all grounds we must keenly regret the loss of the one play known to us by name in which the diverse forces of these poets were united in the treatment of a subject unsurpassable for terror and tragic suggestion. To trace the points of likeness and unlikeness, to distinguish the lineaments of either man's genius, to note their various handling of an actual and recent tragedy so fearfully fertile of dramatic possibilities, of dark and splendid studies, for a spirit of strength to support them; to measure by the terrible capacities of the workmen the terrible capabilities of their material; to divide in our minds feature from feature, comparing line with line and tone with tone; this would have been a study of greater profit and delight to the student of their art than the comparison we had lately occasion to make between Ford and Decker. For, though dissimilar in kind as well as in degree, there are points of resemblance between Webster and Ford, especially in bias of mind and aim of contemplation, in choice of matter and sympathy of interest, which may well bring them together in our thoughts and set them by themselves apart; so that we can conceive of them working together on a poem which when complete should show no signs of incongruity, nothing inharmonious or incoherent; as we certainly could not conceive of Shelley and Byron. For the rest, though there may be some community of poetic powers and poetic deficiencies between Byron and Ford, neither has any of the other's highest quality; the emotion shot through with satire, the ardour inwoven with humour, which heighten and sharpen each other in the keenest and loftiest work of Byron, were as unknown to Ford as