except in the famous Cornwall and Gloucester scene in _Lear_)
Shakespere never indulged after his earliest days. The wicked tyrant's
tongue is torn out, his murdered son's body is thrown down before him, and
then the conspirators, standing round, gibe, curse, and rant at him for a
couple of pages before they plunge their swords into his body. This goodly
conclusion is led up to by a sufficient quantity of antecedent and casual
crimes, together with much not very excellent fooling by a court gull,
Balurdo, who might be compared with Shakespere's fools of the same kind, to
the very great advantage of those who do not appreciate the latter. The
beautiful descriptive and reflective passages which, in Lamb's _Extracts_,
gave the play its reputation, chiefly occur towards the beginning, and this
is the best of them:--

_And._ "Why man, I never was a Prince till now.
'Tis not the bared pate, the bended knees,
Gilt tipstaves, Tyrian purple, chairs of state,
Troops of pied butterflies, that flutter still
In greatness summer, that confirm a prince:
'Tis not the unsavoury breath of multitudes,
Shouting and clapping, with confused din;
That makes a prince. No, Lucio, he's a king,
A true right king, that dares do aught save wrong,
Fears nothing mortal, but to be unjust,
Who is not blown up with the flattering puffs
Of spungy sycophants: who stands unmov'd
Despite the jostling of opinion:
Who can enjoy himself, maugre the throng
That strive to press his quiet out of him:
Who sits upon Jove's footstool as I do
Adoring, not affecting majesty:
Whose brow is wreathed with the silver crown
Of clear content: this, Lucio, is a king,
And of this empire, every man's possessed
That's worth his soul."

_Sophonisba_, which followed, is much less rambling, but as bloody and
extravagant. The scene where the witch Erichtho plays Succubus to Syphax,
instead of the heroine, and in her form, has touches which partly, but not
wholly, redeem its extravagance, and the end is dignified and good. _What
You Will_, a comedy of intrigue, is necessarily free from Marston's worst
faults, and here the admirable passage quoted above occurs. But the main
plot--which turns not only on the courtship, by a mere fribble, of a lady
whose husban