by the mistakes of the previous play. It is a martial tragedy,
imitating the verse and style of Marlowe's _Tamburlaine_ or Greene's
_Alphonsus, King of Arragon_. Acts and scenes delimit the stages of the
course of events, the distraction of humorous prose scenes is banished,
independent plots are forbidden their old parallel existence, everything
moves steadily towards the tragic conclusion. Lest there should still
arise uncertainty as to the drift of the various incidents as they
occur, a 'Presenter' is at hand to serve as prologue to each act and
explain, not merely what must be understood as having happened off the
stage in the intervals, but what is about to take place on the stage,
and the purpose that lies behind it. The verse is regular and often
vigorous, though the vigour sometimes appears forced, and the constant
stream of end-stopt lines becomes monotonous. Murders that cannot find
room elsewhere are perpetrated in dumb-show, ghosts within the wings cry
out _Vindicta!_, and the leading characters suffer the usual inflatus of
windy rant to make their dimensions more kingly. Still the play fails to
achieve the right effect. There is no dominant hero, the central figure,
if such there is, being the villain, Muly Mahamet the Moor. But his is
not the career, nor his the character, at all likely to win either the
sympathy or the interest of an English audience. Defeated, exiled, twice
seen in desperate flight, treacherous, and incapable of anything but
amazing speeches, he thoroughly deserves the ignominious fate reserved
for him. Of the three other claimants to pre-eminence, Sebastian lends
his aid to the base Moor and is defeated and slain; Stukeley, the
Englishman, is a traitor to his country, and is murdered on the
battlefield in cold blood by his comrades; while Abdelmelec, who is
alone successful in war, does not appear in more than five of the
thirteen scenes, and is killed in the last battle. In action, too, there
is a divided interest. The first act is entirely devoted to the campaign
which places Abdelmelec on the throne of the usurping Moor; not until
the fourth scene of the second act does King Sebastian of Portugal come
upon the stage; only from that point onward are we concerned with his
unsuccessful attempt--in which he is assisted by Stukeley--to restore
the crown of Morocco to Muly Mahamet. Once more we have to lament that
absence of unity and grip, though under improved conditions, which we
noticed