The fourth act is enlivened by a masquerade and a murder. The gentleman
from Warsaw having abused the hospitality of his host by getting drunk, is
punished by one of _Martinuzzi's_ attendants with a mortal stab; and
having, in the agonies of death, made a careful survey of all the sofas in
the apartment, suits himself with the softest, and dies in great comfort.
After this, the masquerade proceeds with spirit. _Isabella_ mixes in the
festive scene, disguised in a domino, made of black sticking-plaster.
_Czerina_ overhears that she is a usurper and a changeling, and expresses
her surprise in a line most unblushingly stolen from Fitz-Ball and the
other poetico-melo-dramatists:--
"Merciful Heavens! do my ears deceive me?"
The festivities conclude with an altercation between _Martinuzzi_ and
_Isabella_, carried on with much vigour on both sides. The lady accuses
the gentleman of inebriation, and he owns the soft impeachment, fully
bearing it out by several incoherent speeches.
This was one of the most successful scenes in the comedy. The death of
_Rupert_, Mr. Morley's song about "The sea," the quarrel (which was about
the great pivot of the plot, "the papers," inscribed, says _Martinuzzi_,
"With ink that's _brew'd_ in the infernal Styx,")
were all received with uproarious bursts of laughter.
In the fifth act, we behold _Martinuzzi_ and the usurping young Queen
making matters up at a railway pace.
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