Cyril Tourneur, a dramatist of whom we know only that he served in the Low Countries, and died in Ireland, Feb. 28, 1626, leaving his widow destitute. In 1600 he published his “Transformed Metamorphosis” (discovered in 1872), a satirical poem, marred by pedantic affectations; in 1609 a “Funereal Poem” on Sir Francis Vere; in 1613 an “Elegy” on Prince Henry. His fame rests on two plays, the “Revenger’s Tragedy,” printed in 1607, and the (earlier and poorer) “Atheist’s Tragedy,” printed in 1611. The “Revenger’s Tragedy,” a tangled web of lust and blood, shows tragic intensity, condensed passion, fiery strength of phrase, cynical and bitter mockery. Fleay thinks it the work of Webster. There is a complete edition by Churton Collins (1878); and of the two plays, with two of Webster’s, by J. A. Symonds (1888).

  The reality and life of the dialogue, [“Revenger’s Tragedy”] in which Vindici and Hippolito first tempt their mother, and then threaten her with death for consenting to the dishonour of their sister, passes any scenical illusion I ever felt. I never read it but my ears tingle, and I feel a hot blush overspread my cheeks, as if I were presently about to proclaim such malefactions of myself as the brothers here rebuke in their unnatural parent, in words more keen and dagger-like than those which Hamlet speaks to his mother. Such power has the passion of shame truly personated, not only to strike guilty creatures unto the soul, but to “appal” even those that are “free.”

  Tourneur was far from having the breadth and the weight of Webster’s genius: he does not take so deep a hold of the being of his personages. Yet he is entitled to a high and unique place among the Elizabethan dramatists. There is a piercing intelligence in his grasp of character, a daring vigour and fire in his expression. His two plays show no elaborate study of variety of character; but he burns the chief moods of his principal characters deep into the mind.

  “The Revenger’s Tragedy,” printed in 1607, had been uniformly assigned to Tourneur, until Mr. Fleay threw doubts on the correctness of the assumption. I cannot, however, consider this scepticism warranted. Undoubtedly, the distance is considerable between the style of this play and that of its predecessor; and although the reflexion of Shakspere is still constantly cast upon the troubled waters, the writer has acquired a power of condensed expression of his own which he owes to no example or model. The versification, again, differs essentially from that of “The Atheist’s Tragedy;” the structure of the verse is strong, and its peculiar effect seems to me to gain from the frequent use of rime. One can only conclude that the order of sequence between the two plays according to the dates of publication known to us must be reversed, and that “The Revenger’s Tragedy,” in its original form, was composed several years before its successor…. It has been thought possible to find in such a play “the noblest ardour of moral emotion,” and “the most fervent passion of eager and indignant sympathy with all that is best and abhorrence of all that is worst in women or in men.” Beyond dispute, however, it contains evidence of high tragic power, and of a gift of diction matching itself with extraordinary fitness to demands such as few if any of our dramatists have ever made upon their powers. Passages in this tragedy are illuminated by an imagery of singular distinctness as well as intensity. And if, as we are not prepared to doubt, “The Revenger’s Tragedy” was Tourneur’s work, it is with a sense of amazement that we turn from this solitary monument of his genius as a tragic poet of unmistakable distinction.

  A great poet, who has stamped deep on every page he has written the expression of a powerful, anomalous, unique genius…. High among Tourneur’s distinctive merits must also be ranked his singular mastery over the element of language. In graphic intensity of magical expression, he is second only to Shakespeare and Webster. He wields at will subtle, poignant phrase, curt, irritable turn, searching epithet, pregnant epigram, or, again lucid, copious and expansive speech, rising and falling in easy and exquisite harmony with the thought it expresses. In words which burn like fire and brand like vitriol, Vindici clothes his scoffs and mockery; in words which melt like music, Castabella mourns her young lover or pleads with her unnatural step-father. His versification also is, like Shakespeare’s on which it is carefully formed, much wider in its range and varied in its mould than is usual with his contemporaries, whose styles are, so far at least as essential attributes are concerned, comparatively uniform and manneristic…. Tourneur’s great defect as a dramatic poet is undoubtedly the narrowness of his range of vision—of his insight and sympathies—and this is evident in the sketchy and abstract nature of many of his subordinate characters.

