1828.] The Revenger's Tragedy. 145 



there throughout the work. Several of these will be found among the 

 extracts already given. What follow are of a similar character, and 

 seem to proceed for the most part from a similar quality of mind 

 namely, a most powerful and vivid imagination. It strikes us that 

 nothing can be finer in its way than the application of the epithet, in the 

 following passage, spoken by Vindici, in reference to Lusurioso, whom 

 he has made up his mind to kill, but to whom he is compelled, in further- 

 ance of his ulterior views, to confess that his ( Vindici's) mother has con- 

 sented to assist in the dishonour of her own daughter : 



Now must I blister ray soul be forsworn 

 Or shame the woman that received me first. 

 I will be true : thou livest not to proclaim ; 

 Spoke to a dying man, shame is no shame. 



What follows, though not so refined, is still more striking and splendid. 

 It is spoken by Vindici, immediately on the exit of Lusurioso, after he 

 has disclosed his designs on Castiza : 



-Mv loved lord !- 



Oh, shall I kill him o' the wrong side now ? No ! 

 Sword, thou wast never a back-biter yet. 

 I'll pierce him to his face ; he shall die looking on me ; 

 His veins are swelled with lust : this shall unfill them : 

 Great men were gods, if beggars could not kill them. 



The following is in a very different style, but exceedingly beautiful : 



Our sorrows are so fluent, 



Our eyes o'erflow our tongues : words spoke in tears 

 Are like the murmurs of the waters the sound 

 Is loudly heard, but cannot be distinguished. 



The first of the following passages is spoken by Vindici, in anticipa- 

 tion of the bloody catastrophe which he is plotting to bring about at the 

 banquet which closes the tragedy ; and the second, when that catastrophe 

 has taken place : 



And when they think their pleasures sweet and good, 

 In midst of all their joys, they shall sigh blood. 



^It thunders.^ 



Hark ! thunder ! 



Dost know thy cue, thou big-voiced crier ? 



Duke's groans are thunder's watchwords. 



* * * * * 



No power is angry when the lustful die : 

 When thunder claps, Heaven likes the tragedy. 



We must now close our account of this noble tragedy, by saying gene- 

 rally, that we know of few single works capable of impressing the 

 reader with so high a notion of the powers of its writer. 



M.M. New Series* -VoL.V. No. 26. U 



