122 The Early English Drama: [Aveusr, 
tion and memory of the reader, it is only because the former is much 
shorter and more simple, and consequently, from a less necessity for 
detailed development, makes its appeal more explicitly, and goes to its 
mark and hits it more palpably and openly. Ambition is in both cases 
the moving spring of action in these two characters; and in the case of 
Lady Macbeth, there is a grandeur and simplicity of moral purpose, 
added to a directness in the pursuance of that purpose, which produce a 
unity of effect on the reader altogether noble and complete. She wills to 
be a queen—she wills, and it is done: and, during the brief course of its 
accomplishment, we no more think of disputing that will, or carping at 
the mode or the means by which it acts, than we do at those of a super- 
naturally endowed being. Nay, we donot even feel morally shocked at 
her crimes ; the very blood that is upon her does not shew like blood, 
but rather like a sacrificial offering that she stoops for, and scatters 
abroad, upon the altar of the great object of her adoration—mortal 
power. With Vittoria Corombona it is different: she, like Lady 
Macbeth, would be a queen; but she has not the resistless force of mind 
from which springs a resistless will. She has less of moral power in her 
composition, but infinitely more of passion. 
But we must now revert to our plan, of letting that with which we 
would make the reader acquainted be in some sort its own exponent. In 
the present instance we shall confine the details of our examination almost 
entirely to the above-named character, and to the one (Isabella) which 
is introduced as a moral contrast to it: for the play is so overloaded with 
matter, that our limits would forbid our doing more than this, even if 
the nature of a great portion of the rest of the play did not make our so 
doing more than unnecessary. In fact, the merits of this drama, great 
and striking as they are, are for the most part included in these two cha- 
racters, and one other—Flamineo. 
At the opening of the play, Vittoria Corombona (the White Devil), is a 
Venetian lady of a high family and of great beauty, who is married to a 
foolish lord of the court (Camillo), whom she despises, without, however, 
feeling a passion for any one else; while Brachiano (reigning Duke of 
that place), is devoured by a guilty love for Vittoria, though he is mar- 
ried to the young and gentle Isabella. This latter is absent at the com- 
mencement of the.drama, and during this absence, Brachiano plots with 
Flamineo (his secretary, and brother to Vittoria), to gain the love and the 
possession of Vittoria. The lady, urged by ambitious views alone, is 
soon found to be “ nothing loath,” to the prospects of aggrandisement 
that seem opening to her; and the first act ends with an interview 
between her and the duke, in which the views of both seem pretty nearly 
to coincide, as to the immediate necessity of getting rid of the superfluous 
wife of the one party, and husband of the other. The lady (as, we are 
afraid it must be admitted, is the natural course in matters of this kind) 
is the first to see her way clearly in this particular, and the first who has 
the courage to point it out. With a mistaken view to heighten the © 
dramatic effect of this otherwise finely-executed scene, there is a super- 
fluous horror communicated to it, by making the virtuous mother of 
Vittoria a secret, and towards the end an oven witness, of her daughter’s- 
first but fatal step towards guilt. This we must look upon as an instance _ 
of that disposition to “ o’er inform” and overload their scenes, which was 
among the most conspicuous faults of our best early dramatists ; a fault, © 
however, which we would not willingly have had them without ; since 
it arises, in almost every instance, from an affluence of mind and of — 
