Remorse is as the heart in which it grows: If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews Of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy, It is a poison tree that, pierced to the inmost, Weeps only tears of poison! Act i. sc. 1.
And Remorse is everywhere distinguished from virtuous penitence. To excite a sanative remorse Alvar returns, the Passion is put in motion at Ordonio's first entrance by the appearance of Isidore's wife, etc.; it is carried still higher by the narration of Isidore, Act ii. sc. 1; higher still by the interview with the supposed wizard; and to its acme by the Incantation Scene and Picture. Now, then, we are to see its effects and to exemplify the second part of the motto, "but if proud and gloomy, It is a poison tree," etc. Ordonio, too proud to look steadily into himself, catches a false scent, plans the murder of Isidore and the poisoning of the Sorcerer, perpetrates the one, and, attempting the other, is driven by Remorse and the discovery of Alvar to a temporary distraction; and, finally, falling a victim to the only crime that had been realized, by the hand of Alhadra, breathes his last in a pang of pride: "O couldst thou forget me!" As from a circumference to a centre, every ray in the tragedy converges to Ordonio. Spite of wretched acting, the passage told wonderfully in which, as in a struggle between two unequal Panathlists or wrestlers, the weaker had for a moment got uppermost, and Ordonio, with unfeigned love, and genuine repentance, says, "I will kneel to thee, my Brother! Forgive me, Alvar!" till the Pride, like the bottom-swell on our lake, gusts up again in "_Curse_ me with forgiveness!" The second good quality is, I think, the variety of metres according as the speeches are merely transitive, or narrative, or passionate, or (as in the Incantation) deliberate and formal poetry. It is true they are all, or almost all, Iambic blank verse, but under that form there are five or six perfectly distinct metres. As to the outcry that the "Remorse" is not pathetic (meaning such pathos as convulses in "Isabella" or "The Gamester") the answer is easy. True! the poet never meant that it should be. It is as pathetic as the "Hamlet" or the "Julius Cæsar." He woo'd the feelings of the audience, as my wretched epilogue said:--