"But to throw downe the walls and Gates of Rome
To make an entrance for an Hobby-horse;
To vaunt to th'people his ridiculous spoyles;
To come with Lawrell and with Olyves crown'd
For having been the worst of all the singers,
Is beyond Patience!"
In another passage the grandiloquence and the vanity of the poet of the Pharsalia are well depicted.
The second act opens with Antonius' suit to Poppaea, which is full of passion and poetry, but is not allowed to usurp too much room in the progress of the play. Then, in fine contrast to the grovelling servility of the Emperor's creatures, we see the erect figure of the grand stoic philosopher, Persius' tutor, Cornutus, whose free-spokenness procures him banishment. Afterwards follows a second conference of the conspirators, in which scene the author has followed closely in the steps of Tacitus.
One of the most life-like passages in the play is at the beginning of the third act, where Nimphidius describes to Poppaea how the weary audience were imprisoned in the theatre during Nero's performance, with guards stationed at the doors, and spies on all sides scanning each man's face to note down every smile or frown. Our author draws largely upon Tacitus and the highly-coloured account of Suetonius; but he has, besides, a telling way of his own, and some of his lines are very happy. Poppaea's wit bites shrewdly; and even Nimphidius' wicked breast must have been chilled at such bitter jesting as:—
"How did our Princely husband act Orestes? Did he not wish againe his Mother living? Her death would add great life unto his part."
As Nero approaches his crowning act of wickedness, the burning of Rome, his words assume a grim intensity. The invocation to the severe powers is the language of a man at strife at once with the whole world and himself. In the representation of the burning of Rome it will perhaps be thought that the author hardly rises to the height of his theme. The Vergilian simile put into the mouth of Antonius is distinctly misplaced; but as our author so seldom offends in this respect he may be pardoned for the nonce. It may seem a somewhat crude treatment to introduce a mother mourning for her burnt child, and a son weeping over the body of his father; but the naturalness of the language and the absence of extravagance must be commended. Some of the lines have the ring of genuine pathos, as here:—
"Where are thy counsels, where thy good examples? And that kind roughness of a Father's anger?"
The scene immediately preceding contains the noble speech of Petronius quoted by Charles Lamb in the Specimens. In a space of twenty lines the author has concentrated a world of wisdom. One knows not whether to admire more the justness of the thought or the exquisite finish of the diction. Few finer things have been said on the raison d'être of tragedy from the time when Aristotle in the Poetics formulated his memorable dictum. The admirable rhythmical flow should be noted. There is a rare suppleness and strength in the verses; we could not put one line before another without destroying the effect of the whole; no verse stands out obstinately from its fellows, but all are knit firmly, yet lightly, together: and a line of magnificent strength fitly closes a magnificent passage. Hardly a sonnet of Shakespeare or Mr. Rossetti could be more perfect.
At the beginning of the fourth act, when the freedman Milichus discloses Piso's conspiracy, Nero's trepidation is well depicted. It is curious that among the conspirators the author should not have introduced the dauntless woman, Epicharis, who refused under the most cruel tortures to betray the names of her accomplices, and after biting out her tongue died from the sufferings that she had endured on the rack. "There," as mad Hieronymo said, "you could show a passion." Even Tacitus, who upbraids the other conspirators with pusillanimity, marks his admiration of this noble woman. No reader will quarrel with the playwright if he has thought fit to paint the conspirators in brighter colours than the historian had done. When Scevinus is speaking we seem to be listening to the voice of Shakespeare's Cassius: witness the exhortation to Piso,—
"O Piso thinke,
Thinke on that day when in the Parthian fields
Thou cryedst to th'flying Legions to turne
And looke Death in the face; he was not grim,
But faire and lovely when he came in armes."