Now hear the resounding talk of Memnon:

I know no court but martial,

No oily language but the shock of arms,
No dalliance but with death, no lofty measures
But weary and sad marches, cold and hunger,
'Larums at midnight Valor's self would shake at;
Yet, I ne'er shrunk. Balls of consuming wildfire,
That licked men up like lightning have I laughed at,
And tossed 'em back again, like children's trifles.
Upon the edge of my enemies' swords

I have marched like whirlwinds, Fury at this hand waiting.
Death at my right, Fortune my forlorn hope:

When I have grappled with Destruction,

And tugged with pale-faced Ruin, Night and Mischief,
Frighted to see a new day break in blood.'1

These contrasts are characteristic,- timidity, grace, devotion, patience; boldness, fury, contempt for consequences, concern only for the wild, reckless whim of the moment. Sometimes the heroic spirit appears, not as a mere flash, but as a character. When the Egyptians, to propitiate the mighty Cæsar, bring him Pompey's head, he says nobly, grandly, of his mortal enemy:

Egyptians, dare ye think your highest pyramids,
Built to out-dure the sun, as you suppose,
Where your unworthy kings lie raked in ashes,
Are monuments fit for him? No, brood of Nilus,
Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven.

No pyramids set off his memories,

But the eternal substance of his greatness;

To which I leave him.'2

Scattered all over these dramas are exquisite lyrics, luxuriant descriptions, which show the poet greater than the dramatist. He who would have left the hoof-prints of unclean beasts in Paradise, could sing, in the rebound from sportive excess:

'Hence, all you vain delights,

As short as are the nights

Wherein you spend your folly!
There's naught in this life sweet,

If man were wise to see't,

But only melancholy;

O sweetest melancholy!

Welcome, folded arms and fixed eyes,

A sigh that piercing mortifies,

A look that's fasten'd to the ground,

A tongue chain'd up without a sound!
Fountain heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves!
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly hous'd, save bats and owls!

A midnight bell, a parting groan,

These are the sounds we feed upon;

Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley;
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.'

He who sold his birthright with posterity for the loathsome pottage of contemporary praise, could, in his diviner moods, regale the soul with medicinal sweets. For example, how charming are the aspects of his landscape, of the dewy verdant grove, where on a summer night, after their custom, the young men and girls go to gather flowers and plight their troth

Thro' yon same bending plain

That flings his arm down to the main,
And thro' these thick woods, have I run,
Whose bottom never kiss'd the sun
Since the lusty spring began. . . .

For to that holy wood is consecrate

A virtuous well, about whose flow'ry banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds,
By the pale moon-shine, dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying flesh, and dull mortality.
By this fair fount hath many a shepherd sworn
And given away his freedom, many a troth
Been plight, which neither Envy nor old Time
Could ever break, with many a chaste kiss given

In hope of coming happiness: by this

Fresh fountain many a blushing maid

Hath crowned the head of her long-loved shepherd
With gaudy flowers, whilst he happy sung

Lays of his love and dear captivity.

See the dew-drops, how they kiss

Ev'ry little flower that is;

Hanging on their velvet heads

Like a rope of crystal beads.

See the heavy clouds low falling

And bright Hesperus down calling

The dead Night from underground.'

In Massinger there is the same deplorable evil — licentious incident. But we remember that decorum was then unknown, and that his vital sympathies were for justice and virtue. He sang, like the nightingale, darkling. His life was spent in conflict and distress. Hence nowhere is he so great as when he describes the struggles of the brave through trial to victory, the unmerited sufferings of the pure, and the righteous terrors of conscience. If ever his placid spirit rises to ecstasy, the ecstasy is moral. Passages like the following are the best of him, ethically and poetically:

'Look on the poor

With gentle eyes, for in such habits, often,
Angels desire an alms.'

'By these blessed feet

That pace the paths of equity, and tread boldly
On the stiff neck of tyrannous oppression,

By these tears by which I bathe them, I conjure you
With pity to look on me.'

Happy are those

That knowing in their births, they are subject to
Uncertain changes, are still prepared and armed
For either fortune.'

When good men pursue

The path marked out by virtue, the blest saints
With joy look on it, and seraphic angels
Clap their celestial wings in heavenly plaudits.'

