* 
132 ot The Early English Drama: [Auausr, 
That lie upon your death-beds, and are haunted 
With howling wives, ne’er trust them ; they'll re-marry, 
Ere the worm pierce your winding-sheet—ere the spider 
Make a thin curtain for your epitaphs ! 
What Flamineo’s further projects were, either of revenge or aggran- 
disement, does not now appear ; for the final catastrophe is at hand ; and 
there is no disputing that the characters, both of Vittoria and of Flamineo, 
rise higher as it falls on them, and that they do not quit the scene with- 
out leaving upon us a sort of fearful respect, mixed with the horror that 
their accumulated guilt excites. In the midst of the scene just described, 
Ludovico and Gasparo, the murderers of Brachiano, enter the chamber by 
force, and immediately proceed to accomplish their bloody errand. They 
begin by naming the name of Isabella, which instantly exposes who they 
are. At first, while their object and determination seem uncertain, 
Vittoria quails before them ; but the instant she finds that her death is 
at hand, she meets it as a queen and a bride. They first bind Flamineo 
to a pillar, and then proceed to their work of slaughter, as coolly and 
deliberately as it is pursued in the shambles. The effect of this on the 
reader is prodigious ; for the merely horrible and painful nature of it is 
in a great measure counteracted, by the mode in which all parties comport 
themselves. Ludovico, the chief agent throughout all this business of 
revenge, is (it should have been mentioned before) a desperate man, of 
good family, and once of good fortune, who had loved Isabella before 
she was wedded to Brachiano. This, and the insults that his miscon- 
duct and misfortunes have brought upon him, are the incentives to his 
conduct :— 
Lud. Sirrah ! you once did strike me: I'll strike you 
To the centre. 
Flam. Thou’lt do it like a hangman—a base hangman— 
Not like a noble fellow ; for thou see’st 
I cannot strike again. 
Lud. Dost laugh? 
Flam. Wow dst have me die as I was born—in whining? 
Gas. Recommend yourself to heaven. 
Flam. No; I will carry my own commendations thither. 
Lud. O, 1 could kill you forty times a-day, 
And use’t four years together !—’twere too little. 
Nought grieves, but that you're too few to feed _ 
The famine of our vengeance. What dost think on? 
Flam. Nothing—of nothing. Leave your idle questions ; 
Imi the way to study a long silence. 
To prate were idle: I remember nothing : 
There’s nothing of so infinite vexation 
As man’s own thoughts. 
Lud. O, thou glorious strumpet! ( To Vittoria. ) 
Could I divide thy breath from this pure air 
When’t leaves thy body, I would suck it up, 
And breathe’t upon a dung-hill. 
Vit. You my death’s man! 
Methinks thou dost not look horrid enough ; 
Thou hast too good a face to be a hangman. 
If thou be, do thy office in right form: 
Fall down upon thy knees, and ask forgiveness. 
Lud. O, thou hast been a most prodigious comet ! 
But [ll cut off your train. Kill the Moor first. 
Vit. You shall not kill her first. Behold my breast ; 
I will be waited on in death; my servant 
Shall never go before me. 
