The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume VIII. The Age of Dryden.
§ 14. The Rival Queens
The Rival Queens and Theodosius supplied favourite parts to many of the most gifted tragic actors not only of their own day, but, also, in the next century. Alexander, in The Rival Queens, was one of Betterton’s most popular rôles, and he played leading parts in all Lee’s later productions; while Hart and Mohun acquired fame in his earlier pieces. At a later date, Charles Kemble and Mrs. Powell and Edmund Kean and Mrs. Glover revived The Rival Queens with marked success. And it is easy to understand how thrilling, in their hands, must have been the scenes of white-hot elemental passion in which Lee abounds. He was consistently a candidate for immediate popular favour. He gave the court what it liked—heroic plays on French lines, with a strong appeal to the senses, and characters capable of being played with immense effect and abandon by gifted actors and actresses. It may be accounted a significant, though hardly a surprising, fact that, at a time when almost everything—good, bad and indifferent—has been reprinted, no publisher has been found courageous enough to undertake an edition of Lee. No analysis of his extravagance can give so distinct an impression of it as an example, and the following description in Lucius Junius Brutus, of a young boy’s grief, is typical of many similar absurdities scattered up and down his plays: