Page:Grierson Herbert - First Half of the Seventeenth Century.djvu/389

Rh hand, and the resolute effort made by the Elizabethans to realise their scene, be it London or Italy, and to give life and individuality to the characters; as well as the poetry with which their plays overflow. And even if one passes from the second- to the first-rate dramatists, the Elizabethans maintain their position. Fletcher and Webster are more dramatic, and not less poetic, though in a somewhat different way, than Hooft and Vondel. And even in the work of the great Corneille himself, despite scenes of eloquent argument and declamation, and dramatic touches such as "Moi! et c'est assez" or "Qu'il mourût," where can one find scenes to surpass in subtle and thrilling dramatic power the interview between Beatrice and De Flores in Middleton's The Changeling, or that in The Duchess of Malfi, already referred to, when the brother cries—

"Cover her face: mine eyes dazzle:  she died young";

and Bosola replies in even more thrilling words—

"I think not so: her infelicity                     Seemed to have years too many"?

There is more in such a scene to evoke the Transcendental Feeling, the solemn sense of the immediate presence of "that which was and is and ever shall be," to induce which is, Professor Stewart tell us, the chief end of poetry, than in a whole tragedy of Corneille.

In sustained and finished workmanship, Corneille's plays are doubtless infinitely superior to the mass of minor Elizabethan work. It is rare, indeed, that an Elizabethan play is wrought out in a completely satisfying manner. The Virgin Martyr is a rude,