Page:The Age of Shakespeare - Swinburne (1908).djvu/61

 cry of Brachiano under the first sharp workings of the poison:

O thou strong heart! There's such a covenant 'tween the world and it, They're loath to break.

Another stroke well worthy of Shakespeare is the redeeming touch of grace in this brutal and cold-blooded ruffian which gives him in his agony a thought of tender care for the accomplice of his atrocities:

Few instances of Webster's genius are so well known as the brief but magnificent passage which follows; yet it may not be impertinent to cite it once again:

Brachiano. O thou soft natural death, that art joint twin To sweetest slumber! no rough-bearded comet Stares on thy mild departure; the dull owl Beats not against thy casement; the hoarse wolf Scents not thy carrion; pity winds thy corpse, Whilst horror waits on princes. Vittoria. I am lost forever. Brachiano. How miserable a thing it is to die 'Mongst women howling!—What are those? Flamineo. Franciscans: They have brought the extreme unction. Brachiano. On pain of death, let no man name death to me; It is a word [? most] infinitely terrible.