he play in its earlier state. Not all the
conscientious art and skill of Webster could have given this uniformity
to a work in which the original design and execution had been less in
keeping with the bent of his own genius and the accent of his natural
style. Sad and stern, not unhopeful or unloving, the spirit of this poem
is more in harmony with that of Webster's later tragedies than with that
of Marston's previous plays; its accent is sardonic rather than
pessimistic, ironical rather than despondent. The plot is neither well
conceived nor well constructed; the catastrophe is little less than
absurd, especially from the ethical or moral point of view; the
characters are thinly sketched, the situations at once forced and
conventional; there are few sorrier or stranger figures in serious
fiction than that of the penitent usurper when he takes to his arms his
repentant wife, together with one of her two paramours, in a sudden
rapture of forgiving affection; the part which gives the play its name
is the only one drawn with any firmness of outline, unless we except
that of the malignant and distempered old parasite; but there is a
certain interest in the awkward evolution of the story, and there are
scenes and passages of singular power and beauty which would suffice to
redeem the whole work from condemnation or oblivion, even though it had
not the saving salt in it of an earnest and evident sincerity. The
brooding anger, the resentful resignation, the impatient spirit of
endurance, the bitter passion of disdain, which animate the utterance
and direct the action of the hero, are something more than dramatically
appropriate; it is as obvious that these are the mainsprings of the
poet's own ambitious and dissatisfied intelligence, sullen in its
reluctant submission and ardent in its implacable appeal, as that his
earlier undramatic satires were the tumultuous and turbid ebullitions of
a mood as morbid, as restless, and as honest. Coarse, rough, and fierce
as those satires are, inferior alike to Hall's in finish of verse and
to Donne's in weight of matter, it seems to me that Dr. Grosart, their
first careful and critical editor, is right in claiming for them equal
if not superior credit on the score of earnestness. The crude ferocity
of their invective has about it a savor of honesty which atones for many
defects of literary taste and executive art; and after a more thorough
study than such rude and unattractive work seems at