Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/101

Rh cunning of Sejanus. There is a fault too in the moral. Wickedness in the highest place escapes unpunished, and the greatest criminal is unscathed. It is true that a bad man who is the instrument of another bad man's crimes should meet with fitting punishment, and it is also true that among the worst men united for any object, there must be a semi-romantic counterfeit honesty, and that he who first violates it should suffer the quickest fall. But there is a higher truth still, that the chief agent in the plot of crime should not escape the bolts of justice; and the fault in the moral lesson conveyed by this drama is, that it is less the fall of Sejanus than the triumph of Tiberius; and with the success of such a man who could sympathize?

"Catiline" was written after an interval of eight years, and bears evident marks of improvement, though a few faults are exaggerated.

In the former play, Jonson had kept with servile fidelity to the description he drew from ancient authors; but in this he goes a step farther in the wrong direction, and translates verbatim page upon page of Cicero and Sallust. For example, the well-known commencement of the first oration against Catiline, is thus rendered:

"Quousque tandem abutêre Catilina, patientia nostrâ? quamdiu furor iste tuus nos eludet? Quern ad finem sese effrenata jactabit audacia? Nihilne te nocturnum præsidium Palatii, nihil urbis vigiliæ, nihil timor populi, nihil concursus bonorum omnium, nihil hic munitissimus habendi senatûs locus, nihil horum ora vultusque moverunt?"

Whither at length wilt thou abuse our patience, Still shall thy fury mock us? To what license Dares thy unbridled boldness run itself? Do all the nightly guards kept on the palace, The city's watches, with the people's fears, The concourse of all good men—this so strong