Beaumelle does not pretend, the latter is a great deal more natural, and indeed, for that matter, far more truly a “penitent.” An exception to the general insipidity is Lothario, who is the analogue of the insignificant Novall Junior—“the gay Lothario”—whose very name has been ever since a synonym for the graceful, graceless, devil-may-care libertine—whose figure has been the prototype of a long line of similar characters in English literature, beginning with Richardson’s Lovelace and not yet closed with Anthony Hope’s Rupert of Hentzau. Beside this striking creation, the seducer of Beaumelle shows poorly indeed; but it is doubtful if the old dramatists would have consented to paint such an attractive rogue, had they been able; they wanted their Novall to be just the cowardly, dandyfied thing they made him. Beyond the portrait of Lothario, small ground for praise can be found in The Fair Penitent. That part of the action of The Fatal Dowry which under Rowe’s treatment antedates the rise of the curtain is narrated in the most stiffly mechanical sort of exposition; the action is developed by such threadbare theatrical devices as a lost letter and an overheard conversation; the voluble speeches of the several characters are, throughout, declamatory effusions almost unbelievably divorced from the apposite utterance of any rational human being under the circumstances. An Altamont who has been assured and reassured from his bride’s own lips of her aversion for him can fling himself from a quarrel with his life-long friend in hysterical defence of her, to seek solace in her arms—

a Sciolto who has given his daughter a dagger with which to end her shame, and then has arrested her willing arm with the prayer that she will not dispatch herself until he is gone from the sight of her, can thereupon take leave of her with the statement:

 The play, which enjoyed an immense fame, high contemporary appreciation, and a long career on the stage, remains a curious memorial of the taste of a bygone day.

It is noteworthy that in The Fair Penitent Horatio, as Romont in all modern reproductions of The Fatal Dowry, is the great acting part—not the husband.

In 1758 was produced at the Hay market a drama entitled The Insolvent or Filial Piety, from the pen of Aaron Hill. In the preface it is said—according to Genest (IV, 538)—“Wilks about 30 years before gave an old manuscript play, called the Guiltless Adulteress, to Theo. Cibber who was manager of what then was the Summer Company—after an interval of several years this play was judged to want a revisal to fit it for representation—Aaron 

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