As the test of repentance is amendment, those critics may be deemed just, who
allege—that this play has not a proper title. Calista² is no penitent, in a religious acceptation of the word; for, though
she laments her fall from virtue with all the anguish of degraded pride, she is still
enamoured of the cause from whence her guilt originated, and feels deeper sorrow from
her lover's abated passion (the natural consequence of her frailty) than from motives
of contrition.

It is not requisite here to ascertain what kind of education the ladies of Italy
received, at the time Rowe placed these
scenes on the "Ligurian shore;"³ —but certain it is, that, since the ladies of Great Britain
have learnt to spell, and have made other short steps in the path of literature, the
once highly favoured Lothario of illiterate
times has sunk in estimation, and there is scarcely a woman of this country who can
sympathise in the grief of the fair penitent, whose degraded taste could prefer, to
an ho-
b 2[Page 4]nourable
and valiant youth, his "skipping, dancing, worthless"⁴ rival.

Whatever reasons may be urged against the more elevated instruction of the sex at
present, than in former days, one good consequence at least accrues from
it—they are better qualified than heretofore to chuse their lovers and
husbands. It was in the age of female ignorance that the Lotharios, and the yet viler Lovelaces, flourished. Were you, ye
fair, but cautious whom you trust,Did you but think how seldom fools are just.
⁵ Again— Of all the various wretches
love has made,How few have been by men of sense
betray'd!⁶
Now, enlightened by a degree of masculine study,
women's taste and judgment being improved—this best consequence of all
ensues—men must improve to win them.

There is in this fascinating play a strange mixture of the severity of ancient Rome,
and the profligacy of modern Italy. In one scene, a father dooms his daughter to
death for the loss of virgin honour⁷ —in another,
the licentious recitals of her successful paramour class among the other vices,
repugnant to honour and every honourable decorum, which blackens this libertine's
character.

[Page 5]

In respect to the ultimate morality of the play, critics give two different opinions.
Its immoral tendency is deduced from the influence of beholding so enchanting a
personage as Lothario, a villanous seducer,
and malicious vain boaster. But, referring to that which has just been said of him,
there remains this question—Is Lothario really thus enchanting? Or, granting the author meant to make him
so, it is likely that the actor will render him the most insignificant character in
the drama. It is a part so difficult to represent, that not more than one performer
was ever known to succeed in its delineation. This difficulty would almost raise the
hope,—that the beautiful and the base can never combine, except in the fiction
of poetry.

That party of critics, in opposition, who extol this play for its moral purport,
should recollect, that, on account of present modes and fashions, its power of
example is much confined. Loss of maiden innocence is now limited to the poor female
domestic and orphan apprentice. Women of fortune and quality, for whose instruction
the style and manners of this tragedy seem most designed, are scarcely assailable
in
the state of spinsters. The great will preserve importance even in their crimes; and
a woman of superior rank in life is rarely guilty of a breach of
chastity—beneath the sin of adultery.

b 3