the emotional interest has no aid from the uncertainties of a romantic love-affair; the love is either married or bought love.

Well done as they are, Otway's strength is less in his characters than in the situations and the action. In this play the construction is admirable. Clear as crystal, simple and single, with no assistance from a subaction to maintain the interest, and with no cheap devices, the play holds the reader, still more the spectator, without slackening. A most notable means is the skillful use of suspense. In the fourth act the conspiracy is betrayed and the plotters all seized; no visible hope remains for either it or them. As in the fourth act of Jonson's Alchemist, we wonder what can remain for a fifth. But presently the only two senators whom we know are won over to mercy, the one by his daughter, the other by his self-sacrificing mistress. In the following scene of poignant pathos between the married lovers, broken in upon by the gloomy tolling bell, we begin to fear all is in vain, but are not sure of it till the end. Even the silly and distasteful scenes between the senator Antonio (a repulsive portrait of the Earl of Shaftsbury) and his "Nacky," poorly done as they are, and indeed disproportionate and needless, have prepared for this moment of hope. Nothing could surpass the death-scene of Jaffeir and Pierre, completely surprising yet completely satisfying.

For all the intensity of interest in the play, the power of holding us, and the compassion we feel for the characters, there is a certain aloofness in the emotion it excites. This is because we cannot perfectly give our sympathy to either side. On the one hand, our human feelings are all for the conspirators. Yet, unlovely as are the two officials whom

we see, Priuli with his cowardice and hardness, Antonio with his impotent senility, our indignation goes out against the attempt by a gang of foreigners to wreck a great historic state. The very title of the play bespeaks our support for this side. At the moment when he is about to join the conspirators,

Hell! hell! why sleepest thou?

cries the desperate Jaffeir, and then with great dramatic effectiveness enters the unconscious Pierre muttering,

Sure I have stayed too long!

The plotters have not been injured enough to win even our temporary approval. There results a state of mind somewhat like that excited by Macbeth, in which we feel deeply for persons who we know should and will be punished. With all our painful interest, we look down with a certain intellectual serenity. A tragedy of this sort has a fine and unusual character of its own.

The play is founded on the Abbé St. Réal's Conjuration des espagnols contre la Venise en 1618, probably through an English translation (1675). The groundwork therefore is historical, but Otway has made great changes, raising Jaffeir and Pierre to importance and introducing the character of Belvidera. It has been one of the most popular of postElizabethan tragedies, having been translated and acted in various European languages, and having held the English stage until well into the nineteenth century (revived in 1904), with the help of such actors as Betterton, Garrick, J. P. Kemble, and Macready, and of such actresses as Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Siddons, and Miss O'Neill.

Your name extinct, nor no more Priuli heard of.

You may remember, scarce five years are past,

Since in your brigandine you sailed to see The Adriatic wedded by our Duke,?

And I was with you: your unskilful pilot Dashed us upon a rock; when to your boat

You made for safety; entered first yourself;

The affrighted Belvidera following next, As she stood trembling on the vessel side, Was by a wave washed off into the deep, When instantly I plunged into the sea, And buffeting the billows to her rescue, Redeemed her life with half the loss of mine;

Like a rich conquest in one hand I bore her,

And with the other dashed the saucy

waves,

That thronged and pressed to rob me of my prize:

I brought her, gave her to your despair

ing arms:

Indeed you thanked me; but a nobler gratitude

Rose in her soul: for from that hour she loved me,

Till for her life she paid me with herself.

Priu. You stole her from me; like a thief you stole her,

At dead of night; that cursed hour you chose

To rifle me of all my heart held dear.

During which time, the world must bear me witness,

I have treated Belvidera like your daughter,

The daughter of a senator of Venice; Distinction, place, attendance and observance,

Due to her birth, she always has commanded;

Out of my little fortune I have done this; Because (though hopeless e'er to win your nature)

The world might see, I loved her for herself,

Not as the heiress of the great PriuliPriu. No more!

Jaff. Yes! all, and then adieu for ever. There's not a wretch that lives on com

O Belvidera! oh, she [i]s my wifeAnd we will bear our wayward fate together,

But ne'er know comfort more. (Enter Pierre.)

They'd starve each other; lawyers would want practice,

Cut-throats rewards; each man would kill his brother

Himself, none would be paid or hanged for murder.

Honesty was a cheat invented first

To bind the hands of bold deserving

rogues,

That fools and cowards might sit safe in

power,

And lord it uncontrolled above their bet

ters.

Jaff. Then honesty is but a notion.
Pierr.
Nothing else,
Like wit, much talked of, not to be de-
fined:

He that pretends to most, too, has least share in 't;

'Tis a ragged virtue: honesty! no more on 't.

Jaff. Sure thou art honest?
Pierr.

So indeed men think me; But they're mistaken, Jaffeir: I am a

rogue

As well as they;

A fine gay bold-faced villain, as thou

seest me;

"T is true, I pay my debts when they're contracted;

I steal from no man; would not cut a throat

To gain admission to a great man's purse,

Or a whore's bed; I'd not betray my friend,

To get his place or fortune: I scorn to flatter

Drive us like wracks down the rough tide of power,

Whilst no hold 's left to save us from destruction;

All that bear this are villains; and I one, Not to rouse up at the great call of nature,

And check the growth of these domestic spoilers,

That makes us slaves and tells us 't is our charter.

Jaff. O Aquilina! friend, to lose such beauty,

The dearest purchase of thy noble labors; She was thy right by conquest, as by love. Pierr. O Jaffeir! I'd so fixed my heart upon her,

That wheresoe'er I framed a scheme of life

For time to come, she was my only joy With which I wished to sweeten future cares;

I fancied pleasures, none but one that loves

And dotes as I did can imagine like 'em:

When in the extremity of all these hopes, In the most charming hour of expectation,

Then when our eager wishes soar the highest,

Ready to stoop and grasp the lovely

A soldier's mistress, Jaffeir, 's his religion;

When that's profaned, all other ties are broken;

That even dissolves all former bonds of service,

And from that hour I think myself as free

To be the foe as e'er the friend of
Venice.-

Nay, dear Revenge, whene'er thou call'st
I'm ready.

Jaff. I think no safety can be here for virtue,

And grieve, my friend, as much as thou to live

In such a wretched state as this of Venice:

Where all agree to spoil the public

good,

And villains fatten with the brave man's labors.

Pierr. We have neither safety, unity, nor