'As you have

A soul moulded from heaven, and do desire

To have it made a star there, make the means

Of your ascent to that celestial height

Virtue mingled with brave action: they draw near

The nature and the essence of the gods

Who imitate their goodness.'1

More intense, though less genial, is the sombre and retiring Ford, the poet not merely of the heart but of the broken heart,- the heart worn, tortured, and torn. His tragedies surprise, stun, perplex, by the overpowering force of a passion which suggests kinship to insanity. The noblest is The Broken Heart. Penthea, whose soul is pledged to Orgilus, permits herself, from duty or submission, to be led to other nuptials, and finds the source of life dried up. Only the marriage of the heart is, in her eyes, genuine; the other is moral infidelity. In the depths of her despair, she says, not bitterly, but sadly:

'My glass of life, sweet princess, hath few minutes
Remaining to run down; the sands are spent:

For by an inward messenger, 1 feel

The summons of departure short and certain.

Glories of human greatness are but pleasing dreams,

And shadows soon decaying: on the stage

Of my mortality my youth hath acted

Some scenes of vanity, drawn out at length;

But varied pleasures sweetened in the mixture,

But tragical in issue. . .

How weary I am of a lingering life,

Who count the best a misery. . . .

That remedy must be a winding-sheet, a fold of lead,

And some untrod-on corner in the earth.'

Only eighteen of his thirty-seven plays are extant. The best known are The Virgin Martyr, The Fatal Dowry, The Duke of Milan, A New Way to Pay Old Debts. The last has yet occasional representation, and contains the famous character of Sir Giles Over

reach.

In the end she becomes mad, sinking continually under the incur

able grief, the fatal thought:

'Sure, if we were all sirens, we should sing pitifully,

And 'twere a comely music, when in parts

One sung another's knell; the turtle sighs
When he hath lost his mate; and yet some say

He must be dead first: 'tis a fine deceit

To pass away in a dream! indeed, I've slept
With mine eyes open, a great while. No falsehood
Equals a broken faith; there's not a hair

Sticks on my head, but, like a leaden plummet,
It sinks me to the grave: I must creep thither;
The journey is not long.'

Calantha, after enduring the most crushing calamities, concealed under a show of mirth, breaks under the terrible tension, and dies - without a tear:

'Death shall not separate us. Oh, my lords,

I but deceived your eyes with antic gesture,

When one news strait came huddling on another

Of death, and death, and death: still I danced forward;

But it struck home and here, and in an instant.

Be such mere women, who with shrieks and outcries

Can vow a present end to all their sorrows,

Yet live to court new pleasures, and outlive them:

They are the silent griefs which cut the heart-strings:
Let me die smiling.'

There is the same sad strain in his few songs, though subdued;

Of all these later dramatists, the most Shakespearean is Webster, an artist of agony. But one has seen farther into the dark, woful, and diabolical. He calls one of his heroines The White Devil,

Vittoria Corombona, an Italian.

Her mate is a duke, an adulter

ous lover, another devil, to whom she says:

To pass away the time, I'll tell your grace

A dream I had last night. . . .

Methought I walk'd about the mid of night,
Into a church-yard, where a goodly yew-tree
Spread her large root in ground. Under that yew,
As I sat sadly leaning on a grave

Checquer'd with cross-sticks, there came stealing in
Your duchess and my husband; one of them

A pick-axe bore, th' other a rusty spade,

And in rough terms they 'gan to challenge me
About this yew. . . .

They told me my intent was to root up

That well-known yew, and plant i' th' stead of it

A wither'd black-thorn: and for that they vow'd

To bury me alive. My husband straight

With pick-axe 'gan to dig; and your fell duchess

With shovel, like a fury, voided out

The earth, and scattered bones; Lord, how, methought,

I trembled, and yet for all this terror

I could not pray. . . .

When to my rescue there arose, methought

A whirlwind, which let fall a massy arm

From that strong plant;

And both were struck dead by that sacred yew.

In that base shallow grave which was their due.'

The import is clear, and her brother says, aside:

'Excellent devil! she hath taught him in a dream

To make away his duchess and her husband.'

Her husband is strangled, his wife is poisoned, and she, accused of both crimes, is brought before the tribunal. She defies her judges:

To the point.

Find me guilty, sever head from body,

We'll part good friends: I scorn to hold my life

At yours, or any man's entreaty, sir. . . .
These are but feigned shadows of my evils;

Terrify babes, my lord, with painted devils;

I am past such needless palsy. For your names

Of whore and murderess, they proceed from you,
As if a man should spit against the wind;

The filth returns in's face.'

More insulting at the dagger's point:

'Yes, I shall welcome death

As princes do some great ambassadors;

I'll meet thy weapon half way. . . . 'Twas a manly blow;

The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant;

And then thou wilt be famous.'

Another is the Duchess of Malfi, who has secretly married her