384 The Early English Drama : [APRIL, 



tifully described by Sebastian himself; and also his own .conflicting 

 feelings under the perplexing circumstances of his situation. After the 

 exit of Antonio, who has evinced, by his words and manner, that the 

 witch's promises have not failed Sebastian, the latter, after a" brief exul- 

 tation over the misery of his rival, turns all his thoughts towards 

 Isabella. 



" How well she bears it ! 



Hardly myself can find so much from her, 



That am acquainted with the cold disease. 



Oh, honesty s a rare wealth in a woman j 



It knows no wants at least it will express none, 



Not in a look. Yet I'm not thoro'ly happy. 



His ill does me no good. Well, may it keep me 



From open rage and madness for a time ; 



But I feel heart's grief in the same place still. 



"What makes the greatest torment 'mongst lost souls ? 



'Tis not so much the horror of their pains 



(Though they be infinite) as the loss of joys. 



It is, that Deprivation is the mother 



Of all the groans in hell ; and, here on earth, 



Of all the sighs* bred in the hearts of lovers. 



Still she's not mine, that can be no man's else 



Till I be nothing. If religion 



Have the same strength for me as 't has for others, 



Holy vows witness that our souls were married." 



(Act II. ScencZ.) 



Assuredly, in the age alone to which this drama belongs, and neither 

 before nor since, has the female character been truly appreciated and 

 justly depicted. Neither has the true nature of dramatic language and 

 versification been felt and practised much better. How perfectly simple, 

 for instance, is the passage just cited ! There is not a word in it, nor 

 a collocation of words, that any of us might not utter in the common talk 

 even of the day in which we live. And yet how perfectly does it all 

 arrange itself into that modulated harmony, without which poetry cannot 

 exist, and which of itself alone almost makes poetry ! 



The plot now leaves the lovers for a time, and returns to the Duchess, 

 and her projects of revenge against her lord, who, it appears, has just 

 finally fixed her till now relenting purpose, by again coming to her bed- 

 side at the dead of midnight, and repeating his strange outrage upon her 

 filial feelings. 



Duch. He lives not now to see to-morrow spent, 

 If this means take effect as there's no harm in it. 

 Last night he played his horrid game again ; 

 Came to my bedside at the full of midnight, 

 And in his hand that fatal, fearful cup ; 

 Wak'd me, and forc'd me pledge him, to my trembling, 

 And my dead father's scorn : that wounds my sight, 

 That his remembrance should be rais'd in spite. 

 But either his confusion, or mine, ends it." 



(Act II. Scene 2.) 



" The edition of this play published from the MS. discovered by Mr. Isaac Reed, has 

 this line thus : 



" Of all the redd-siyhs in the hearts of lovers." 

 The alteration is adopted from the suggestion of the editors of a later edition. 



