er of
the Accoramboni, is a dignified character, pathetic in her suffering.
Webster, it may be added, treats the Cardinal Monticelso as allied in
some special way to the Medici. Yet certain traits in his character,
especially his avoidance of bloodshed and the tameness of his temper
after Camillo has been murdered, seem to have been studied from the
historical Sixtus.

III

The character of the 'White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona,' is perhaps
the most masterly creation of Webster's genius. Though her history is
a true one in its leading incidents, the poet, while portraying a real
personage, has conceived an original individuality. It is impossible
to know for certain how far the actual Vittoria was guilty of her
first husband's murder. Her personality fails to detach itself from
the romance of her biography by any salient qualities. But Webster,
with true playwright's instinct, casts aside historical doubts, and
delineates in his heroine a woman of a very marked and terrible
nature. Hard as adamant, uncompromising, ruthless, Vittoria follows
ambition as the loadstar of her life. It is the ambition to reign as
Duchess, far more than any passion for a paramour, which makes her
plot Camillo's and Isabella's murders, and throws her before marriage
into Brachiano's arms. Added to this ambition, she is possessed with
the cold demon of her own imperial and victorious beauty. She has the
courage of her criminality in the fullest sense; and much of the
fascination with which Webster has invested her, depends upon her
dreadful daring. Her portrait is drawn with full and firm touches.
Although she appears but five times on the scene, she fills it from
the first line of the drama to the last. Each appearance adds
effectively to the total impression. We see her first during a
criminal interview with Brachiano, contrived by her brother Flamineo.
The plot of the tragedy is developed in this scene; Vittoria
suggesting, under the metaphor of a dream, that her lover should
compass the deaths of his duchess and her husband. The dream is told
with deadly energy and ghastly picturesqueness. The cruel sneer at its
conclusion, murmured by a voluptuous woman in the ears of an
impassioned paramour, chills us with the sense of concentrated vice.
Her next appearance is before the court, on trial for her husband's
murder. The scene is celebrated, and has been much disputed by
critics. Relying on her own dauntlessness, on her beauty, and on the