If Marston's comic vein is thus, to use one of Dekkar's phrases, that of "a thorny-toothed rascal," it may be supposed that his tragic is a still fiercer libel on humanity. His tragedies, indeed, though not without a gloomy power, are extravagant and horrible in conception and conduct. Even when he copies, he makes the thing his own by caricaturing it. Thus the plot of "Antonio's Revenge" is plainly taken from "Hamlet," but it is "Hamlet" passed through Marston's intellect and imagination, and so debased as to look original. Still, the intellect in Marston's tragedies strikes the reader as forcible in itself, and as capable of achieving excellence, if it could only be divorced from the bad disposition and deformed conscience which direct its exercise. He has fancy, and he frequently stutters into imagination; but the imp that controls his heart corrupts his taste and taints his sense of beauty, and the result is that he has a malicious satisfaction in deliberately choosing words whose uncouthness finds no extenuation in their expressiveness, and in forging elaborate metaphors which disgust rather than delight. His description of a storm at sea is among the least unfavorable specimens of this perversion of his poetical powers:-- "The sea grew mad: * * * * Strait swarthy darkness _popt out_ Phoebus' eye, And blurred the jocund face of bright-cheek'd day; Whilst cruddled fogs masked even darkness' brow; Heaven bade's good night, and the rocks groaned At the intestine uproar of the main." It must be allowed that both his tragedies and comedies are full of strong and striking thoughts, which show a searching inquisition into the worst parts of human nature. Occasionally he expresses a general truth with great felicity, as when he says, "Pygmy cares Can shelter under patience' shield; but giant griefs Will burst all covert." His imagination is sometimes stimulated into unusual power in expressing the fiercer and darker passions; as, for example, in this image:-- "O, my soul's enthroned In the triumphant chariot of revenge!" And in this:-- "Ghastly amazement! with upstarted hair, Shall hurry on before, and usher us, Whilst trumpets clamor with a sound of death." He has three descriptions of morning, which seem to have been written in emulation of Shakespeare's in "Hamlet"; two of them being found in the tragedy which "Hamlet" suggested. "Is not yon gleam the shuddering morn that flakes With silver tincture the east verge of heaven? * * * * For see the dapple-gray coursers of the morn Beat up the light with their bright silver hoofs, And chase it through the sky. * * * * Darkness is fled: look; look, infant morn hath drawn Bright silver curtains 'bout the couch of night; And now Aurora's house trots azure rings, Breathing fair light about the firmament."