rs to strengthen it; and the last
scene of this act--the fourth--presents a highly melo-dramatic situation.
It is a street scene; and _Spinola_ has brought _Nina_ to watch her
husband into her rival's house. She sees him approach it--he wavers--she
hopes he will pass the door. Alas, he does not, and actually goes in! Of
course she swoons and falls. So does the act drop.

The entire business of the last act is to bring about the catastrophe;
and, as not one step towards it has been previously taken, there is no
time to lose. _Spinola_, therefore, is made not to mince the matter, but
to come boldly on at once, with a bottle of poison! This he blandly
insinuates to _Nina_ might be used with great effect upon her husband, so
as effectually to put a stop to future intrigues with any forthcoming fair
Florentines. She, however, declines putting the poison to any such use;
but, nevertheless, honours _Spinola_'s draught, by accepting it. The
villain expresses himself extremely grateful for her condescension, and
exits, to make way for _Doria_.

Directly he appears, you at once perceive that he has done something
exceedingly naughty, for his countenance is covered with remorse and a
certain white powder which is the stage specific for pallor. The lady
complains of being unwell, and her husband kindly advises her to go to
bed. She replies, that she has a cordial within which will soon restore
her, and entreats her beloved lord to administer the potion with his own
dear hand; he consents--and they both retire, and the audience shudders,
because they pretty well guess that she is going to toss off the dose, of
which _Spinola_ has been the dispensing chemist.

And here we may be forgiven for a short digression on the subject of the
dramatic _Materia Medica_, and _poison-ology_. The sleeping draughts of
the stage are, for example, generally speaking, uncommon specimens of
chemical perfection. When taken--even if the patient be ever so well
shaken--nothing on earth, or on the stage, can wake him after the cue for
his going to sleep, and before the cue for his getting up, have been
given; while it never allows him to dose an instant longer than the plot
of the piece requires. Then as to poisons; there are some which kill the
taker dead on the spot, like a fly in a bottle of prussic acid; others,
which--swallowed with a sort of time-bargain--are warranted to do the
business within a few seconds of so many hours hence; others again there