ess, which accordingly occupies but a small space in our
outline of the play. Structurally, the plot gains nothing by the
additions; indeed, the 'Painter' episode duplicates and thereby weakens
the effect of the conversation between Hieronimo and Bazulto.
Nevertheless we will venture to quote a few lines from the speech to the
Portingals, inasmuch as they aptly describe the underlying principle of
the tragedy:

Well, heaven is heaven still!
And there is Nemesis and furies,
And things call'd whips;
And they sometimes do meet with murderers:
They do not always escape, that's some comfort.
Ay, ay, ay, and then time steals on, and steals, and steals,
Till violence leaps forth, like thunder, wrapp'd
In a ball of fire,
And so doth bring confusion to them all.

From the hour of Horatio's dastardly murder we wait for Nemesis to fall
upon the murderers. We see Lorenzo fortifying himself against detection;
we watch, while 'time steals on, and steals, and steals'; Isabella,
tired of waiting, kills herself; Hieronimo himself threatens to fail us,
so terrible are his sufferings; the crime seems forgotten by those who
committed it; its reward is about to drop into Balthazar's hands; and
then, at last, 'violence leaps forth, like thunder, ... and so doth
bring confusion to them all'.

When we remember the date, as early as, or earlier than, Marlowe's
_Doctor Faustus_, we may be excused if we call _The Spanish Tragedy_ a
triumph of dramatic genius. Fully to appreciate its greatness we have
only to compare the plot with that of any preceding tragedy, or of any
play by Lyly, Greene, or Peele. In none of them shall we find anything
approaching the masterful grip upon its spectators, the appeal to their
sympathies, the alternation of fear and hope, the skilful subordination
of many incidents to one purpose, the absolute rightness yet horror of
the conclusion (the inset play), of Kyd's tragedy. It will repay us to
examine some of the details of its workmanship.

The crisis begins, for the first time, to gravitate towards the centre
of the play. In Classical Drama tragedies open with the crisis. English
tragedies of the Senecan type tend to adopt the same practice:
_Gorboduc_ begins with Videna's report of the proposal to divide the
kingdom; _The Misfortunes of Arthur_ begins with the king's return,
referred to as imminent. Even the first scene of _Doctor Faustus_
presents Faustus rejecting divinity