shful lover, who is the hero of one of
his characteristic dramatic romances, is a gentleman who thinks himself
scarcely worthy to touch his mistress's shoe-string. On the sight of her
he exclaims--

As Moors salute
The rising sun with joyful superstition,
I could fall down and worship.--O my heart!
Like Phoebe breaking through an envious cloud,
Or something which no simile can express,
She shows to me; a reverent fear, but blended
With wonder and astonishment, does possess me.

When she condescends to speak to him, the utmost that he dares to ask is
liberty to look at her, and he protests that he would never aspire to
any higher privilege. It is gratifying to add that he follows her
through many startling vicissitudes of fortune in a spirit worthy of
this exordium, and of course is finally persuaded that he may allow
himself a nearer approach to his goddess. The Maid of Honour has two
lovers, who accept a rather similar position. One of them is unlucky
enough to be always making mischief by well-meant efforts to forward her
interest. He, poor man, is rather ignominiously paid off in downright
cash at the end of the piece. His more favoured rival listens to the
offers of a rival duchess, and ends by falling between two stools. He
resigns himself to the career of a Knight of Malta, whilst the Maid of
Honour herself retires into a convent. Mr. Gardiner compares this
catastrophe unfavourably with that of 'Measure for Measure,' and holds
that it is better for a lady to marry a duke than to give up the world
as, on the whole, a bad business. A discussion of that question would
involve some difficult problems. If, however, Isabella is better
provided for by Shakespeare than Camiola, 'the Maid of Honour,' by
Massinger, we must surely agree that the Maid of Honour has the
advantage of poor Mariana, whose reunion with her hypocritical husband
certainly strikes one as a questionable advantage. Her fate seems to
intimate that marriage with a hypocritical tyrant ought to be regarded
as better than no marriage at all. Massinger's solution is, at any rate,
in harmony with the general tone of chivalrous sentiment. A woman who
has been placed upon a pinnacle by overstrained devotion, cannot,
consistently with her dignity, console herself like an ordinary creature
of flesh and blood. When her worshippers turn unfaithful she must not
look out for others. She may permit herself for once to ret