of mere foppish and swashbuckler
lovers of the scandalous and the sensational: they fascinated with the
attraction of tragic grandeur, of psychological strangeness, of moral
monstrosity, a generation in whom the passionate imagination of the
playwright was curiously blent with the metaphysical analysis of the
philosopher and the ethical judgment of the Puritan. To these men, ardent
and serious even in their profligacy; imaginative and passionate even in
their Puritanism, all sucking avidly at this newly found Italian
civilization; the wickedness of Italy was more than morbidly attractive
or morbidly appalling: it was imaginatively and psychologically
fascinating. Whether they were as part of the action or as allusions, as
in Webster's two great plays, in which there occurs poisoning by means
of the leaves of a book, poisoning by the poisoned lips of a picture,
poisoning by a helmet, poisoning by the pommel of a saddle; crimes were
multiplied by means of subordinate plots and unnecessary incidents, like
the double vengeance of Richardetto and of Hippolita in Ford's "Giovanni
and Annabella," where both characters are absolutely unnecessary to the
main story of the horrible love of the hero and heroine; like the
murders of Levidulcia and Sebastian in Tourneur's "Atheist's Tragedy,"
and the completely unnecessary though extremely pathetic death of young
Marcello in Webster's "White Devil;" until the plays were brought to a
close by the gradual extermination of all the principal performers, and
only a few confidants and dummies remained to bury the corpses which
strewed the stage. Imaginary monsters were fashioned out of half-a-dozen
Neapolitan and Milanese princes, by Ford, by Beaumont and Fletcher, by
Middleton, by Marston, even by the light and graceful Philip Massinger:
mythical villains, Ferdinands, Lodowicks, and Fernezes, who yet fell
short of the frightful realities of men like Sigismondo Malatesta,
Alexander VI., and Pier Luigi Farnese; nay, more typical monsters, with
no name save their vices, Lussuriosos, Gelosos, Ambitiosos, and
Vindicis, like those drawn by the strong and savage hand of Cyril
Tourneur.

Nothing which the English stage could display seemed to the minds of
English playwrights and the public to give an adequate picture of the
abominations of Italy; much as they heaped up horrors and combined them
with artistic skill, much as they forced into sight, there yet remained
an abyss of evil which the Eng