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 AN INQUIRY INTO THE AUTHORSHIP OF 
 THE MIDDLETON-ROWLEY PLAYS. 
 
 EARLY in the seventeenth century there appeared upon the 
 English stage a mask and three admirable plays which 
 were ascribed to the joint authorship of Thomas Middleton and 
 William Rowley. They were "A Fair Quarrel," printed in 
 1617, with the a^jnouncement that it had been "acted before the 
 King and several times publicly by the Prince his Highness' 
 Servants;" "The World Tost at Tennis," an ingenious and 
 pleasant mask, intended, as the Prologue has it, "for a royal 
 night," and published in 1620; "The Changeling," noted by Sir 
 Henry Herbert among the court performances of 1623 ; and 
 " The Spanish Gipsy," acted about the same time at Whitehall 
 by the same company, the Queen of Bohemia's.^ 
 
 1 The dates of A Fair Quarrel and of the mask appear on the title pages 
 of the quartos. For The ChaHgeling and The Spanish Gipsy, see " Note of 
 such plays as were acted at court in 1623 and 1624" — 'M.3!ioTie:^& Shakespeare 
 (by Boswell), iii. 227. The Old Law, although assigned on the title page of 
 the quarto to Middleton, Rowley, and Massinger, will not be considered here. 
 The difficulties attending an investigation into its date and authorship will 
 appear from one illustration. Its fii;st production is usually dated 1599 (Fleay, 
 Chronicles of the English Drama, ii. 100 ; Ward, History of English Dra- 
 matic Literature, ii. 72 ; BuUen, Introduction to 'the Plays of Thomas Mid- 
 dleton) on account of a remark of the Parish Clerk : "Agatha — born in IS40> 
 and now 'tis '99," iii. I. This scene Mr. BuUen regards as undoubtedly 
 Rowley's. But it is excessively improbable that Rowley wrote it in 1599, 
 eight years before his appearance in The Travails of Three English Brothers, 
 1607; for how should we explain the absolute inactivity during this time of 
 a dramatist of such power as the author of this scene had shown himself to 
 be, an inactivity broken at last only by the production of a little poor hack 
 work done in subordination to Day and Wilson ? This warring of probabil- 
 ities is but one instance out of many. Moreover, convincing metrical tests 
 are rendered almost impossible by the condition of the text of the quarto of 
 1656, the only early edition. Gifford says that it "appears to be a hasty 
 transcript from the prompter's book," and BuUen that it is " deplorably cor- 
 rupt." Evidently any opinion as to the authorship of this play must be 
 advanced with extreme caution, and supported by evidence which it would 
 
2 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 Even the casual reader will recognize among these plays two 
 of the most remarkable productions of our early drama. It was 
 " A Fair Quarrel " that called forth one of Charles Lamb's best 
 known and most enthusiastic panegyrics, and "The Change- 
 ling" not only won applause in the seventeenth century, as is 
 shown by numerous court performances and its revival at the 
 Restoration, according to Pepys "with success," but it has kept 
 in such favor with readers that Mr. Swinburne hardly risks 
 contradiction when he says of it and its authors that "it is a 
 work which should- suffice to make either name immortal." 
 
 The partnership of the authors of these plays, too, was in 
 some respects a remarkable one. At the time their first play 
 appeared, Middleton must have been well known as the author 
 of a large number of clever comedies of manners and elegant 
 masks,! a gentleman of letters of respectable family, who, after 
 having been trained to the law and admitted to the bar, had 
 devoted himself wholly to literature; while Rowley belonged 
 to the class of actor-dramatists, and had written only two or 
 three plays, which had not received, or apparently deserved, 
 much notice. His fame must have depended largely upon his 
 success as an actor, which, if we may judge from the character 
 of his later roles, Plumporridge and Jaques,^ the country clown, 
 had been obtained in low comedy parts. An anecdote found in 
 the rare little book, " Modern Jests, Witty Jeeres,'' or " The Ban- 
 quet of Jests,^ makes it probable, moreover, that he was a good 
 humored and companionable person, not unknown in the ordi- 
 naries and places of resort about the town ; and he seems to 
 have been a man of some business ability also, for he had been 
 for several years head of the Prince's company of players, and 
 the bills of the company were usually made out in his name. 
 Certainly the partnership of such a man with a polished and 
 
 be impossible to introduce into a paper of this length ', and, as will appear 
 later, sufficient material may be found without introducing any as doubtful 
 as this. 
 
