le,
is a very original and amusing example of the young Londoner of the
period. But there is more humor, though very little chastity, in the
"Chaste Maid"; a play of quite exceptional freedom and audacity, and
certainly one of the drollest and liveliest that ever broke the bounds
of propriety or shook the sides of merriment.

The opening of "More Dissemblers Besides Women" is as full at once of
comic and of romantic promise as the upshot of the whole is
unsatisfactory--a most lame and impotent conclusion. But some of the
dialogue is exquisite; full of flowing music and gentle grace, of ease
and softness and fancy and spirit; and the part of a poetic or romantic
Joseph Surface, as perfect in the praise of virtue as in the practice of
vice, is one of Middleton's really fine and happy inventions. In the
style of "The Widow" there is no less fluency and facility: it is
throughout identical with that of Middleton's other comedies in metre; a
style which has so many points in common with Fletcher's as to make the
apocryphal attribution of a share in this comedy to the hand of the
greater poet more plausible than many other ascriptions of the kind. I
am inclined nevertheless to agree with Mr. Bullen's apparent opinion
that the whole credit of this brilliant play may be reasonably assigned
to Middleton; and especially with his remark that the only scene in
which any resemblance to the manner of Ben Jonson can be traced by the
most determined ingenuity of critical research is more like the work of
a pupil than like a hasty sketch of the master's. There is no lack of
energetic invention and beautiful versification in another comedy of
adventure and intrigue, "No Wit, No Help Like a Woman's": the unpleasant
or extravagant quality of certain incidents in the story is partially
neutralized or modified by the unfailing charm of a style worthy of
Fletcher himself in his ripest and sweetest stage of poetic comedy.

But high above all the works yet mentioned there stands and will stand
conspicuous while noble emotion and noble verse have honor among English
readers the pathetic and heroic play so memorably appreciated by Charles
Lamb, "A Fair Quarrel." It would be the vainest and emptiest
impertinence to offer a word in echo of his priceless and imperishable
praise. The delicate nobility of the central conception on which the
hero's character depends for its full relief and development should be
enough to efface all remembrance of any