s
known the cause of his wrath. Francisca confesses that Cleonte had sent
no such message, but herself purposed to take her mistress' place that
night and receive Silvio. Ambrosio then reveals the secret of Silvio's
birth and gives Cleonte to him, in his joy even taking Hippolita to his
arms since Antonio has married her. Alonzo, meanwhile, disguised as
Haunce has been united to Euphemia. He is discovered by the arrival on
the scene of the real Haunce accompanied by Gload, a foolish tutor.
Carlo is soon reconciled to the new bridegroom, whilst Haunce and Gload
joining in a masquerade find themselves unexpectedly wedded to Olinda
and Dorice, two women attendant on the lady Euphemia.

SOURCE.

Mrs. Behn founded the plot of _The Dutch Lover_ upon the stories of
Eufemie and Theodore, Don Jame and Frederic, in a pseudo-Spanish novel
entitled '_The History of Don Fenise_, a new Romance written in Spanish
by Francisco de Las Coveras, And now Englished by a Person of Honour,
London, Printed for Humphrey Moseley,' 8vo, 1651. There is of course no
such Spanish author as 'the ingenious Don Francisco de las Coveras'. The
chief merit of the book is purely bibliographical: it is a very rare
volume and difficult to meet with. The Bodleian indeed contains a copy,
but it is not to be found in the British Museum library. The somewhat
morbid theme of overwhelming passion barred by consanguinity eventually
discovered to be false, which is here exemplified in the love of Silvio
for Cleonte, occurs more than once in the later Jacobean and Carolan
drama. In Beaumont and Fletcher's tragicomedy _A King and no King_
(1611: 4to, 1619), we have Arbaces enamoured of Panthea, his reputed
sister; similar motives are to be found in Arthur Wilson's _The Swizzer_
(1631); but in Middleton's _Women beware Women_ (circa 1612: 4to, 1657),
no contrivance can legitimize the incestuous loves of Hippolito and
Isabella, and death is the only solution. In Massinger's _The Unnatural
Combat_ (1621: 4to, 1639), the demoniac Malefort pursues his daughter
Theocrine with the same baleful fires as Francesco Cenci looked on
Beatrice, but the height of horror, harrowing the soul with pity and
anguish, culminates in Ford's terrible scenes _Tis Pity She's a Whore_
(4to, 1633), so tenderly tragic, so exquisitely beautiful for all their
moral perversity, that they remain unequalled outside Shakespeare.

In the Restoration Theatre the theme of consanguinity was origi