extravagant incidents correspond to the far-fetched conceits which,
unjustly enough, made the name of Donne a by-word with the critics
of the last century. The metaphors and similes are as abundant and
overcharged, though assuredly not so rich in imagination, as those of
the "metaphysical" poets. And Dryden, if we may accept the admission
of Bayes, "loved argument in verse"; a confession that Donne and Cowley
would heartily have echoed. The exaggerations of the heroic drama are
the exaggerations of the metaphysical poets transferred from the study
to the stage; with the extravagance deepened, as was natural, by the
glare of their new surroundings. And, just as the extravagance of the
"metaphysicians" led to the reaction that for a hundred years stifled
the lyric note in English song, so the extravagance of the heroic drama
gave the death-blow to English tragedy.

Against this parallel the objection may be raised that it takes no
reckoning of the enormous gulf that, when all is said, separates even
the weakest of the Elizabethan plays from the rant and fustian of
Dryden: a gulf wider, it must be admitted, than that which parts the
metaphysical poets from the "singing birds" of the Elizabethan era.
And, so far as we have yet gone, the objection undoubtedly has force.
It is only to be met if we can find some connecting link; if we can
point to some author who, on the one hand, retains something of the
dramatic instinct, the grace and flexibility of the Elizabethans; and,
on the other hand, anticipates the metallic ring, the declamation and
the theatrical conventions of Dryden. Such an author is to be found
in Shirley; in Shirley, as he became in his later years; at the time,
for instance, when he wrote _The Cardinal_ (1641). _The Cardinal_ is,
in many respects, a powerful play. It is unmistakably written under
the influence of Webster; and of Webster at his most sombre and his
best--the Webster of the _Duchess of Malfi_. But it is no less