No dramatist ever used less artifice. The subjects which he chose are either taken straight from real life, or else adopted crudely from the legends of ancient Greece and Rome. In each case Heywood’s manner and method are the same. He uses simple, easy English, and sets forth unaffected feeling. The scenes have no elaborate connexion. They cohere by juxtaposition. The language is never high-flown or bombastic; rarely rising to the height of poetical diction, and attaining to intensity only when the passion of the moment is overwhelming, it owes its occasional force to its sincerity. His means of reaching the heart are of the simplest; yet they are often deep and effectual. He depends for his tragic effects upon no Até, no midnight horrors, no sarcastic knave. Yet his use of some mere name--_Nan, Nan!_--and his allusions to Christ and our religion, go straight to the very soul. His men are all gentlemen; and it may be said in passing that he had more understanding of men, especially high-spirited young men, than of women. Nothing could be finer than the bearing, for example, of young Forrest when he challenges Rainsford, or of Valladaura and Montferrers, or again of Frankford and Sir Charles Mountford in _A Woman Killed with Kindness_. Now and then he touches the spring of true poetic language, as in these phrases:-- “Oh, speak no more! For more than this I know and have recorded Within the red-leaved table of my heart.” Or again:-- “My friend and I Like two chain bullets side by side will fly Or yet again:-- “Astonishment, Fear, and amazement beat upon my heart, Even as a madman beats upon a drum.” The last line of this quotation is a splendid instance of the way in which the old dramatists heightened horror by connecting one terrific image with another of a different sort, yet no less terrible. The fury of a lunatic hideously rattling his drum with fantastic gestures rushes across our mind without distracting our attention from the anguish of the man who speaks the words. The simile does but add force to his bewilderment.