 ^ Blurt, Master Constable, The Phoinix, Michaelmas Term, A Trick to 
 Catch the Old One, The Family of Love, Your Five Gallants and A Mad 
 World, my Masters, were printed before 1617; and in 1613-1614, he had 
 written The Triumphs of Truth and the Mask of Cupid. 
 
 ' Dramatis Personce, attached to the Quartos of the Inner Temple Masque 
 and All 's Lost by Lust. 
 
 * Quoted by Dyce; Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, i. Introduction. 
 
of the MiddletonrRowley Plays. 3 
 
 satirical litterateur furnishes us with a phenomenon of no com- 
 mon interest, and it is made still more interesting by the fact 
 that the partnership resulted in plays whose main plots are re- 
 markable for unity of plan and consistency in the development 
 of character, and which are unequalled not only by the work of 
 either man alone, but even— : as we may safely say of "The 
 Changeling" at least — by few of the works of the greatest 
 dramatists of a great age. 
 
 In spite of this interest, however, and of the peculiar merits 
 of "A Fair Quarrel" and "The Changeling," but little has been 
 done to fix the respective shares of the two dramatists in the 
 composition of these plays. We should not perhaps wonder at 
 the carelessness of a seventeenth century public, and it is not to 
 be regarded as evidence of any lack of appreciation of these 
 pieces, for that was not a critical age, and the same carelessness 
 is noticeable in the case of the popular idols, Beaumont and 
 Fletcher ; but it is somewhat surprising that more has not been 
 done in this matter of late years. It is true Mr. Fleay has 
 attempted to make a division. Indeed, he has assigned every 
 scene of these plays to either one dramatist or the other.^ Un- 
 fortunately, however, misprints have in some instances made his 
 division uncertain.^ Moreover, as he has allowed himself on 
 several occasions to fall into downright contradictions ^ in his 
 Middleton-Rowley work that cannot be accounted for as mis- 
 prints, and has in no case given reasons for his statements, 
 we cannot regard these as anything more authoritative than 
 mere expressions of opinion, and cannot yield them unquestion- 
 ing belief. 
 
 1 A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, iS5g-i61t2, by Fred- 
 erick G. Fleay, London, Reeves and Turner, 1891, ii. 98-101. ' 
 
 ^ In his division of A Fair Quarrel (idem, ii. 98), Act II. 3, which does 
 not exist, is assigned to Middleton; III. 2 is assigned to both Middleton and 
 Rowley, while III. i is not mentioned. 
 
 * Chronicles of the English Drama, i. 231, he says : " The Witch of Ed- 
 monton was acted by the Princes(s Elizabeth's) servants at the Cockpit and at 
 Court," and idem, ii. loi : " Middleton makes no further appearance among 
 Prince Charles' plays : but Rowley does in The Witch of Edmonton, April, 
 "1621." Again, in connection with A Fair Quarrel, he says {Biog. Chron. 
 etc. ii. 98), "Is not this the same play as A Vow and a Good One, acted at 
 court, 1623, Jan. 6, by the Prince's men?" And under TXtichtx {idem. i. 270), 
 he says of The Chances," I think it likely that was the play, A Vow and a 
 Good One, acted by them before the Prince, 1623, Jan. 6." 
 
