more befitting the sombre muse than the foolish chatter of clowns. But,
except where his own deliberately introduced mirth-makers are speaking,
he will have nothing but pompous rhetoric from the lips of his
characters. His prologue begins his speech with the sounding line:

Who doth desire the trump of fame to sound unto the skies--

Virginius's wife makes her début upon the stage with this encouraging
remark to her companion:

The pert and prickly prime of youth ought chastisement to have,
But thou, dear daughter, needest not, thyself doth show thee grave.

To which Virginia most becomingly answers:

Refell your mind of mournful plaints, dear mother, rest your mind.

After this every one feels that the wicked judge, Appius, has done no
more than his duty when he exclaims, at his entrance:

The furrowed face of fortune's force my pinching pain doth move.

Virginius slays his daughter on the stage and serves her head up in a
charger before Appius, who promptly bursts into a cataclysm of C's ('O
curst and cruel cankered churl, O carl unnatural'); but there is not a
suggestion of the pathos noticed in _Cambyses_. Instead there is in one
place a sort of frantic agitation, which the author doubtless thought
was the pure voice of tragic sorrow. It is in the terrible moment when,
after the heroic strain of the sacrifice is over, Virginius realizes the
meaning of what he has done. Presumably wild with grief, he raves in