Better than the Restoration ones. More passionate, less comedy of manners, less rigidity. Includes: Rowe, The Fair Penitent (a "she-tragedy," in which a heroine, with an ill-advised passion, brings destruction upon herself and her family); Steele, The Conscious Lovers (a comedy, meaning marked by "gravity, tenderness, hope, fear...variety of events, change of fortune, unexpected disaster, sudden joy, a happy ending); Gay, The Beggar's Opera; Lillo, The London Merchant; Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, and Sheridan's School for Scandal. The Beggar's Opera and She Stoops are the best of them. ( )