Samuel Brandon (author)

''The Virtuous Octavia''

Nothing is known of Brandon, except that he was the author of The Tragi-comœdi of the Virtuous Octavia. This, his one play, is described by John Joseph Knight in the first edition of The Dictionary of National Biography as "a work of some merit and of considerable value and rarity."

The Virtuous Octavia is modelled on Samuel Daniel's Cleopatra. John Payne Collier, writing in 1831, noted Brandon's innovative use of compound epithets of a type derived from ancient Greek literature, such as "pearl-dropping showers", "sceptre-bearing hands" and "terror-breeding crown".

Two epistles between Octavia and Mark Antony, in an imitation of Ovid's style, but written in long Alexandrines are appended to the play. a phrase described in the play's entry in the Biographia Dramatica (1812) as "an instance among many of the vanity of authors, who flatter themselves into an imaginary immortality, which frequently terminates even before the close of their mortal existence, much less extends beyond it".

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Sources

References

1. There are no contemporary records of the play, except for its entry in the register of the [[Stationers' Company]] for 1598, and it was not reprinted until 1909.Introduction to the Malone Society reprint of ''The Virtuous Octavia'', Oxford, 1909.
2. Baker, David Erskine. (1812). "Biographia Dramatica Or a Companion to the Playhouse". Longmann, Hurst.
3. (1831). "History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakspeare and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration, Volume 3". F. J. Murray, 1831.