"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,--