OTWAY, TliocAs, an English dramatist, was b. Mar. 3, 1651, at Trotton, near Med hurst, Sussex. He left Oxford without taking a degree, and went to London in search of fortune in 1671. He appeared on the stage, but made a signal failure; and next he applied himself to dramatic composition. In 1675 Alcibiades, his first tragedy, was printed;- and in the following year lie produced Don Carlos, a play which was extremely popular, and "got more money than any preceding modern tragedy." His first comedy, Priendship in Fashion, appeased in 1678, and, being sufficiently immoral to please the taste of the age, met with general appreciation. In 1,77 Otway received a cornet's commission in a regiment, which, however, was disbanded in 1678, and Otway, resum ing his former occupation, produced the tragedy of acing Marius in 1680. In the same year The Orphan met with an extraordinary, and, in some respects, it deserved measure of success. In 1681 The Soldier of Fortune, and in the following year the finest of all
his plays, Venice Preserved. were produced. From this time till his death, the poet had much to endure from poverty and neglect. Debts accumulating upon him, he retired to an obscure public-house on Tower-hill, for the purpose of avoiding his creditors, and here, at the premature age of 34, he died, April 14, 1685. Although Otway tiehleVcd a brilliant reputation during his lifetime, although he is described by Dryden as possess ing a power of moving the passions which he himself did not possess, and la.er by sir Walter Scott as being Shakespeare's equal, if not his superior, in depicting the power of affection; yet his plots are artificial, and his language is without fancy, melody, or polish.