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R. Cruikshank, Del.

George Barnwell.

White, Sc.

Barnwell. Preserve her, Heaven, and restore her peace! nor let her death be added to my crimes!

Act V.

GEORGE BARNWELL:

A TRAGEDY,

In Five Acts,

BY GEORGE LILLO, b

PRINTED FROM THE ACTING COPY, WITH REMARKS, BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL.

To which are added,

A DESCRIPTION OF THE COSTUME,-CAST OF THE CHARAGTERS, EXITS AND ENTRANCES, RELATIVE POSITIONS OF THE PERFORMERS ON THE STAGE, AND THE WHOLE OF THE STAGE

BUSINESS,

As now performed at the

THEATRES ROYAL, LONDON.

EMBELLISHED WITH A WOOD ENGRAVING, By Mr. WHITE, from a Drawing by Mr. R. CRUIKSHANK.

LONDON:

JOHN CUMBERLAND, 19, LUDGATE HILL.

CRITICAL REMARKS

ON THE

TRAGEDY OF GEORGE BARNWELL.

THE play of George Barnwell is from the pen of ✔ Lillo, who dared to divert tragedy from the affairs of kings and nobles, to the sorrows, crimes, and misfortunes, of every-day life. In general, when this attempt has been successfully made, it has been found to produce sensations of deeper and more afflicting agony than attends the representation of the woes of the ordinary heroes. We sympathise more with those whose condition more nearly approaches our

own.

This assertion has been most signally proved in two of the plays of the author before us. The "Fatal Curiosity," and "Arden of Feversham,” were, it is said, interrupted by the audience in the scenes where the father goes, stimulated by his wife, to murder his unknown son; and where the hired assassins steal in to slay Arden, sitting happy and unconscious of his impending misfortune with his supposed friend, and his beloved but guilty wife. It looked too like an actual cold-blooded murder, and the people assembled would have considered themselves accomplices if they did not interfere to prevent it.

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