was somewhat poor, and made it his principal aim to please, and tickle the common people; and since they were almost always delighted with something new, strange, and unusual, the better to humour them, he was not only frequently extravagant in his expressions, but likewise in his characters too, and drew them often more vicious, more covetous, and more foolish than they really were, and this so set the people a gazing and wondering.  With these sort of characters many of our modern Comedies abound, which makes them too much degenerate into farce, which seldom fails of pleasing the mob.’

Mr. Eachard has, in justice to Mr. Dryden, given us some instances of his improvement of Amphitryon, and concludes them with this just remark in compliment to our nation; ’We find that many fine things of the ancients, are like seeds, that when planted on English ground, by a poet’s skilful hand, thrive and produce excellent fruit.’

These three plays are printed in a pocket-volume, dedicated to Sir Charles Sedley; to which is prefixed a recommendatory copy of verses, by Mr. Tate.

Mr. Eachard died in the year 1730.

* * * * *

Mr. John Oldmixon,

Was descended from the ancient family of the Oldmixons, of Oldmixon near Bridgewater in Somersetshire[A].  We have no account of the education of this gentleman, nor the year in which he was born.  The first production we meet with of his was Amyntas, a pastoral, acted at the Theatre-Royal, taken from the Amynta of Tasso.  The preface informs us, that it met with but ill success, for pastoral, though never so well written, is not fit for a long entertainment on the English Theatre:  But the original pleased in Italy, where the performance of the musical composer is generally more regarded than that of the poet.  The Prologue was written by Mr. Dennis.  Mr. Oldmixon’s next piece was entitled the Grave, or Love’s Paradise; an Opera represented at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane, 1700.  In the preface, the author acquaints the critics, ’That this play is neither translation, nor parody; that the story is intirely new; that ’twas at first intended for a pastoral, tho’ in the three last acts the dignity of the character raised it into the form of a tragedy.’  The scene a Province of Italy, near the Gulph of Venice.  The Epilogue was written by Mr. Farquhar.

Our author’s next dramatic piece is entitled:  The Governor of Cyprus, a Tragedy, acted at the Theatre-Royal in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, dedicated to her grace the duchess of Bolton.

Mr. Oldmixon, in a Prose Essay on Criticism, unjustly censures Mr. Addison, whom also, in his imitation of Bouhour’s Arts of Logic and Rhetoric, he misrepresents in plain matter of fact:  For in page 45 he cites the Spectator, as abusing Dr. Swift by name, where there is not the least hint of it; and in page 304 is so injurious as to suggest, that Mr. Addison himself wrote that Tatler, Numb.  XLIII. which says of his own simile, ’That it is as great as ever entered into the mind of man.’  This simile is in Addison’s poem, entitled the Campaign.  Where, says the author of the Letter, ’The simile of a ministering Angel, sets forth the most sedate and the most active courage, engaged in an uproar of nature, a confusion of elements, and a scene of divine vengeance.’