interest which in
_Thomaso_ jades and flags most wearily owing to the author's prolixity
and diffuseness.

Killigrew, a royalist to the core, participated in the protracted exile
of Charles II, and devoting this interim to literature, wrote _Thomaso_
whilst at Madrid, probably about the year 1654-5. Although undeniably
interesting in a high degree, and not ill written, it shares in no small
measure the salient faults of his other productions, boundless and
needless verbosity, slowness of action, unconscionable length.

For all its wit and cleverness, such blemishes would, without trenchant
cutting, have been more than sufficient to prohibit it from any actual
performance, and, indeed, _Thomaso_ may be better described as a
dramatic romance than a comedy intended for the boards. Clumsy and
gargantuan speeches, which few actors could have even memorized, and
none would have ventured to utter on the stage, abound in every scene.
This lack of technical acumen (unless, as may well be the case,
Killigrew wrote much of these plays without any thought of presentation)
is more than surprising in an author so intimately connected with the
theatre and, after the Restoration, himself manager of the King's
Company.

Nor is _Thomaso_ without its patent plagiarisms. Doubtless no small part
is simply autobiographical adventuring, but, beside many a reminiscence
of the later Jacobeans, Killigrew has conveyed entire passages and
lyrics wholesale without attempt at disguise. Thus the song, 'Come
hither, you that love,' Act ii, Scene 3, is from Fletcher's _Captain_,
Act iv, the scene in Lelia's chamber. Again, the procedure and orations
of Lopus the mountebank are but the flimsiest alterations of _Volpone_,
Act ii, Scene I, nor could Killigrew change Jonson for anything but the
worse. He has even gone so far as to name his quack's spouse Celia,
a distinct echo of Corvino's wife.

In dealing with these two plays Mrs. Behn has done a great deal more
than merely fit the pieces for the stage. Almost wholly rewriting them,
she has infused into the torpid dialogue no small portion of wit and
vivacity, whilst the characters, prone to devolve into little better
than prosy and wooden marionettes, with only too apparent wires, are
given life, vigour movement, individuality and being. In fact she has
made the whole completely and essentially her own. In some cases the
same names are retained. We find Phillipo, Sancho, Angelica Bianca,
Lucetta, C