faceable
recollection of one or two resplendent scenes. His Roman history-play
of 'Appius and Virginia' proves that he understood the value of a
simple plot, and that he was able, when he chose, to work one out with
conscientious calmness. But the two Italian dramas upon which his fame
is justly founded, by right of which he stands alone among the
playwrights of all literatures, are marked by a peculiar and wayward
mannerism. Each part is etched with equal effort after luminous effect
upon a back-ground of lurid darkness; and the whole play is made up
of these parts, without due concentration on a master-motive. The
characters are definite in outline, but, taken together in the conduct
of a single plot, they seem to stand apart, like figures in a _tableau
vivant_; nor do they act and react each upon the other in the play of
interpenetrative passions. That this mannerism was deliberately
chosen, we have a right to believe. 'Willingly, and not ignorantly, in
this kind have I faulted,' is the answer Webster gives to such as may
object that he has not constructed his plays upon the classic model.
He seems to have had a certain sombre richness of tone and intricacy
of design in view, combining sensational effect and sententious
pregnancy of diction in works of laboured art, which, when adequately
represented to the ear and eye upon the stage, might at a touch obtain
the animation they now lack for chamber-students.

When familiarity has brought us acquainted with his style, when we
have disentangled the main characters and circumstances from their
adjuncts, we perceive that he treats poignant and tremendous
situations with a concentrated vigour special to his genius; that he
has studied each word and trait of character, and that he has prepared
by gradual approaches and degrees of horror for the culmination of his
tragedies. The sentences which seem at first sight copied from a
commonplace book, are found to be appropriate. Brief lightning flashes
of acute perception illuminate the midnight darkness of his all but
unimaginably depraved characters. Sharp unexpected touches evoke
humanity in the _fantoccini_ of his wayward art. No dramatist has
shown more consummate ability in heightening terrific effects, in
laying bare the innermost mysteries of crime, remorse, and pain,
combined to make men miserable. It has been said of Webster that,
feeling himself deficient in the first poetic qualities, he
concentrated his powers upon