accident. No formal scheme or religious principle of retribution would
have been so strangely or so thoroughly in keeping with the whole scheme
and principle of the tragedy. After the overwhelming terrors and the
overpowering beauties of that unique and marvellous fourth act, in which
the genius of this poet spreads its fullest and its darkest wing for the
longest and the strongest of its flights, it could not but be that the
subsequent action and passion of the drama should appear by comparison
unimpressive or ineffectual; but all the effect or impression possible
of attainment under the inevitable burden of this difficulty is achieved
by natural and simple and straightforward means. If Webster has not
made the part of Antonio dramatically striking and attractive--as he
probably found it impossible to do--he has at least bestowed on the
fugitive and unconscious widower of his murdered heroine a pensive and
manly grace of deliberate resignation which is not without pathetic as
well as poetical effect. In the beautiful and well-known scene where the
echo from his wife's unknown and new-made grave seems to respond to his
meditative mockery and forewarn him of his impending death, Webster has
given such reality and seriousness to an old commonplace of contemporary
fancy or previous fashion in poetry that we are fain to forget the
fantastic side of the conception and see only the tragic aspect of its
meaning. A weightier objection than any which can be brought against the
conduct of the play might be suggested to the minds of some readers--and
these, perhaps, not too exacting or too captious readers--by the sudden
vehemence of transformation which in the great preceding act seems to
fall like fire from heaven upon the two chief criminals who figure on
the stage of murder. It seems rather a miraculous retribution, a
judicial violation of the laws of nature, than a reasonably credible
consequence or evolution of those laws, which strikes Ferdinand with
madness and Bosola with repentance. But the whole atmosphere of the
action is so charged with thunder that this double and simultaneous
shock of moral electricity rather thrills us with admiration and faith
than chills us with repulsion or distrust. The passionate intensity and
moral ardor of imagination which we feel to vibrate and penetrate
through every turn and every phrase of the dialogue would suffice to
enforce upon our belief a more nearly incredible revolution of nature