Nicholas Rowe (writer) many years regularly acted on the anniversary of William's landing at Torbay. In Dublin in 1712, at a time when political passions were running high, the performance provoked a serious riot. "The Fair Penitent" (1703), an adaptation of Massinger and Field's "The Fatal Dowry", was pronounced by Samuel Johnson as one of the most pleasing tragedies ever written in English. It featured the character of Lothario from "The Impertinent Curious Man", a story within a story in Miguel de Cervantes' 1605 novel "Don Quixote". As a result of this play, the name became synonymous with a rake (womaniser). Calista is
Restoration literature pathetic tragedy. Elizabeth Howe has argued that the most important explanation for the shift in taste was the emergence of tragic actresses whose popularity made it unavoidable for dramatists to create major roles for them. With the conjunction of the playwright "master of pathos" Thomas Otway and the great tragedienne Elizabeth Barry in "The Orphan", the focus shifted from hero to heroine. Prominent she-tragedies include John Banks's "Virtue Betrayed, or, Anna Bullen" (1682) (about the execution of Anne Boleyn), Thomas Southerne's "The Fatal Marriage" (1694), and Nicholas Rowe's "The Fair Penitent" (1703) and "Lady Jane Grey", 1715. While she-tragedies were