Several years, then, before Shakespeare's "Hamlet," we have a play dealing with the old story of a revenge of a son for a father, following closely the methods introduced by Kyd, appealing to a taste that delighted in extravagant violence and melodramatic sensationalism, but also striving to simulate profundity of thought and a passionate sense of evil. It is difficult to-day to take Marston seriously. His plays have little merit, while his bombastic sententiousness gives an air of insincerity to everything that he wrote; yet a serious purpose and a considerable influence on later drama cannot be denied to his efforts in tragedy. Like so many others, he deserves to be remembered for what he attempted rather than for what he did. Absurd though "Antonio's Revenge" be as an artistic achievement, it is historically of importance as indicating an ambitious attempt to give poetical expression to the spiritual conflict of a mind brought to face dreadful evil. The prologue that he addressed to his London audience testifies sufficiently to his serious and ambitious intentions, and to the clear separation of tragedy from other forms of drama, which he and other poets were trying to force upon the theatre. "Therefore we proclaim, If any spirit breathes within this round Uncapable of weighty passion, (As from his birth being hugged in the arms And nuzled 'twixt the breasts of Happiness,) Who winks and shuts his apprehension up From common sense of what men were, and are; Who would not know what men must be: let such Hurry amain from our black-visaged shows; We shall affright their eyes. But if a breast, Nail'd to the earth with grief; if any heart, Pierced through with anguish, pant within this ring; If there be any blood, whose heat is choked And stifled with true sense of misery: If aught of these strains fill this consort up, They arrive most welcome."