[3] The famous playwright August von Kotzebue claimed that the misanthropic character was stolen from his Menschenhass und Reue.

Neither Hamlet, nor Macbeth, nor Othello, nor Douglas, nor the Gamester, presented any thing that could satisfy even the tragedians; and the Rivals, the School for Scandal, Wheel of Fortune, Heir at Law, and a long et cætera, were successively dismissed with yet warmer objections.

[6]In December 1796 Ann Brunton Merry played the role of Emily Tempest at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia.

[8] The comic lawyer Timothy Weazel finds Roderick Penruddock, who has been living for twenty years in isolated misanthropy, embittered against Arabella and his enemy Woodville.

The appeals and his own pangs of conscience cause Penruddock to repent, turn to forgiveness, abandon his plans for revenge, and bestow a fortune upon Henry Woodville and Emily.