Nicholas Rowe (writer) said to have suggested to Samuel Richardson the character of Clarissa Harlowe, as Lothario suggested Lovelace. Samuel Johnson noted of "The Fair Penitent" that, "The story is domestic, and therefore easily received by the imagination, and assimilated to common life; the diction is exquisitely harmonious, and soft or spritely as occasion requires." In 1704, Rowe tried his hand at comedy, producing "The Biter" at Lincoln's Inn Fields, which was unsuccessful, and Rowe returned to tragedy in "Ulysses" (1706). According to Johnson, this play was to share the fate of many such plays based on mythological heroes, as, "We have been
Fair Play Men John Walker, and James Brandon. They are the only commissioners whose names are now known and it is conjectured that they were the only three for the duration of the Fair Play system. The American Revolutionary War started in April 1775. Men from the area volunteered to serve in the Continental Army that year. Most of the settlers in the West Branch Susquehanna River valley were for the revolution. On July 4, 1776, the Fair Play Men met on the west bank of Pine Creek near the mouth of the West Branch Susquehanna River and declared their Independence from Britain.