" The clumsiness and dulness of the farcical
interludes can hardly be paralleled in the rudest and hastiest scenes of
Middleton's writing: while the sweet and noble dignity of the finer
passages have the stamp of his ripest and tenderest genius on every line
and in every cadence. But for sheer bewildering incongruity there is no
play known to me which can be compared with "The Mayor of Queenborough."
Here again we find a note so dissonant and discordant in the lighter
parts of the dramatic concert that we seem at once to recognize the
harsher and hoarser instrument of Rowley. The farce is even more
extravagantly and preposterously mistimed and misplaced than that which
disfigures the play just mentioned: but I thoroughly agree with Mr.
Bullen's high estimate of the power displayed and maintained throughout
the tragic and poetic part of this drama; to which no previous critic
has ever vouchsafed a word of due acknowledgment. The story is ugly and
unnatural, but its repulsive effect is transfigured or neutralized by
the charm of tender or passionate poetry; and it must be admitted that
the hideous villany of Vortiger and Horsus affords an opening for
subsequent scenic effects of striking and genuine tragical interest.
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