THOMAS, an eminent tragic poet, was the son of Mr Humphry Otway, rector of Wolbeding in Sussex; and was born at Trotton in that county on the 3d of March 1651. He was educated at Oxford; when, leaving the university without a degree, he retired to London, where he commenced player, but with indifferent success. However, the sprightliness of his conversation gained him the favour of Charles Fitz-Charles earl of Plymouth, who procured him a cornet's commission in one of the new-raised regiments sent into Flanders; but he returned from thence in very necessitous circumstances, and applied himself again to writing for the stage. In comedy he has been deemed too licentious; which, however, was no great objection to his pieces in the profligate days of Charles II. But, in tragedy, few English poets have ever equalled him; and perhaps none ever excelled him in touching the passions, particularly the tender passion. There is generally something familiar and domestic in the fable of his tragedies, and there is amazing energy in his expression.—The heart that doth not melt at the distresses of his Orphan must be hard indeed! But though Otway possessed in so eminent a degree the rare talent of writing to the heart, yet he was not very favourably regarded by some of his cotemporary poets, nor was he always successful in his dramatic compositions. After experiencing many reverses of fortune in regard to his circumstances, but generally changing for the worse, he at last died wretchedly in a public house on Tower-hill; whither, it is supposed, he had retired, in order to avoid the preface of his creditors. Some have said, that downright hunger compelling him to fall too eagerly on a piece of bread, of which he had been for some time in want, the first mouthful choked him, and instantly put a period to his days. Dr Johnson gives this account of the matter: "He died in a manner which I am unwilling to mention. Having been compelled by his necessities to contract debts, and hunted, as is supposed by the terrours of the law, he retired to a public house on Tower-hill, where he died of want; or, as it is related by one of his biographers, by swallowing, after a long fast, a piece of bread which charity had supplied. He went out, as is reported, almost naked, in the rage of hunger, and finding a gentleman in a neighbouring coffee-house, asked him for a filling. The gentleman gave him a guinea; and Otway going away bought a roll, and was choked with the first mouthful. All this, I hope, is not true; but that indigence, and its concomitants, sorrow and despondency, brought him to the grave, has never been denied."

Johnson speaks of him in nearly these terms: Otway had not much cultivated versification, nor much replenished his mind with general knowledge. His principal power was in moving the passions, to which Dryden in his latter years left an illustrious testimony. He appears, by some of his verses, to have been a zealous royalist; and had what was in those times the common reward of loyalty; he lived and died neglected.—His dramatic writings are nine in number; the most admired of which are, The Orphan, and Venice Preserved. He had also made some translations, and wrote several miscellaneous poems. His whole works are printed in two pocket volumes. He wrote four acts of a play which are lost.