_Nero_. Dead? Poor Britannicus! who might have sat Upon this very throne instead of me!
_Nero_. Take him and make him emperor--if you can.
This has what the French call the _coup de fouet_. But the power and progress of the play are clogged by two faults--defective construction and a curious diffuseness and lack of concentration in many of the scenes and speeches. The action is sadly impeded, for instance, by the author's not making one business of Seneca's death, but spinning it out through four scenes of going and coming, as also with Poppæa's, and even more with Nero's, where the intercalation of long conversations with changes of places and personages is hurtful, almost destructive, to the effect. This appears to be the result of too close an adherence to fact, which brings us back to our original grievance against dramatizing history. The loss of force from lack of concentration probably arises from carelessness, haste or want of revision. From the same causes may spring, too, sundry anachronisms of expression, such as "For God's sake;" vulgarisms like "Leave me alone" for "Let me alone;" extraordinary commonplaces, as in the comparison of popular favor to a weathercock, and of woman's love to a flower worn, then thrown aside; and a constant lapsing from the energy and spirit of the dialogue into flatness, familiarity and triviality. There is an occasional not unwholesome coarseness which recalls Mr. Story's Elizabethan masters, as in the following passage:
What a crew is this Which just have fled! Foul suckers that drop off When they no more can on their victims gorge! This Tigellinus.... Within his sunshine basked and buzzed and stung; And, now the shadow comes, off, like a fly-- A pestilent and stinking fly--he goes!
But it is unpardonable to make even Nero say, "I have to rinse my mouth after her kiss."
The fine qualities of the composition give the blemishes relief, and the material deserved that Mr. Story should work it up to its utmost possible perfection.
Autobiography of Mrs. Fletcher. With Letters and other Family Memorials. Edited by the Survivor of her Family. Boston: Roberts Brothers.