The Prologue is a continued invective against the Whigs, and whether considered as a party libel, or an induction to a new play, is in every respect unworthy of the great hand that wrote it.  His next play was a Comedy, called the Disappointment, or the Mother in Fashion, performed in the year 1684.—­After the accession of king James the IId to the throne, when the duke of Monmouth made an unfortunate attempt upon his uncle’s crown, Mr. Southern went into the army, in the regiment of foot raised by the lord Ferrers, afterwards commanded by the duke of Berwick; and he had three commissions, viz. ensign, lieutenant, and captain, under King James, in that regiment.

During the reign of this prince, in the year before the Revolution, he wrote a Tragedy called the Spartan Dame, which however was not acted till the year 1721.  The subject is taken from the Life of Agis in Plutarch, where the character of Chelonis, between the duties of a wife and daughter was thought to have a near resemblance to that of King William’s Queen Mary.  ’I began this play, says Mr. Southern, a year before the Revolution, and near four acts written without any view.  Many things interfering with those times, I laid by what I had written for seventeen years:  I shewed it then to the late duke of Devonshire, who was in every regard a judge; he told me he saw no reason why it might not have been acted the year of the Revolution:  I then finished it, and as I thought cut out the exceptionable parts, but could not get it acted, not being able to persuade myself to the cutting off those limbs, which I thought essential to the strength and life of it.  But since I found it must pine in obscurity without it, I consented to the operation, and after the amputation of every line, very near to the number of 400, it stands on its own legs still, and by the favour of the town, and indulging assistance of friends, has come successfully forward on the stage.’  This play was inimitably acted.  Mr. Booth, Mr. Wilks, Mr. Cibber, Mr. Mills, sen.  Mrs. Oldfield, and Mrs. Porter, all performed in it, in their heighth of reputation, and the full vigour of their powers.

Mr. Southern acknowledges in his preface to this play, that the last scene of the third Act, was almost all written by the honourable John Stafford, father to the earl of Stafford.  Mr. Southern has likewise acknowledged, that he received from the bookseller, as a price for this play, 150 l. which at that time was very extraordinary.  He was the first who raised the advantage of play writing to a second and third night, which Mr. Pope mentions in the following manner,

  —­Southern born to raise,
  The price of Prologues and of Plays.