and wandering and
wrath of Ceres, are treated with so sweet and beautiful a simplicity of
touch that Milton may not impossibly have embalmed and transfigured some
reminiscence of these scenes in a passage of such heavenly beauty as
custom cannot stale. Another episode, and one not even indirectly
connected with the labors of Hercules, is the story of Semele, handled
with the same simple and straightforward skill of dramatic exposition,
the same purity and fluency of blameless and spontaneous verse, that
distinguish all parts alike of this dramatic chronicle. The second of
the five plays composing it closes with the rescue of Proserpine by
Hercules, and the judgment of Jupiter on "the Arraignment of the Moon."

In "The Brazen Age" there is somewhat more of dramatic unity or
coherence than in the two bright easy-going desultory plays which
preceded it: it closes at least with a more effective catastrophe than
either of them in the death of Hercules. However far inferior to the
haughty and daring protest or appeal in which Sophocles, speaking
through the lips of the virtuous Hyllus, impeaches and denounces the
iniquity of heaven with a steadfast and earnest vehemence unsurpassed in
its outspoken rebellion by any modern questioner or blasphemer of divine
providence, the simple and humble sincerity of the English playwright
has given a not unimpressive or inharmonious conclusion to the same
superhuman tragedy. In the previous presentation of the story of
Meleager, Heywood has improved upon the brilliant and passionate
rhetoric of Ovid by the introduction of an original and happy touch of
dramatic effect: his Althaea, after firing the brand with which her
son's life is destined to burn out, relents and plucks it back for a
minute from the flame, giving the victim a momentary respite from
torture, a fugitive recrudescence of strength and spirit, before she
rekindles it. The pathos of his farewell has not been overpraised by
Lamb: who might have added a word in recognition of the very spirited
and effective suicide of Althaea, not unworthily heralded or announced
in such verses as these:

This was my son,
Born with sick throes, nursed from my tender breast,
Brought up with feminine care, cherished with love;
His youth my pride; his honor all my wishes;
So dear, that little less he was than life.

The subsequent adventures of Hercules and the Argonauts are presented
with the sam