserable conspirator, as Otway first painted him, impelled to treason by his love of a courtesan and his jealousy of Antonio. But his character, as it now comes forward, is a-mixture of patriotism and excusable misanthropy. Even in the more modern prompt-books, an improving curtailment has been introduced. Until the middle of the last century, the ghosts of Jaffier and Pierre used to come in upon the stage, haunting Belvidera in her last agonies, which, Heaven knows, require no aggravation from spectral agency."     

       This tragedy is believed to have been originally acted about the year 1682. "Pierre and Jaffier," says Jackson, in his History of the Scottish Stage, "in the estimation of the theatrical world, are equal in       rank, and excel each other in representation only, as the particular talents of the actor elevate or lessen, in the idea of the spectator, the importance of whichever part he assumes. I have seen Garrick and Barry alternately in both parts, and the candid critic was doubtful where to bestow the preference. Mr. Mossop, indeed, raised the character of Pierre beyond all reach, and left any Jaffier I ever saw with him at a       [v]distance:       out, had he attempted Jqffier, I am confident he would with Barry in Pierre, have stood far behind."     

[v]

       

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