Moreover, in respect of Webster as of his fellows, we must, in order to understand them, first naturalize our minds in their world. Chapman makes Byron say to Queen Elizabeth:—
“These stars,
Whose influences for this latitude
Distilled, and wrought in with this temperate air,
And this division of the elements,
Have with your reign brought forth more worthy spirits
For counsel, valour, height of wit, and art,
Than any other region of the earth,
Or were brought forth to all your ancestors.”
And this is apt to be the only view we take of that Golden Age, as we call it fairly enough in one, and that, perhaps, the most superficial, sense. But it was in many ways rude and savage, an age of great crimes and of the ever-brooding suspicion of great crimes. Queen Elizabeth herself was the daughter of a king as savagely cruel and irresponsible as the Grand Turk. It was an age that in Italy could breed a Cenci, and in France could tolerate the massacre of St. Bartholomew as a legitimate stroke of statecraft. But when we consider whether crime be a fit subject for tragedy, we must distinguish. Merely as crime, it is vulgar, as are the waxen images of murderers with the very rope round their necks with which they were hanged. Crime becomes then really tragic when it merely furnishes the theme for a profound psychological study of motive and character. The weakness of Webster’s two greatest plays lies in this—that crime is presented as a spectacle, and not as a means of looking into our own hearts and fathoming our own consciousness.