The majority of these crimes, that is to say seven, had their origin in lawless passion.[224] [Footnote 224: I have told the stories in this chapter as dryly as I could.

Yet it would be interesting to analyze the fascination they exercised over our Elizabethan playwrights, some of whose Italian tragedies handle the material with penetrative imagination.

For the English mode of interpreting southern passions see my _Italian Byways_, pp.

142 _et seq._, and a brilliant essay in Vernon Lee's _Euphorion_.].