Their fierce and irregular magnificence, their feverish
and strenuous intemperance of rhetoric, would have
been too glaringly in contrast with the sublime purity
of the greater poet’s thought and style In the
tragicomedy of “The Malcontent,” published
two years later than the earlier and two years earlier
than the later of these poems, if the tone of feeling
is but little changed or softened, the language is
duly clarified and simplified. “The Malcontent,
(augmented) by Marston, with the additions written
by John Webster,” is as coherent, as harmonious,
as much of a piece throughout, as was the text of
the play in its earlier state. Not all the conscientious
art and skill of Webster could have given this uniformity
to a work in which the original design and execution
had been less in keeping with the bent of his own
genius and the accent of his natural style. Sad
and stern, not unhopeful or unloving, the spirit of
this poem is more in harmony with that of Webster’s
later tragedies than with that of Marston’s
previous plays; its accent is sardonic rather than
pessimistic, ironical rather than despondent.
The plot is neither well conceived nor well constructed;
the catastrophe is little less than absurd, especially
from the ethical or moral point of view; the characters
are thinly sketched, the situations at once forced
and conventional; there are few sorrier or stranger
figures in serious fiction than that of the penitent
usurper when he takes to his arms his repentant wife,
together with one of her two paramours, in a sudden
rapture of forgiving affection; the part which gives
the play its name is the only one drawn with any firmness
of outline, unless we except that of the malignant
and distempered old parasite; but there is a certain
interest in the awkward evolution of the story, and
there are scenes and passages of singular power and
beauty which would suffice to redeem the whole work
from condemnation or oblivion, even though it had
not the saving salt in it of an earnest and evident
sincerity. The brooding anger, the resentful
resignation, the impatient spirit of endurance, the
bitter passion of disdain, which animate the utterance
and direct the action of the hero, are something more
than dramatically appropriate; it is as obvious that
these are the mainsprings of the poet’s own
ambitious and dissatisfied intelligence, sullen in
its reluctant submission and ardent in its implacable
appeal, as that his earlier undramatic satires were
the tumultuous and turbid ebullitions of a mood as
morbid, as restless, and as honest. Coarse, rough,
and fierce as those satires are, inferior alike to
Hall’s in finish of verse and to Donne’s
in weight of matter, it seems to me that Dr. Grosart,
their first careful and critical editor, is right
in claiming for them equal if not superior credit
on the score of earnestness. The crude ferocity
of their invective has about it a savor of honesty
which atones for many defects of literary taste and
executive art; and after a more thorough study than