No More Learning

To a
Protestant apprehension there will appear something unnatural in the
earnest and perpetual sentiment of the relations between God and men
which pervade the tragedy of the Cenci. It will especially be startled
at the combination of an undoubting persuasion of the truth of the
popular religion with a cool and determined perseverance in enormous
guilt. But religion in Italy is not, as in Protestant countries, a
cloak to be worn on particular days; or a passport which those who do
not wish to be railed at carry with them to exhibit; or a gloomy
passion for penetrating the impenetrable mysteries of our being, which
terrifies its possessor at the darkness of the abyss to the brink of
which it has conducted him. Religion coexists, as it were, in the mind
of an Italian Catholic, with a faith in that of which all men have the
most certain knowledge. It is interwoven with the whole fabric of
life. It is adoration, faith, submission, penitence, blind admiration;
not a rule for moral conduct. It has no necessary connection with any
one virtue. The most atrocious villain may be rigidly devout, and
without any shock to established faith, confess himself to be so.
Religion pervades intensely the whole frame of society, and is
according to the temper of the mind which it inhabits, a passion, a
persuasion, an excuse, a refuge; never a check. Cenci himself built a
chapel in the court of his Palace, and dedicated it to St. Thomas the
Apostle, and established masses for the peace of his soul. Thus in the
first scene of the fourth act Lucretia's design in exposing herself to
the consequences of an expostulation with Cenci after having
administered the opiate, was to induce him by a feigned tale to
confess himself before death; this being esteemed by Catholics as
essential to salvation; and she only relinquishes her purpose when she
perceives that her perseverance would expose Beatrice to new outrages.

I have avoided with great care in writing this play the introduction
of what is commonly called mere poetry, and I imagine there will
scarcely be found a detached simile or a single isolated description,
unless Beatrice's description of the chasm appointed for her father's
murder should be judged to be of that nature. (An idea in this speech
was suggested by a most sublime passage in "El Purgaterio de San
Patricio" of Calderon; the only plagiarism which I have intentionally
committed in the whole piece. )

In a dramatic composition the imagery and the passion should
interpenetrate one another, the former being reserved simply for the
full development and illustration of the latter.
Imagination is as the
immortal God which should assume flesh for the redemption of mortal
passion. It is thus that the most remote and the most familiar imagery
may alike be fit for dramatic purposes when employed in the
illustration of strong feeling, which raises what is low, and levels
to the apprehension that which is lofty, casting over all the shadow
of its own greatness. In other respects, I have written more
carelessly; that is, without an over-fastidious and learned choice of
words. In this respect I entirely agree with those modern critics who
assert that in order to move men to true sympathy we must use the
familiar language of men, and that our great ancestors the ancient
English poets are the writers, a study of whom might incite us to do
that for our own age which they have done for theirs. But it must be
the real language of men in general and not that of any particular
class to whose society the writer happens to belong. So much for what
I have attempted; I need not be assured that success is a very
different matter; particularly for one whose attention has but newly
been awakened to the study of dramatic literature.

I endeavoured whilst at Rome to observe such monuments of this story
as might be accessible to a stranger. The portrait of Beatrice at the
Colonna Palace is admirable as a work of art: it was taken by Guido
during her confinement in prison. But it is most interesting as a just
representation of one of the loveliest specimens of the workmanship of
Nature. There is a fixed and pale composure upon the features: she
seems sad and stricken down in spirit, yet the despair thus expressed
is lightened by the patience of gentleness. Her head is bound with
folds of white drapery from which the yellow strings of her golden
hair escape, and fall about her neck. The moulding of her face is
exquisitely delicate; the eyebrows are distinct and arched: the lips
have that permanent meaning of imagination and sensibility which
suffering has not repressed and which it seems as if death scarcely
could extinguish. Her forehead is large and clear; her eyes, which we
are told were remarkable for their vivacity, are swollen with weeping
and lustreless, but beautifully tender and serene. In the whole mien
there is a simplicity and dignity which, united with her exquisite
loveliness and deep sorrow, are inexpressibly pathetic. Beatrice Cenci
appears to have been one of those rare persons in whom energy and
gentleness dwell together without destroying one another: her nature
was simple and profound. The crimes and miseries in which she was an
actor and a sufferer are as the mask and the mantle in which
circumstances clothed her for her impersonation on the scene of the
world.