Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/315

 possibilities of interest ang pathos in her part, and her first interview with the husband who had sold and discarded her under cover of a lie gives promise that some: thing will come of these chances; but in effect they come to nothing; the tragic effect of the position is evaded, the force of the conception diluted, the outlines of character slurred and effaced. Again, we are led to look for more than we get from the scenes of Castamela's mock temptation and seeming peril, from her grave and confident dignity in face of trial, and the spirit with which she assumes a lifelike mask of haughty and corrupt levity to punish the reckless weakness of a brother who has wantonly exposed her to apparent danger; but all ends in futile surprise and flat insufficiency. Livio and Romanello, the brothers of the heroines, are figures too dull and feeble to rouse any stronger feeling than a dull and feeble curiosity to see how they will slip or slink out of situations which might have been full of spirit and interest. The remaining characters are colourless and formless. Of the brutal and brainless interludes of farce I have no more to say than has been said above. With more force and harmony of character the finest occasion in the play might have been put to admirable use; when Livio, in hopes to rescue his sister from shame, offers her hand to the suitor whom he formerly rejected, and finds her in turn refused by Romanello on suspicion of dishonour incurred through her brother's baseness. The presence and intercession of Romanello's own sister, herself newly and nobly vindicated in his eyes and reconciled to his love, should have added to the living