ey's most characteristic habits was that not of exactly
adapting an old play, but of writing a new one on similar lines
accommodated to the taste of his own day. He constantly did this with
Fletcher, and once in _The Cardinal_ he was rash enough to endeavour to
improve upon Webster. His excuse may have been that he was evidently in
close contact with the last survivors of the great school, for besides his
work with or on Fletcher, he collaborated with Chapman in the tragedy of
_Chabot_ and the comedy of _The Ball_--the latter said to be one of the
earliest _loci_ for the use of the word in the sense of an entertainment.
His versification profited by this personal or literary familiarity. It is
occasionally lax, and sins especially by the redundant syllable or
syllables, and by the ugly break between auxiliary verbs and their
complements, prepositions and their nouns, and so forth. But it never falls
into the mere shapelessness which was so common with his immediate and
younger contemporaries. Although, as has been said, long passages of high
sustained poetry are not easily producible from him, two short extracts
from _The Traitor_ will show his style favourably, but not too favourably.
Amidea, the heroine, declares her intention--

[62] There was a contemporary, Henry Shirley, who was also a playwright.
His only extant play, _The Martyred Soldier_, a piece of little merit, has
been reprinted by Mr. Bullen.

"To have my name
Stand in the ivory register of virgins,
When I am dead. Before one factious thought
Should lurk within me to betray my fame
To such a blot, my hands shall mutiny
And boldly with a poniard teach my heart
To weep out a repentance."

And this of her brother Florio's is better still--

"Let me look upon my sister now:
Still she retains her beauty,
Death has been kind to leave her all this sweetness
Thus in a morning have I oft saluted
My sister in her chamber: sat upon
Her bed and talked of many harmless passages.
_But now 'tis night, and a long night with her:_
_I shall ne'er see these curtains drawn again_
_Until we meet in heaven._"

Here the touch, a little weakened it may be, but still the touch of the
great age, is perceptible, especially in the last lines, where the metaphor
of the "curtains," common enough in itself for eyelids, derives freshness
and appositeness from the previous mention of the bed. But