sh that he
should be read by the light of Lamb. His comedies have real as well as
realistic merit: not equal to that of Dekker's or Middleton's at their
best, but usually not far inferior to Heywood's or to theirs. The first
of them, "A New Wonder: A Woman Never Vext," has received such immortal
honor from the loving hand of Lamb that perhaps the one right thing to
say of it would be an adaptation of a Catholic formula: "Agnus locutus
est: causa finita est." The realism is so thorough as to make the
interest something more than historical: and historically it is so
valuable as well as amusing that a reasonable student may overlook the
offensive "mingle-mangle" of prose and verse which cannot but painfully
affect the nerves of all not congenitally insensitive readers, as it
surely must have ground and grated on the ears of an audience accustomed
to enjoy the prose as well as the verse of Shakespeare and his kind. No
graver offence can be committed or conceived by a writer with any claim
to any but contemptuous remembrance than this debasement of the currency
of verse.

The character of Robert Foster is so noble and attractive in its
selfless and manful simplicity that it gives us and leaves with us a
more cordial sense of sympathetic regard and respect for his creator
than we could feel if this gallant and homely figure were withdrawn from
the stage of his invention. The female Polycrates who suffers under the
curse of inevitable and intolerable good-fortune is an admirable
creature of broad comedy that never subsides or overflows or degenerates
into farce.

"A Match at Midnight" is as notable for vivid impression of reality, but
not so likely to leave a good taste--as Charlotte Bronte might haye
said--in the reader's mouth. Ancient Young, the hero, is a fine fellow;
but Messrs. Earlack and Carvegut are hardly amusing enough to reconcile
us to toleration of such bad company. It is cleverly composed, and the
crosses and chances of the night are ingeniously and effectively
invented and arranged: there is real and good broad humor in the parts
of the usurer and his sons and the attractive but unwidowed Widow Wag.
And I am not only free to admit but desirous to remark that a juster and
more valuable judgment on such plays as these than any that I could
undertake to deliver may very possibly be expected from readers whom
they may more thoroughly arride--to use a favorite phrase of the all,
but impeccable critic, the all but