One property more than the devil of hell; Let me envy the pleasure of youth heartily; Let me in this life fear no kind of ill, That have no good to hope for; let me die In the distraction of that worthy princess Who loathed food, and sleep, and ceremony, For thought of losing that brave gentleman She would fain have sav’d, had not a false conveyance Express’d him stubborn-hearted. Let me sink Where neither man nor memory may ever find me.” Webster forestalled Balzac by two hundred years in what he says of a woman’s last passion. The revenge on which she fixes is, at the cost of her own honor, to declare Romelio illegitimate. She says that his true father was one Crispiano, a Spanish gentleman, the friend of her husband. Naturally, when the trial comes on, Crispiano, unrecognized, turns up in court as the very judge who is to preside over it. He first gets the year of the alleged adultery fixed by the oath of Leonora and her maid, and then professes to remember that Crispiano had told him of giving a portrait of himself to Leonora, has it sent for, and, revealing himself, identifies himself by it, saying, prettily enough (those old dramatists have a way of stating dry facts so fancifully as to make them blossom, as it were), “Behold, I am the shadow of this shadow.” He then proves an alibi at the date in question by his friend Ariosto, whom meanwhile he has just promoted to the bench in his own place, by virtue of a convenient commission from the king of Spain, which he has in his pocket. At the end of the trial, the counsel for Leonora exclaimed:-- “Ud’s foot, we’re spoiled; Why, our client is proved an honest woman!” Which I cite only because it reminds me to say that Webster has a sense of humor more delicate, and a way of showing it less coarse, than most of his brother dramatists. Meanwhile Webster saves Romelio from being hateful beyond possibility of condonation by making him perfectly fearless. He says finely:-- “I cannot set myself so many fathom Beneath the height of my true heart as fear. Let me continue An honest man, which I am very certain A coward can never be.” The last words convey an important and even profound truth. And let me say now, once for all, that Webster abounds, more than any of his contemporaries except Chapman, in these metaphysical apothegms, and that he introduces them naturally, while Chapman is too apt to drag them in by the ears. Here is another as good, I am tempted to say, as many of Shakespeare’s, save only in avarice of words. When Leonora is suborning Winifred, her maid, to aid her in the plot against her son, she says:-- “Come hither: I have a weighty secret to impart, But I would have thee first confirm to me How I may trust that thou canst keep my counsel Beyond death.