thingis we wreat mearelie.--_Works of John Knox_,
vol. i., p. 180.]

The execution of this poem is singularly good and bad: there are
passages of such metrical strength and sweetness as will hardly be found
in the dramatic verse of any later English poet; and there are passages
in which this poet's verse sinks wellnigh to the tragic level of a
Killigrew's, a Shadwell's, or a Byron's. Such terminations as "of,"
"to," "with," "in," "and," "my," "your," preceding the substantive or
the verb which opens the next verse, make us feel as though we were
reading "Sardanapalus" or "The Two Foscari"--a sensation not easily to
be endured. In a poet so far superior as Tourneur to the author of those
abortions we must seek for an explanation of this perverse error in a
transient and tentative theory of realism rather than in an incurable
infirmity or obliquity of talent: for no quality is more remarkable in
the execution of his masterpiece than his mastery of those metrical
properties in which the style of this play is so generally deficient.
Whether in dialogue or in monologue, "The Revenger's Tragedy" is so
equally admirable for instinctive obedience to nature and imaginative
magnificence of inspiration, so equally perfect in the passionate
harmony of its verse and the inspired accuracy of its locution, that
years of study and elaboration might have seemed necessary to bring
about this inexpressible improvement in expression of yet more sombre
and more fiery thought or feeling. There are gleams in "The Atheist's
Tragedy" of that clear light in which the whole Shakespearean world lay
shining, and here and there the bright flames of the stars do still
endure to lighten the gloom of it by flashes or by fits; the gentle and
noble young lovers, whose patient loyalty is at last rescued from the
toils of crime to be crowned with happiness and honor, are painted,
though rapidly and slightly, with equal firmness of hand and tenderness
of touch; and there is some vigorous and lively humor in the lighter
action of the comic scenes, however coarse and crude in handling: but
there is no such relief to the terrors of the maturer work, whose
sultrier darkness is visible only by the fire kindled of itself, very
dreadful, which burns in the heart of the revenger whom it lights along
his blood-stained way. Nor indeed is any relief wanted; the harmony of
its fervent and stern emotion is as perfect, as sufficient, as sublime
as the full rush and flow