CZERINA (faintly). “Do breathe heat into me:
Lay thy warm breath unto my bloodless lips:
I stagger; I—I must—”
CASTALDO. “In mercy, what?”
CZERINA. “Wed!!!”
The lady ends, most maidenly, by fainting in her lover’s arms.
A higher flight is elsewhere taken. Isabella urges Castaldo to murder Martinuzzi, in a sentence that has a powerful effect upon the feelings, for it makes us shudder as we copy it—it will cause even our readers to tremble when they see it. The idea of using blasphemy as an instrument for shocking the minds of an audience, is as original as it is worthy of the sort of genius Mr. Stephens possesses. Alluding to a poniard, Isabella says:—
“Sheath it where God and nature prompt your hand!”
That is to say, in the breast of a cardinal!!
The vulgar, who set up the common-place standards of nature, probability, moral propriety, and respect for such sacred names as they are careful never to utter, except with reverence, will perhaps condemn Mr. Stephens (the aforesaid “Editor of the Church of England Quarterly Review,” and author of other religious works) with unmitigated severity. They must not be too hasty. Mr. Stephens is a genius, and cannot, therefore, be held accountable for the meaning [pg 87]of his ravings, be they even blasphemous; more than that he is a Syncretic genius, and his associates, by the designation they have chosen, by the terms of their agreement, are bound to cry each other up—to defend one another from the virulent attacks of common sense and plain reason. They are sworn to stick together, like the bundle of rods in Æsop’s fable.