To enjoy you, though I were to wait the time
That scholars do in taking their degree
In the noble arts, ’t were nothing: howsoe’er,
He parts from you, that will depart from life
To do you any service; and so humbly
I take my leave.”
Never, I think, was more delicate compliment paid to a woman than in that fine touch which puts the service of her on a level with the “noble arts.” On this ground of sentiment idealized by devotion, Webster always moves with the assured ease and dignified familiarity of a thorough gentleman.
Ercole’s pretension to the hand of Jolenta leads, of course, to a duel with Contarino. They had been fellow-students together at Padua, and the scene in which the preliminaries of the duel are arranged is pitched on as nobly grave a key as can be conceived. Lamb very justly calls it “the model of a well-arranged and gentlemanlike difference.” There is no swagger and no bravado in it, as is too commonly apt to be the case in the plays of that age. There is something Spanish in its dignity. To show what its tone is, I quote the opening. It is Contarino who first speaks.
“Sir, my love to you has proclaimed you one
Whose word was still led by a noble thought,