Hebraist, and so far from that of a Hellenist or Latinist
of the Renascence, that we recognize in this great
poet one more of those Englishmen of genius on whom
the direct or indirect influence of the Hebrew Bible
has been actually as great as the influences of the
country and the century in which they happened to
be born. The single-hearted fury of unselfish
and devoted indignation which animates every line of
his satire is more akin to the spirit of Ezekiel or
Isaiah than to the spirit of Juvenal or Persius:
though the fierce literality of occasional detail,
the prosaic accuracy of implacable and introspective
abhorrence, may seem liker the hard Roman style of
impeachment by photography than the great Hebrew method
of denunciation by appeal. But the fusion of
sarcastic realism with imaginative passion produces
a compound of such peculiar and fiery flavor as we
taste only from the tragic chalice of Tourneur or
of Shakespeare. The bitterness which serves but
as a sauce or spice to the meditative rhapsodies of
Marston’s heroes or of Webster’s villains
is the dominant quality of the meats and wines served
up on the stage which echoes to the cry of Vindice
or of Timon. But the figure of Tourneur’s
typic hero is as distinct in its difference from the
Shakespearean figure which may possibly have suggested
it as in its difference from the Shakespearean figure
which it may not impossibly have suggested. There
is perhaps too much play made with skulls and cross-bones
on the stage of Cyril Tourneur: he cannot apparently
realize the fact that they are properties of which
a thoughtful poet’s use should be as temperate
and occasional as Shakespeare’s: but the
graveyard meditations of Hamlet, perfect in dramatic
tact and instinct, seem cool and common and shallow
in sentiment when set beside the intensity of inspiration
which animates the fitful and impetuous music of such
passages as these:
Here’s
an eye
Able to tempt a great man—to
serve God;
A pretty hanging lip, that has forgot
now to dissemble.
Methinks this mouth should make
a swearer tremble,
A drunkard clasp his teeth, and
not undo ’em
To suffer wet damnation to run through
’em.
Here’s a cheek keeps her color
let the wind go whistle;
Spout, rain, we fear thee not:
be hot or cold,
All’s one with us; and is
not he absurd,
Whose fortunes are upon their faces
set
That fear no other God but wind
and wet?
Hippolito. Brother, y’ave
spoke that right;
Is this the face that living shone
so bright?
Vindice. The very same. And now methinks I could e’en chide myself For doting on her beauty, though her death Shall be revenged after no common action. Does the silk-worm expend her yellow labors For thee? for thee does she undo herself? Are lordships sold to maintain ladyships For the poor benefit of a bewitching minute?[1] Why does yon fellow