Thomas Otway. Thomas Otway
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experience also, furnishes very strange examples of self-contradiction. Yet one can only say that the examples of it in the older drama are not, for the most part, rendered credible and probable to us. And, so far, therefore, this is not a drama which can be always and universally interesting, except in the supreme examples. In the same way Otway's and Wycherley's indecencies would hardly (one supposes) interest a Victorian audience. The intellectual, or ethical, atmosphere must not be too unfamiliar and alien.
We are not incredulous when Jaffier, the weak, affectionate, impulsive hero of Venice Preserved, maddened by the persecution of his adored bride, Belvidera, on the part of her implacable father, who is also a senator, suddenly, and without counting the cost, from motives of revenge and hope of better fortune, consents to take part in a conspiracy against the State, persuaded by his dearest friend, Pierre, a man of sterner and more homogeneous fibre. Nor are we incredulous when, realising with his tender heart what hideous consequences are likely to ensue in the disturbance of domestic peace, and the slaughter of so many innocent people, he allows himself, however reluctantly, to be over-persuaded by Belvidera, who comprehends that the murder of her father, with all the other senators, is intended; or when, thus over-persuaded, he renounces his purpose, and betrays his fellow-conspirators, including even his well-beloved friend, to the Doge and Senate. We are not incredulous when we see Jaffier, on his way to the Senate, walking as in a dream under spell of his adored Belvidera's more powerful will, and hear him say in some of the most beautiful lines the poet wrote:
Come, lead me forward now, like a tame lamb,
To sacrifice: thus in his fatal garlands
Decked fine, and pleased the wanton skips and plays,
Trots by the enticing flattering priestess' side,
And much transported with his little pride,
Forgets his dear companions of the plain;
Till by her bound he's on the altar lain;
Yet then he hardly bleats, such pleasure's in the pain.
The catastrophe we feel inevitably to follow from the given elements in their fusion and entanglement, the cruel injustice of the father, the weak and foolish impulsiveness of the hero, together with his ardent affection both to bride and friend, and the co-existent corruption in the State, which made that sinister intrigue against the Republic possible.
I cannot agree with Dr. Garnett that the interest of Otway's plays arises from the situation only, not from the characters. It appears to me that the humanity of the characters is strongly realised, and that we are made to sympathise with them profoundly. As to Addison's remark that the characters are mostly wicked, I hardly know what to say. The heroines are ideally good, and the others are neither better nor worse than average men and women. If Shakespeare has given us types—though these are also individuals—of ambition, jealousy, revengeful avarice, unpractical genius, showing us the natural issues and eventuations of these, Otway has given us one type, equally individual, of weak, but absorbing, and passionate affection, showing us the natural issues of this. As Johnson says, he "consulted nature in his own breast."
Having then revealed the intended treason, after extorting an oath from the Senate to spare the lives of his coadjutors, Jaffier is confronted with Pierre and the rest. Then follows a tremendous scene, in which Jaffier almost abjectly implores Pierre for pardon, and the latter spurns him as one proved unworthy the friendship of an honest man, finally striking and hurling Jaffier from him. The words he uses to his former friend are worse even than the blow; their venom can never cease to rankle. The blunt, open and magnanimous, though reckless and desperate character of Pierre is finely contrasted with that of Jaffier, luxuriously feminine in its sensibility. Jaffier urges that he has at least saved Pierre's life, to which his old friend makes the terrible reply:
I scorn it more because preserved by thee.
When Belvidera was delivered by Jaffier, in pledge of his own good faith, into the hands of the conspirators, he gave them a dagger, charging them to despatch her, should he prove traitor, The Senate, false to their oath, condemned the rebels to death with torture; indeed the latter had refused to accept their lives with bondage at the hands of the Republic. Belvidera tells Jaffier this, and then he feels tempted to slay with that dagger her who has incited him to compass the ruin of his beloved friend. This is another tremendous scene. Prevented by the returning and overwhelming tide of love from executing his purpose, Jaffier bids her go to her father, and from him as senator beg the life of Pierre. She does so, and the old man, relenting at the sight of his yet beloved child kneeling in agony before him, grants her prayer. This part also is very beautiful. But his attempt to save Pierre comes too late. In their final most moving interview Jaffier tells Belvidera that he will not survive his friend. He commends his beloved to Heaven, calling down every blessing upon her. But when she understands that they are to part for ever she exclaims:
Oh! call back
Your cruel blessing; stay with me and curse me!
* * * Leave thy dagger with me.
Bequeath me something—Not one kiss at parting? * * *
Another, sure another,
For that poor little one you've taken care of;
I'll give it him truly.
Then her mind gives way, and in the fearful soliloquy that follows, Otway reminds us of the power shown by Shakespeare in dealing with minds unhinged. Jaffier being allowed to take leave of Pierre on the scaffold, Pierre forgives him, but requests, as a last favour, that his friend will save him from the dishonour of public torture by killing him at the last moment. Jaffier promises, and does so, stabbing himself immediately after. In the last scene, Belvidera enters distracted:
Come, come, come, come, nay come to bed,
Pr'ythee my love! The winds! Hark how they whistle,
And the rain beats; oh! how the weather shrinks me!
You're angry now; who cares? * * * [Jaffier's ghost rises. Are you returned? See, father, here he's come again! Am I to blame to love him? Oh, the dear one! [Ghost sinks. Why do you fly me? Are you angry still then? Father, where art thou? Father, why do you do thus? Stand off. Don't hide him from me. He's here somewhere.
The apparitions of Jaffier and Pierre rise again bleeding. When they sink, she vows passionately that she will dig for them till she find them; and, imagining that they are drawing her downward, she dies.
Though nearly all authorities have objected vehemently to the gross quasi-comic scenes with which Otway has lightened the intense gloom of his tragedy, I am not sure that the illustrious French critic, Taine, is not right in his approval of them. However ghastly, they give some relief. Though coarse and disgusting, they do stand out distinctly in the memory. The conspirators met at the house of one Aquilina, a Greek courtesan, who had private motives for favouring their cause. The old senator, Antonio (intended for a[Pg xxviii] caricature of the debauched Shaftesbury), had robbed Pierre of this mistress, which was one of his main incentives to plotting against the State. Taine's comment on the picture is striking: "Comme l'homme est prompt à s'avilir, quand, échappé de son rôle, il revient à lui-même!" He thinks that Otway alone in that epoch reproduced the tragedy of Shakespeare: "Il ne lui manque que de naître cent ans plus tôt." Perhaps; only his form might then have suffered.
And now as to Otway's diction. There is nothing convulsive about it; in him, to borrow a simile from Lowell, "every word does not seem to be underlined, like those of a school girl's letter." In the eyes of those to whom expression is good in proportion as it foregoes its function of expressing, in favour of a bedizenment, as of some window so prettily daubed that it lets in no light, the diction of Dryden, Otway, Goldsmith, Byron may appear poor. Otway speaks the language of nature and passion. Still, I admit that Otway's diction often does want distinction, and his metre rhythmical quality. He has not always the right word ready. But his language has certainly the merit of doing more justice to his subject than that of his euphuistic predecessors. Take, for instance, an example from that portion of the fine play, entitled The Two Noble Kinsmen, on good grounds attributed to Shakespeare. A queen, the body of whose slain lord remains unburied by order of a cruel king, implores redress from