borough."
Here again we find a note so dissonant and discordant in the lighter
parts of the dramatic concert that we seem at once to recognize the
harsher and hoarser instrument of Rowley. The farce is even more
extravagantly and preposterously mistimed and misplaced than that which
disfigures the play just mentioned: but I thoroughly agree with Mr.
Bullen's high estimate of the power displayed and maintained throughout
the tragic and poetic part of this drama; to which no previous critic
has ever vouchsafed a word of due acknowledgment. The story is ugly and
unnatural, but its repulsive effect is transfigured or neutralized by
the charm of tender or passionate poetry; and it must be admitted that
the hideous villany of Vortiger and Horsus affords an opening for
subsequent scenic effects of striking and genuine tragical interest.

The difference between the genius of Middleton and the genius of Dekker
could not be better illustrated than by comparison of their attempts at
political and patriotic allegory. The lazy, slovenly, impatient genius
of Dekker flashes out by fits and starts on the reader of the play in
which he has expressed his English hatred of Spain and Popery, his
English pride in the rout of the Armada, and his English gratitude for
the part played by Queen Elizabeth in the crowning struggle of the time:
but his most cordial admirer can hardly consider "The Whore of Babylon"
a shining or satisfactory example of dramatic art. The play which
brought Middleton into prison, and earned for the actors a sum so far
beyond parallel as to have seemed incredible till the fullest evidence
was procured, is one of the most complete and exquisite works of
artistic ingenuity and dexterity that ever excited or offended,
enraptured or scandalized an audience of friends or enemies: the only
work of English poetry which may properly be called Aristophanic. It has
the same depth of civic seriousness, the same earnest ardor and devotion
to the old cause of the old country, the same solid fervor of enthusiasm
and indignation, which animated the third great poet of Athens against
the corruption of art by the sophistry of Euripides and the corruption
of manhood by the sophistry of Socrates. The delicate skill of the
workmanship can only be appreciated by careful and thorough study; but
that the infusion of poetic fancy and feeling into the generally comic
and satiric style is hardly unworthy of the comparison which I have
ventured