All the principal characters being now dead, the piece cannot go
on, and the curtain drops.
A word or two on the merits of _Nina Sforza_. There are two classes of
dramatists who are just now contending for fame--those who cannot get
their plays acted because they are not dramatic, and those who can,
because their pieces are _merely_ dramatic. Mr.--we beg pardon, R. Zouch
S. Troughton, Esquire,--belongs to the latter class. He is evidently well
acquainted with the mechanics of the stage; he knows all about
"situation"--that is, sacrificing nature to startling effect. His language
is essentially dramatic, and only fails where it aims at being poetical.
His characters, too, are not drawn from life, from nature, but are
copied--and cleverly copied--from other characters that strut about in the
"stock" tragedies of Rowe _et hoc genus_. The fable, or plot, is
deficient, from the absence of one sustaining, pervading incident to
excite, and keep up a progressive interest. With every new act a new
circumstance arises, which, though it is in some instances (especially in
the fourth act) conducted with great skill, yet the interest it produces
is not sustained, being made to give place to the author's succeeding
effort to get up a new "situation" by a new incident.
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