In a dramatic composition the imagery and the passion should interpenetrate one another, the former being reserved simply for the full development and illustration of the latter.  Imagination is as the immortal God which should assume flesh for the redemption of mortal passion.  It is thus that the most remote and the most familiar imagery may alike be fit for dramatic purposes when employed in the illustration of strong feeling, which raises what is low, and levels to the apprehension that which is lofty, casting over all the shadow of its own greatness.  In other respects, I have written more carelessly; that is, without an over-fastidious and learned choice of words.  In this respect I entirely agree with those modern critics who assert that in order to move men to true sympathy we must use the familiar language of men, and that our great ancestors the ancient English poets are the writers, a study of whom might incite us to do that for our own age which they have done for theirs.  But it must be the real language of men in general and not that of any particular class to whose society the writer happens to belong.  So much for what I have attempted; I need not be assured that success is a very different matter; particularly for one whose attention has but newly been awakened to the study of dramatic literature.

I endeavoured whilst at Rome to observe such monuments of this story as might be accessible to a stranger.  The portrait of Beatrice at the Colonna Palace is admirable as a work of art:  it was taken by Guido during her confinement in prison.  But it is most interesting as a just representation of one of the loveliest specimens of the workmanship of Nature.  There is a fixed and pale composure upon the features:  she seems sad and stricken down in spirit, yet the despair thus expressed is lightened by the patience of gentleness.  Her head is bound with folds of white drapery from which the yellow strings of her golden hair escape, and fall about her neck.  The moulding of her face is exquisitely delicate; the eyebrows are distinct and arched:  the lips have that permanent meaning of imagination and sensibility which suffering has not repressed and which it seems as if death scarcely could extinguish.  Her forehead is large and clear; her eyes, which we are told were remarkable for their vivacity, are swollen with weeping and lustreless, but beautifully tender and serene.  In the whole mien there is a simplicity and dignity which, united with her exquisite loveliness and deep sorrow, are inexpressibly pathetic.  Beatrice Cenci appears to have been one of those rare persons in whom energy and gentleness dwell together without destroying one another:  her nature was simple and profound.  The crimes and miseries in which she was an actor and a sufferer are as the mask and the mantle in which circumstances clothed her for her impersonation on the scene of the world.