Heart" was "all made out of the carver's brain." In no other play of Ford's are the subordinate figures so studiously finished. In the preceding play all the minor characters are mere outlines of ruffian or imbecile; here the poet has evidently striven to give fullness of form to all his conceptions, and fullness of life to all his forms. Ithocles, Orgilus, Bassanes, are as thoroughly wrought out as he could leave them; and in effect the triumphant and splendid ambition of the first, the sullen and subtle persistence of the second, the impure insanity and shameful agony of the third, are well relieved against each other, especially in those scenes where the brilliant youth of the hero is set side by side with the sombre youth of the man he has injured even to death. But here again the whole weight of the action hangs upon the two chief characters; Calantha and Penthea stand out alone clear in our memory for years after their story has been read. In no play or poem are two types of character more skilfully contrasted; and no poet ever showed a more singular daring than Ford in killing both heroines by the same death of moral agony. Penthea, the weaker and more womanish of the two, dies slowly dissolves into death with tears and cries of loud and resentful grief; Calantha drops dead at the goal of suffering without a word, stabbed to the heart with a sudden silent sorrow. Of all last scenes on any stage, the last scene of this play is the most overwhelming in its unity of outward effect and inward impression. Other tragic poems have closed as grandly, with as much or more of moral and poetic force; none, I think, with such solemn power of spectacular and spiritual effect combined. As