The flattering Reception which the Natural Son, under the altered title of Lovers Vows, has experienced from an English Audience, in an abridged and mutilated State, affords Reason to believe that a complete Translation of so admirable a Drama will entitle itself to a still higher Degree of Public Approbation. The Natural Son, since its first Appearance in Germany, has uniformly ranked among the most favourite Productions of the Pen of its illustrious Author; its Celebrity had long attracted the Notice of the Translator, and a Perusal of it satisfied her, that it was one of those brilliant Dramatic Meteors, whose Lustre ought to be extended from the German to the English Horizon.

On the first Night of the Representation of Lovers' Vows, she attended the Theatre, and felt much surprized at the Extent of the Alterations and Omissions which had been made. She readily admitted that these Alterations might have been necessary to accommodate the Play to the Taste of an English Audience. Still, however, as she was satisfied that the Piece had been divested of many of its principal Beauties, and that itdid not reflect the Mind, the Principles, and the Genius of Kotzebue—she felt herself irresistibly prompted to present her favourite Author to the Public, in the Form he had chosen for himself, anxious that, as a Dramatic Writer he should be brought to a fair Trial at the Bar of Criticism. She wished him to be exhibited in his own native Garb, not, as he emphatically expresses himself in his Preface, "in the borrowed Plumage of others." It has, therefore, been her Desire, that the Public might be enabled to feel the Merits of the Author, and appreciate the Value of the Alterations.

The most essential Deviation respects the important comic Character of the Count von der Mulde, or Cassel, which scarcely possesses a single Feature of the Original. As it stands here, the Reader will observe that it is an exquisitely finished and highly-wrought Portrait of a German Coxcomb. Whether this Character might have been relished by an English Audience the Translator will not pretend to decide; her own Judgment, however, leads her to think that it would have had much more Effect in its original, than in its altered State. Divested of all its marked Features as a German Coxcomb, particularly of the French Phrases so appropriate to that Character, yet not wholly transformed into an English Petit Maitre, we scarcely understand among what Description of Persons he is intended to be classed. The Baron indeed calls him a complete Monkey, but the smart Repartees put into his Mouth, seem wholly inconsistent with the small Talents bespoken by that Appellation. This very Appellation, however, is a Deviation from the Original, where he is called a Coxcomb; but perhaps this arose from a Mistake of the Translator's, between Laffen (a Coxcomb) and Affen (an Ape.) Moreover, from being one of the most prominent Personages in the Play, and designed as a forcible Contrast to the plain and grave, but elevated Character of Frederick, he is now degraded into a subordinate State, which leaves the Performance without a due Share of Comic Interest, and the happy Effect of the Contrast is lost. The last Scene between him and the Baron, is made to bear too much Resemblance to that where Frederick discovers himself to the Baron as his Son, and consequently has a Tendency to weaken the Effect of the latter Scene, which ought to have been preserved as the most impressive in the whole Play.

The play explicitly links the political crisis it is analyzing to the sequestration of women and children in ostensibly 'safe spaces'. This sequestration allows the family and the political to become realms of exclusively male homosocial transactions. That these transactions are unable to protect mothers and children is an important critique of late eighteenth century governmentality whether conceived in terms of bourgeois hegemony grounded on the deployment of sexuality or in terms of Burkean paternalism. In my opinion, The Massacre's importance lies in this political gesture for it explicitly argues a) that it is women who primarily suffer the violence of male homosocial relations and b) that this is a problem in the constitution of politics itself. The play also insists that this gender critique is not party specific but rather universal. The trial which dominates Act III at first seems to be setting up Glandeve's rational advocation of political difference as the sign of true liberty. This re-establishment of civil society is explicitly figured as the solution of the threat of class warfare embodied by Dugas. However, Glandeve's simple re-assertion of bourgeois dominance may save Eusèbe Tricastin and his father, but does little for the preservation of his wife and children. In this light, Glandeve's rational jurisprudence begins to look like a salvage project in which bourgeois and landed men are saving themselves from the tangible violence instantiated by the social inequality which defines their privilege. Inchbald seems to be re-asserting the cost of such a practice.

The Amelia in Lovers' Vows, so far from being the artless innocent Child of Nature, drawn by Kotzebue, appears a forward Country Hoyden, who deviates in many Instances from the established Usages of Society, and the Decorums of her Sex, in a manner wholly unwarranted by the Original. The most amiable traits in her Character are distorted and disguised, by a Pertness which greatly detracts from the Esteem which her benevolent Conduct would inspire. Perhaps the latter may be better suited to Representation, before an English Audience, but in the Closet the Amelia of Kotzebue must excite the stronger Degree of Interest.

Some interesting Scenes and exquisite Touches of Nature are omitted. This the Translator has Reason to suspect arose from the Imperfection of the Translation put into Mrs. Inchbald's Hands.

In the Fifth Scene of the First Act, the Benevolence of the Country Girl is not sufficiently displayed, through the Omission of the Passage in which she gives some Milk to the fainting Wilhelmina.