eer
effects of passion--the "All for love and the world well lost," the
shutting out, not instinctively or stupidly, but deliberately, and with
full knowledge, of all other considerations except the dictates of
desire--have never been so rendered in English except in _Romeo and Juliet_
and _Antony and Cleopatra_. The comparison of course brings out Ford's
weakness, not merely in execution, but in design; not merely in
accomplishment, but in the choice of means for accomplishment. Shakespere
had no need of the _haut gout_ of incest, of the unnatural horrors of the
heart on the dagger. But Ford had; and he in a way (I do not say fully)
justified his use of these means.

_The Broken Heart_ stands far lower. I own that I am with Hazlitt, not
Lamb, on the question of the admired death scene of Calantha. In the first
place, it is certainly borrowed from Marston's _Malcontent_; in the second,
it is wholly unnatural; in the third, the great and crowning point of it is
not, as Lamb seemed to think, Calantha's sentimental inconsistency, but the
consistent and noble death of Orgilus. There Ford was at home, and long as
it is it must be given:--

_Cal._ "Bloody relator of thy stains in blood,
For that thou hast reported him, whose fortunes
And life by thee are both at once snatch'd from him,
With honourable mention, make thy choice
Of what death likes thee best, there's all our bounty.
But to excuse delays, let me, dear cousin,
Intreat you and these lords see execution
Instant before you part.

_Near._ Your will commands us.

_Org._ One suit, just queen, my last: vouchsafe your clemency
That by no common hand I be divided
From this my humble frailty.

_Cal._ To their wisdoms
Who are to be spectators of thine end
I make the reference: those that are dead
Are dead; had they not now died, of necessity
They must have paid the debt they owed to nature,
One time or other. Use dispatch, my lords;
We'll suddenly prepare our coronation.

[_Exeunt_ CAL., PHIL., _and_ CHRIS.

_Arm._ 'Tis strange, these tragedies should never touch on
Her female pity.

_Bass._ She has a masculine spirit,
And wherefore should I pule, and, like a girl,
Put finger in the eye? Let's be all to