The finest portions of the play are those in which Agrippina has the principal part, and, notwithstanding some flaws and inconsistencies in the character, which is evidently meant to be complete and homogeneous, the whole impression is very forcible and single.  Her final menace (Act ii., Scene 5) when Nero defies her, the terrible scene in which she tries to regain her failing influence by kindling unholy fire in his blood, her rage at the inaction and ignorance of her forced retirement, her monologue when she knows that her last hour has come, are all of a piece and exceedingly well sustained.  The dramatic ends of the play would have been better answered if she and her son had been the central figures, and the tragedy had ended with her death.  Poppaea is closely studied:  her petty, feline personality contrasts well with the large, imperial presence of Agrippina.  Nero himself is not so successful as a whole:  his puerility in the first part is overdone, though as the play goes on the creation takes definite shape, and becomes at once more complex and more distinct.  The invariable recurrence of his vanity at the most tremendous moments is admirably managed:  it is like an unconscious trick of look or gesture for which we watch.  In his first outburst of grief at Poppaea’s death he cries: 

            How still she lies! 
  How perfect in her calm!  No more distress,
  No agitations more, no joy, no pain. 
  I’ll keep her as she is.  Fire shall not burn
  That lovely shape; but it shall sleep embalmed—­
  Thus, thus for ever in the Julian tomb,
  And she shall be enrolled among the gods. 
  A splendid temple shall be raised to her,
  A public funeral be hers, and I
  The funeral eulogy myself will speak.

There are some impressive dramatic situations, the finest of which is at the close of the second act, after the murder of Britannicus, the result of a threat from Agrippina to dethrone her refractory son in behalf of the rightful heir: 

  Nero.  How is Britannicus?

  Agrip.  Dead.

  Nero.  Are you sure?

  Agrip.  Go see his corpse there, and assure yourself.

  Nero.  Dead?  Poor Britannicus! who might have sat
  Upon this very throne instead of me!

  Agrip.  Nero!

  Nero.  My mother!

  Agrip.  Ah!  I understand.

  Nero.  Take him and make him emperor—­if you can.

This has what the French call the coup de fouet.  But the power and progress of the play are clogged by two faults—­defective construction and a curious diffuseness and lack of concentration in many of the scenes and speeches.  The action is sadly impeded, for instance, by the author’s not making one business of Seneca’s death, but spinning it out through four scenes of going and coming, as also with Poppaea’s, and even more with Nero’s,