GEORGE, a dramatist, was born in 1693, near Moorgate, in London, where he subsequently conducted a successful business as a jeweller. His first play, *Silvia*, produced in 1731, and written after the model of the *Beggar's Opera*, met with little success. Yet in the following year his tragedy of *George Barnwell* was acted at Drury Lane to crowded houses for twenty successive nights, and gained the notice of Queen Caroline, who requested to peruse the manuscript. His best tragedy, *Fatal Curiosity*, produced at Haymarket Theatre in 1736, was attended with little success on its first appearance, but in the following year, through the friendly exertions of Henry Fielding, who was then manager, it was received with a fair amount of applause. About the same time was written his *Arden of Feversham*, modernized from an old tragedy of the same name. He died in 1739, shortly after finishing his tragedy of *Elmerick*. Leaving the high-bred sorrows and fancy-striking scenes of romantic tragedy, Lillo endeavoured to rivet the sympathies by the bare depicting of the woes and fatal passions of domestic life. His temporary success may be referred to the novelty of the plan, and (in his *Fatal Curiosity* especially) to the truthful description of the workings of human passion, and to the consummate art in the construction of the plot. The neglect into which this drama just named has fallen is a conclusive proof that the proper sphere of tragedy is amid scenes that afford at once a theme for poetry and a tale of pity,—that exalt the imagination while they affect the heart. His *Dramatic Works* were published, with an account of his life, by Thomas Davies, in 2 vols. 8vo, in 1775, and reprinted in 1811.