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
The Fair Penitent The Fair Penitent The Fair Penitent is Nicholas Rowe's stage adaptation of the tragedy "The Fatal Dowry," the Philip Massinger and Nathan Field collaboration first published in 1632. Rowe's adaptation, premiered onstage in 1702 and first published in 1703, was a great popular success through much of the 18th century, and was praised by critics as demanding as Samuel Johnson ("There is scarcely any work of any poet so interesting by the fable and so delightful in the language"). In making his adaptation, Rowe eliminated characters and simplified the action "to create a more focused play than the original." He