isible
influence of the supernatural, and sacrifice of the avenger's life in
the attainment of revenge, besides the ordinarily remembered adoption of
an inset play. _King Lear_, in the scene between the king and Edgar on
the heath, echoes the scene between Hieronimo and Bazulto.

Humour is absent from the play, unless we extend the courtesy of that
name to the grim hoax (explained to us by a chuckling page, who
thoroughly enjoys his part in it) practised by Lorenzo upon Pedringano,
and the consequently mocking spirit of jest which pervades the hall of
judgment during the misguided wretch's trial. The pert confidence of the
prisoner, at the foot of the gallows, in the saving contents of a
certain box, which the audience knows to be empty, is dramatic irony in
its bitterest form.

Hard words have been written about the horrible scenes in the play, as
though it were a huddled-up bundle of bloodshed and ghosts. Such a
conception is far from the truth. Horror is an element in almost all
powerful tragedies; it is hardly to be separated from any unexpected or
violent death. We reject it as monstrous only when its cause is the
product of a vile and unnatural motive, or of a motive criminally
insufficient to explain the impulse. What is repulsive in _Arden of
Feversham_, and in such recognized 'Tragedies of Blood' as have
Tourneur, Marston and Webster for their authors, is the utter
callousness of the murderers, and their base aims, or disgusting lack of
any reasonable excuse for their crimes. When D'Amville pushes his
brother over the edge of the quarry, or Antonio stabs the child Julio,
or Bosola heaps torments upon the Duchess of Malfi, we turn away with
loathing because the deed is either cruelly undeserved or utterly
unwarranted by the gain expected from it. Alice Arden's murder of her
husband is mainly detestable because her ulterior motive is detestable.
Again, the ghosts which Marston and Chapman give us are absurd creatures
of 'too, too solid flesh', who will sit on the bed to talk comfortably
to one, draw the curtains when one wishes to sleep, or play the scout
and call out in warning whenever danger threatens. Kyd does not serve up
crime and the supernatural world thus. He shows us terrible things, it
is true. But the causes are to be found deep down in the primary
impulses of man, in jealousy, in fear, in despair, in blood-revenge.
These impulses are not vile; our moral code does not cry out against
them as it does