hus passion and reflection, superstition and profanity, deliberate
atrocity and fear of judgment, are united in the same nature; and to
make the complex still more strange, the play-wright has gifted these
tremendous personalities with his own wild humour and imaginative
irony. The result is almost monstrous, such an ideal of character as
makes earth hell. And yet it is not without justification. To the
Italian text has been added the Teutonic commentary, and both are
fused by a dramatic genius into one living whole.

One of these men is Flamineo, the brother of Vittoria Corombona, upon
whose part the action of the 'White Devil' depends. He has been bred
in arts and letters at the university of Padua; but being poor and of
luxurious appetites, he chooses the path of crime in courts for his
advancement. A duke adopts him for his minion, and Flamineo acts the
pander to this great man's lust. He contrives the death of his
brother-in-law, suborns a doctor to poison the Duke's wife, and
arranges secret meetings between his sister and the paramour who is to
make her fortune and his own. His mother appears like a warning Ate to
prevent her daughter's crime. In his rage he cries:

What fury raised _thee_ up? Away, away!

And when she pleads the honour of their house he answers:

Shall I,
Having a path so open and so free
To my preferment, still retain your milk
In my pale forehead?

Later on, when it is necessary to remove another victim, he runs his
own brother through the body and drives his mother to madness. Yet, in
the midst of these crimes, we are unable to regard him as a simple
cut-throat. His irony and reckless courting of damnation open-eyed to
get his gust of life in this world, make him no common villain. He can
be brave as well as fierce. When the Duke insults him he bandies taunt
for taunt:

_Brach_. No, you pander?

_Flam_. What, me, my lord?
Am I your dog?

_B_. A bloodhound; do you brave, do you stand me?

_F_. Stand you! let those that have diseases run;
I need no plasters.

_B_. Would you be kicked?

_F_. Would you have your neck broke?
I tell you, duke, I am not in Russia;
My shins must be kept whole.

_B_. Do you know me?

_F_. Oh, my lord, methodically:
As in this world there are degrees of evils,
So in this world there are degrees of devils.
You're a great duke, I your poor secr