skilfully," says Lamb, "to touch a soul to the quick, to lay upon fear as much as it can bear, to wean and weary a life till it is ready to drop, and then step in with mortal instruments to take its last forfeit, this only a Webster can do." Few dramatists, indeed, equal him in the steadiness with which he gazes into the awful depths of passion, and the stern nerve with which he portrays the dusky and terrible shapes which flit vaguely in its dark abysses. Souls black with guilt, or burdened with misery, or ghastly with fear, he probes to their innermost recesses, and both dissects and represents. His mind had the sense of the supernatural in large measure, and it gives to many of his scenes a dim and fearful grandeur, which affects the soul like a shadow cast from another world. He forces the most conventional of his characters into situations which lay open the very constitution of their natures, and thus compels them to act from the primitive springs of feeling and passion. He begins with duke and duchess, he ends with man and woman. The idea of death asserts itself more strongly in his writings than in those of his contemporaries. In The White Devil, the poisoned Brachiano exclaims, "On pain of death, let no man name death to me: No person could have written the last line without having brooded deeply over the mystery of the grave. It belongs to that "wild, solemn, preternatural cast of grief which bewilders us" in Webster. He fully realized, in relation to tragic effect, that present fears are less than "horrible imaginings. With this sombre and unearthly hue tinging his mind, he is still not deficient in touches of simple nature, wrought out with exquisite art and knowledge, and producing effects the most pathetic or sublime. The death-scene of the Duchess of Malfy is a grand example. This proud, highhearted woman is persecuted by her two brothers with a strange accumulation of horrors, designed, with a devilish ingenuity, gradually to break her heart and madden her brain. We give the whole scene, commencing at that point where she hears the noise of the madmen. Lamb very truly remarks," She speaks the dialect of despair, her tongue has a snatch of Tartarus and the souls in bale. What are 'Luke's iron crown,' the brazen bull of Perillus, Procrustes' bed, to the waxen images which counterfeit death, to the wild masque of madmen, the tomb-maker, the bellman, the living person's dirge, the mortification by degrees!" "DUCHESS. CARIOLA. "Duch. What hideous noise was that? "Car. "T is the wild consort Of madmen, Lady, which your tyrant brother I think, was never practis'd till this hour. "Duch. Indeed, I thank him; nothing but noise and folly Can keep me in my right wits, whereas reason And silence make me stark mad; sit down, "Car. O't will increase your melancholy. To hear of greater grief would lessen mine. "Car. Yes: but thou shalt live To shake this durance off. "Duch. Thou art a fool. The Robin-red-breast and the Nightingale Never live long in cages. "Car. Pray, dry your eyes. What think you of, Madam? "Duch. Of nothing: When I muse thus, I sleep. "Car. Like a madman, with your eyes open? In the other world? "Car. Yes, out of question. "Duch. O that it were possible we might But hold some two days' conference with the dead ! I never shall know here. I'll tell thee a miracle; I am not mad yet, to my cause of sorrow. Th' heaven o'er my head seems made of molten brass, I am acquainted with sad misery, As the tann'd galley-slave is with his oar; Necessity makes me suffer constantly, And custom makes it easy. Who do I look like now? "Car. Like to your picture in the gallery; A deal of life in show, but none in practice : "Duch. Very proper: And Fortune seems only to have her eyesight, To behold my tragedy : how now, What noise is that? "A Servant enters. you, "Serv. I am come to tell Your brother hath intended you some sport. With several sorts of madmen, which wild object "Duch. Let them come in. "Here follows a Dance of Madmen, with Music answerable thereto : after which Bosola ( like an old Man) enters. "Duch. Is he mad too? "Bos. I am come to make thy tomb. "Duch. Ha: my tomb? Thou speak'st as if I lay upon my death-bed, Gasping for breath: dost thou perceive me sick? "Bos. Yes, and the more dangerously since thy sickness is insensible. "Duch. Thou art not mad sure: dost know me ? "Bos. Yes. "Duch. Who am I? "Bos. Thou art a box of wormseed; at best but a salvatory of green mummy. What's this flesh? a little crudded milk, fantastical puff-paste. Our bodies are weaker than those paperprisons boys use to keep flies in: more contemptible; since ours is to preserve earth-worms. Didst thou ever see a lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass; and the heaven o 'er our heads, like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison. "Duch. Am not I thy duchess? "Bos. Thou art some great woman sure, for riot begins to sit on thy forehead (clad in gray hairs) twenty years sooner than on a merry milk-maid's. Thou sleepest worse, than if a mouse should be forced to take up her lodging in a cat's ear: a little infant that breeds its teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou wert the more unquiet bedfellow. "Duch. I am Duchess of Malfy still. "Bos. That makes thy sleeps so broken: Glories, like glowworms, afar off shine bright; But, look'd too near, have neither heat nor light. "Duch. Thou art very plain. "Bos. My trade is to flatter the dead, not the living. I am a tomb-maker. "Duch. And thou comest to make my tomb? "Bos. Yes. "Duch. Let me be a little merry. Of what stuff wilt thou make it? "Bos. Nay, resolve me first; of what fashion? "Duch. Why, do we grow fantastical in our death-bed? Do we affect fashion in the grave ? "Bos. Most ambitiously. Princes' images on their tombs do not lie as they were wont, seeming to pray up to heaven: but with their hands under their cheeks (as if they died of the tooth-ache): they are not carved with their eyes fixed upon the stars; but, as their minds were wholly bent upon the world, the same way they seem to turn their faces. "Duch. Let me know fully therefore the effect Of this thy dismal preparation, This talk, fit for a charnel. "Bos. Now I shall. [A Coffin, Cords, and a Bell, produced. Here is a present from your princely brothers; And may it arrive welcome, for it brings Last benefit, last sorrow. "Duch. Let me see it, I have so much obedience in my blood, I wish it in their veins to do them good. "Duch. Peace, it affrights not me. "Duch. Even now thou saidst, Thou wast a tomb-maker. "Bos. "Twas to bring you Bydegrees to mortification: Listen. Much you had of land and rent; Your length in clay 's now competent. Of what is 't fools make such vain keeping? 'T is now full tide 'tween night and day: End your groan, and come away. "Čar. Hence, villains, tyrants, murderers: alas! What will you do with my lady? Call for help. "Duch. To whom; to our next neighbours? They are mad folks. Farewell, Cariola. I pray thee look thou giv'st my little boy Some syrup for his cold; and let the girl Say her pray'rs ere she sleep. Now what you please; "Bos. Strangling. Here are your executioners. The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough o' the lungs, Would do as much as they do. "Bos. Doth not death fright you? "Duch. Who would be afraid on 't, Knowing to meet such excellent company In th' other world? "Bos. Yet methinks, The manner of your death should much afflict you; "Duch. Not a whit. What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut With diamonds? or to be smothered With cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls? I know, death hath ten thousand several doors For men to take their exits; and 't is found They go on such strange geometrical hinges, You may open them both ways: any way: (for heav'n sake) So I were out of your whispering: tell my brothers, That I perceive death (now I'm well awake) Best gift is they can give or I can take. |