The whole story of 'Vittoria Corrombona' is one of sin and horror.
The subject-matter of the play is altogether made up of the fiercest
and the basest passions. But the play is not a study of those
passions from which we may gain a great insight into human nature.
There is no trace--nor is there, again, in the 'Duchess of Malfi'--of
that development of human souls for good or evil which is
Shakspeare's especial power--the power which, far more than any
accidental 'beauties,' makes his plays, to this day, the delight
alike of the simple and the wise, while his contemporaries are all
but forgotten. The highest aim of dramatic art is to exhibit the
development of the human soul; to construct dramas in which the
conclusion shall depend, not on the events, but on the characters;
and in which the characters shall not be mere embodiments of a
certain passion, or a certain 'humour': but persons, each unlike all
others; each having a destiny of his own by virtue of his own
peculiarities, and of his own will; and each proceeding toward that
destiny as he shall conquer, or yield to, circumstances; unfolding
his own strength and weakness before the eyes of the audience; and
that in such a way that, after his first introduction, they should be
able (in proportion to their knowledge of human nature) to predict
his conduct under those circumstances. This is indeed 'high art':
but we find no more of it in Webster than in the rest. His
characters, be they old or young, come on the stage ready-made, full
grown, and stereotyped; and therefore, in general, they are not
characters at all, but mere passions or humours in human form. Now
and then he essays to draw a character: but it is analytically, by
description, not synthetically and dramatically, by letting the man
exhibit himself in action; and in the 'Duchess of Mall' he falls into
the great mistake of telling, by Antonio's mouth, more about the Duke