Note 22 — ACT V. SCENE I.

This long stage direction contains an attempt to render interesting what is necessarily ridiculous. With all the assistance of bloody spunges, a stage combat must be always a ludicrous representation of a real one. We are content, in old plays, to let it pass, as a hieroglyphic, which conveys to us the author's meaning; but modern dramatists would do well to obscure their combats, if the termination is to be a bloody one.