What a noble thing is the soul in its strengths and in its weaknesses!
who would be less weak than Calantha? who can be so strong? the
expression of this transcendent scene almost bears me in imagination
to Calvary and the Cross; and I seem to perceive some analogy between
the scenical sufferings which I am here contemplating, and the real
agonies of that final completion to which I dare no more than hint a
reference.
Ford was of the first order of poets. He sought for sublimity, not by
parcels in metaphors or visible images, but directly where she has her
full residence in the heart of man; in the actions and sufferings of
the greatest minds. There is a grandeur of the soul above mountains,
seas, and the elements. Even in the poor perverted reason of Giovanni
and Annabella (in the play which precedes this) we discern traces of
that fiery particle, which in the irregular starting out of the road
of beaten action, discovers something of a right line even in obliquity
and shows hints of an improvable greatness in the lowest descents and
degradations of our nature.
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