  Addressed himself to the most ferocious school of sub-Marlovian tragedy, and to the rugged and almost unintelligible satire of Marston…. The concentration of gloomy and almost insane vigour in “The Revenger’s Tragedy,” the splendid poetry of a few passages which have long ago found a home in the extract books, and the less separable but equally distinct poetic value of scattered lines and phrases, cannot escape any competent reader. But, at the same time, I find it almost impossible to say anything for either play as a whole, and here only I come a long way behind Mr. Swinburne in his admiration of our dramatists. The “Atheist’s Tragedy” is an inextricable imbroglio of tragic and comic scenes and characters, in which it is hardly possible to see or follow any clue; while the low extravagance of all the comedy and the frantic rant of not a little of the tragedy combine to stifle the real pathos of some of the characters. “The Revenger’s Tragedy” is on a distinctly higher level; the determination of Vindice to revenge his wrongs, and the noble and hapless figure of Castiza, could not have been presented as they are presented except by a man with a distinct strain of genius, both in conception and execution. But the effect, as a whole, is marred by a profusion of almost all the worst faults of the drama of the whole period from Peele to Davenant. The incoherence and improbability of the action, the reckless, inartistic, butcherly prodigality of blood and horrors, and the absence of any kind of redeeming interest of contrasting light to all the shade, though very characteristic of a class, and that no small one, of Elizabethan drama, cannot be said to be otherwise than characteristic of its faults.

  Enough has already been cited to prove beyond all chance of cavil from any student worthy of the name that the place of Cyril Tourneur is not among minor poets, nor his genius of such a temper as naturally to attract the sympathy or arouse the enthusiasm of their admirers; that among the comrades or the disciples who to us may appear but as retainers or satellites of Shakespeare his rank is high and his credentials to that rank are clear…. If the noblest ardour of moral emotion, the most fervent passion of eager and indignant sympathy with all that is best and abhorrence of all that is worst in women or in men if the most absolute and imperial command of all resources and conquest of all difficulties inherent in the most effective and the most various instrument ever yet devised for the poetry of the tragic drama—if the keenest insight and the sublimest impulse that can guide the perception and animate the expression of a poet whose line of work is naturally confined to the limits of moral or ethical tragedy—if all these qualities may be admitted to confer a right to remembrance and a claim to regard, there can be no fear and no danger of forgetfulness for the name of Cyril Tourneur.

  Tourneur was a fierce and bitter spirit. The words in which he unpacked his heart are vitalised with passion. He felt so keenly that oftentimes his phrase is the offspring of the emotion, so terse and vigorous and apt, so vivid and so potent and eager, it appears…. Tourneur is not a great tragic. “The Atheist’s Tragedy” is but grotesquely and extravagantly horrible; its personages are caricatures of passion; its comedy is inexpressibly sordid; its incidents are absurd when they are not simply abominable. But it is written in excellent dramatic verse and in a rich and brilliant diction, and it contains a number of pregnant epithets and ringing lines and violent phrases. And if you halve the blame and double the praise you will do something less than justice to that “Revenger’s Tragedy” which is Tourneur’s immortality. After all its companion is but a bastard of the loud, malignant, antic muse of Marston; the elegies are cold, elaborate, and very tedious; the “Transformed Metamorphosis” is better verse but harder reading than “Sordello” itself. But the “Revenger’s Tragedy” has merit as a piece of art and therewith a rare interest as a window on the artist’s mind. The effect is as of a volcanic landscape. An earthquake has passed, and among grisly shapes and blasted aspects here lurks and wanders the genius of ruin.

  His two lurid tragedies surpass in horror of iniquity and profusion of ghastly innuendo all other compositions of their time. Cyril Tourneur is prince of those whose design is “to make our flesh creep,” and occasionally he still succeeds.

  Cyril Tourneur is only really memorable on account of two plays…. Tourneur’s reputation mainly rests on his “Revenger’s Tragædie.” The “Atheists Tragedie,” of which the crude plot owes something to the “Decameron” (VII. 6), is childishly grotesque, and, in spite of some descriptive passages of a certain grandeur, notably the picture of the hungry sea lapping at the body of a drowned soldier, is so markedly inferior to “The Revenger’s Tragædie” as to have given rise to some fanciful doubts as to a common authorship. “The Revenger’s Tragædie” displays a lurid tragic power that Hazlitt was the first to compare with that of Webster…. Mr. Swinburne’s estimate of Tourneur’s genius is unduly enthusiastic. Great as is his tragic intensity, Tourneur luxuriates in hideous forms of vice to an extent which almost suggests moral aberration, and sets his work in a category of dramatic art far below the highest. Whether his choice of topics was due to a morbid mental development, or merely to a spirit of literary emulation in the genre of Ford and Webster, a more extended knowledge of Tourneur’s life might possibly enable us to ascertain.