144 The Early English Drama: [FEB. 



of the family cut off by these wholesale assassins, though none of them 

 had injured him. But when he finds that their hands were also red with the 

 blood of an old man like himself, his fears take fire in a moment, and he 

 gets rid of them without delay. This is, no doubt, a very fine touch of 

 nature, and not unworthy of Shakspeare himself: who, however, would 

 not have developed it in the somewhat formal and logical manner which 

 our author has adopted. But the other point involved in the mode of 

 bringing about the final catastrophe of this play, is truly Shaksperean, if 

 we are not investing it with more meaning that it actually possesses. We 

 conceive that the author intended to leave us in a state of entire uncer- 

 tainty, as to the motives and feelings of Vindici in disclosing his con- 

 nexion with the murder of the old duke. That it never could have been 

 discovered but by his and his brother's disclosure of it, he well knew. 

 " This murder might have slept in tongueless brass," he says, " but for 

 ourselves." Then, on the other hand, he must have been pretty sure that, 

 if he did' disclose it, present death awaited them both. And yet, the 

 moment the matter is brought in question, he tells it as if any one else, 

 and not himself, had been the agent. Still, however, he is surprised at 

 the consequences of the disclosure. But then, again, on his brother 

 taxing him with having brought on those consequences, he immediately 

 recovers the bitter levity which has borne him up all through his task of 

 revenge, and retorts upon his brother as unreasonable : 



Thou hast no conscience. Are we not revenged ? 

 Is there one enemy left alive amongst them ? 



* * * * * 



I' faith we're well ; our mother turned, our sister true j 

 We die after a nest of dukes. Adieu ! 



Surely all this is no less delicate and subtle, than it is profound ; and, 

 moreover, it gives the tragedy a conclusion which would otherwise have 

 been " lame and impotent." That Vindici, after having watched and 

 prayed for vengeance during nine long years with no other desire in 

 life no other motive for living and with no other companion all that 

 time but the dead remains of that " betrothed lady," in whose cause the 

 vengeance was sought; that Vindici, after having sought this vengeance 

 so long, and obtained it so fully, should still wish or even consent to 

 live, would be altogether inconsistent with the nature of his character. 

 And yet, that he should deliberately and advisedly make an avowal 

 which would at once doom him and his brother to an ignominious death, 

 and which (as far as we are led to suppose in the drama) did, in point of 

 fact, secure them such a death ; this would be still more inconsistent 

 with his cool and calculating nature ; especially when it is considered 

 that he was leaving a mother and a sister behind him. The author, aware 

 of all this, has most judiciously contrived to bring about the necessary 

 catastrophe of his hero's death, in a way that shall satisfy the " poetical 

 justice" of the case, and yet leave him guiltless of that last resort of 

 fools and cowards, self-destruction. He permits his death to be the result 

 of that perfect indifference as to either life or death, which would inevi- 

 tably attend such a character as Vindici 's, when his sole active motive 

 for living was taken away. 



It only remains to give a few specimens of the many separate passages 

 of extraordinary vigour and beauty with which this tragedy abounds. 

 We have already referred to the single lines which occur every here and 



