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.– Monster! behold these wounds!D.JOHN.– I do! They were well meant, and well performed, I see.GHOST:–– Repent, repent of all thy villanies.My clamorous blood to heaven for vengeance cries,Heaven will pour out his judgements on you all.Hell gapes for you, for you each fiend doth call,And hourly waits your unrepenting fall.You with eternal horrors they'll torment,Except of all your crimes you suddenly repent.(Ghost sinks.)D.JOHN.– Farewell, thou art a foolish ghost.Repent, quoth he! what could this mean? Our senses are all in a mist, sure.D.ANTONIO – (one of D.Juan's reprobate companions.) They are not! 'Twas a ghost.D.LOPEZ – (another reprobate.) I ne'er believed those foolish tales before.D.JOHN.– Come! 'Tis no matter.Let it be what it will, it must be natural.D.ANT.– And nature is unalterable in us too.D.JOHN.– 'Tis true! The nature of a ghost can not change ours.Who also can deny a portion of sublimity to the tremendous consistency with which he stands out the last fearful trial, like a second Prometheus?Chorus of Devils.STATUE-GHOST.– Will you not relent and feel remorse?D.JOHN.– Could'st thou bestow another heart on me I might.But with this heart I have, I can not.D.LOPEZ.– These things are prodigious.D.ANTON.– I have a sort of grudging to relent, but something holds me back.D.LOP.– If we could, 'tis now too late.I will not.D.ANT.– We defy thee!GHOST.– Perish, ye impious wretches, go and find the punishments laid up in store for you!(Thunder and lightning.D.Lop.and D.Ant.are swallowed up.)GHOST to D.John.– Behold their dreadful fates, and know that thy last moment's come!D.JOHN.– Think not to fright me, foolish ghost; I'll break your marble body in pieces and pull down your horse.(Thunder and lightning – chorus of devils, etc.)D.JOHN.– These things I see with wonder, but no fear.Were all the elements to be confounded,And shuffled all into their former chaos;Were seas of sulphur flaming round about me,And all mankind roaring within those fires,I could not fear, or feel the least remorse.To the last instant I would dare thy power.Here I stand firm, and all thy threats contemn.Thy murderer (to the ghost of one whom he had murdered)stands here! Now do thy worst!(He is swallowed up in a cloud of fire.)In fine the character of Don John consists in the union of every thing desireable to human nature, as means, and which therefore by the well known law of association become at length desireable on their own account.On their own account, and, in their own dignity, they are here displayed, as being employed to ends so unhuman, that in the effect they appear almost as means without an end.The ingredients too are mixed in the happiest proportion, so as to uphold and relieve each other – more especially in that constant interpoise of wit, gaiety, and social generosity, which prevents the criminal, even in his most atrocious moments, from sinking into the mere ruffian, as far, at least, as our imagination sits in judgement.Above all, the fine suffusion, through the whole, with the characteristic manners and feelings of a highly-bred gentleman gives life to the drama.Thus having invited the statue-ghost of the governor, whom he had murdered, to supper, which invitation the marble ghost accepted by a nod of the head, Don John has prepared a banquet.D.JOHN.– Some wine, sirrah! Here's to Don Pedro's ghost – he should have been welcome.D.LOP.– The rascal is afraid of you after death.(One knocks hard at the door.)D.JOHN.– (to the servant) – Rise and do your duty.SERV.– Oh the devil, the devil! (marble ghost enters.)D.JOHN.– Ha! 'tis the ghost! Let's rise and receive him!Come, Governor, you are welcome, sit there; if we had thought you would have come, we would have staid for you.Here, Governor, your health! Friends, put it about! Here's excellent meat, taste of this ragout.Come, I'll help you, come, eat, and let old quarrels be forgotten.(The ghost threatens him with vengeance.)D.JOHN.– We are too much confirmed – curse on this dry discourse.Come, here's to your mistress, you had one when you were living: not forgetting your sweet sister.(devils enter.)D.JOHN.– Are these some of your retinue? Devils, say you? I'm sorry I have no burnt brandy to treat 'em with, that's drink fit for devils, etc.Nor is the scene, from which we quote, interesting in dramatic probability alone; it is susceptible likewise of a sound moral; of a moral that has more than common claims on the notice of a too numerous class, who are ready to receive the qualities of gentlemanly courage, and scrupulous honor (in all the recognised laws of honor) as the substitutes of virtue, instead of its ornaments.This, indeed, is the moral value of the play at large, and that which places it at a world's distance from the spirit of modern Jacobinism.The latter introduces to us clumsy copies of these showy instrumental qualities, in order to reconcile us to vice and want of principle; while the Atheista Fulminato presents an exquisite portraiture of the same qualities, in all their gloss and glow, but presents them for the sole purpose of displaying their hollowness, and in order to put us on our guard by demonstrating their utter indifference to vice and virtue, whenever these and the like accomplishments are contemplated for themselves alone.Eighteen years ago I observed, that the whole secret of the modern Jacobinical drama (which, and not the German, is its appropriate designation) and of all its popularity, consists in the confusion and subversion of the natural order of things in their causes and effects: namely, in the excitement of surprise by representing the qualities of liberality, refined feeling, and a nice sense of honor (those things rather which pass amongst us for such) in persons and in classes where experience teaches us least to expect them; and by rewarding with all the sympathies which are the due of virtue, those criminals whom law, reason, and religion have excommunicated from our esteem.This of itself would lead me back to Bertram, or the Castle of St.Aldobrand; but, in my own mind, this tragedy was brought into connection with the Libertine (Shadwell's adaptation of the Atheista Fulminato to the English stage in the reign of Charles the Second) by the fact, that our modern drama is taken, in the substance of it, from the first scene of the third act of the Libertine
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