4 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 The other critics, too, who have touched upon the matter 
 have given us opinions hardly better substantiated. Mr. BuIIen ^ 
 says of the scene between Captain Ager and his mother in " A 
 Fair Quarrel " only, " That scene and the duel scene I believe 
 to belong to Middleton. To such a height of moral dignity and 
 artistic excellence Rowley never attained. We may safely as- 
 sign to Rowley the boisterous comic scenes. Apart from the 
 scenes where Captain Ager and his mother are concerned, I 
 cannot trace Middleton's hand with any clearness. At the end 
 of the first act, Rowley's metrical harshness strikes upon the 
 ear, and throughout the scene relating to Fitzallen and Jane we 
 seldom escape from it." He speaks of "The Changeling " in 
 similarly general terms. " I agree with Dyce in thinking Mid- 
 dleton had the chief share in ' The Changeling.' Rowley was 
 probably responsible for the conduct of the underplot. The 
 wild extravagance of the madhouse scenes is quite in his man- 
 ner. I have little doubt that the last scene of the play is by 
 Rowley. The violence of the language and the introduction of 
 the ill-timed comic touches reminds us of ' All 's Lost by Lust ; ' 
 and the metrical roughness is painfully prominent. There are 
 also occasional traces of Rowley in the opening scenes." 
 
 Swinburne evidently holds the same opinion. In his Intro- 
 duction to the Mermaid Edition of the Middleton plays, he 
 says : "In the underplot of ' A Fair Quarrel,' Rowley's besetting 
 faults of coarseness and quaintness, stiffness and roughness, are 
 so flagrant and obtrusive that we cannot avoid a feeling of re- 
 gret and irritation at such untimely and inharmonious evidences 
 of his partnership with a part of finer if not sturdier genius." 
 And he says of "The Changeling" : "We may assert with fair 
 confidence that the first and last scenes of the play bear the 
 indisputable sign manual of William Rowley. His vigorous and 
 vivid genius, his somewhat hard and curt directness of style and 
 manner, his clear and trenchant power of straightforward pre- 
 sentation or exposition may be traced in every line as plainly as 
 the hand of Middleton must be recognized in the main plot of 
 the tragic action intervening." 
 
 Now these opinions are undoubtedly valuable on account of 
 the ability and reputation of the critics ; but they are simply 
 opinions, and the student must feel that he should like to know 
 * The Works of Thomas Middleton, by A. H. Bullen, Introduction. 
 
of the MiddletorirRowley Playi. 5 
 
 something more of the grounds upon which they are based 
 before he accepts them as his own. 
 
 To do this, however, it is necessary to make a careful study 
 of both authors, and in Rowley's case, such a study is not al- 
 ways possible. His plays have never been collected, and his 
 single tragedy, " All 's Lost by Lust," which is of course more 
 valuable than the comedies for the purpose of comparison with 
 the serious plays he wrote with Middleton, is not printed in any 
 available form. Accordingly, opinions concerning the character 
 of this somewhat remarkable partnership have often of neces- 
 sity been based upon an acquaintance with the work of only one 
 of the partners, and must be somewhat untrustworthy. Indeed 
 we find Ward,^ careful historian as he is, prefacing his consid- 
 eration of the Middleton-Rowley plays with the admission that 
 he has read but one play of Rowley's ; and it appears that under 
 such circumstances as these, there is abundant room for an 
 investigation which shall attempt to bring out what evidence 
 there is in this matter and collect facts which may serve as a 
 basis for more satisfactory and reliable criticism. 
 
 II. 
 
 Our iirst step will naturally be to determine exactly what 
 plays we have by the two men that we can use as evidence. 
 We have an amply sufficient number of Middleton's ; but at the 
 start, even if we have access to all Rowley's plays, we are con- 
 fronted with a difficulty in the fact that he has left us so few 
 that are certainly and wholly his own. " All 's Lost by Lust " 
 and the first three acts of " A Woman Never Vexed " are admit- 
 tedly his ; the last two acts of the latter may possibly have been 
 borrowed from an older play.^ Besides these, the plays of im- 
 portance with which he was connected are only : " The Birth of 
 Merlin" and "A Cure for a Cuckold," ^ — written in collabo- 
 ration with unknown authors, — in which Rowley's share has 
 never been determined ; " The Maid in the Mill," his share in 
 
 1 The History of English Drarnatic Literature, A. W. Ward, ii. 135. 
 
 " See Fleay, Chronicles of the English Drama, ii. 102. 
 
 = The Birth of Merlin, or The Child hath lost a Father, 4to, 1662, " by 
 William Shalcespeare and William Rowley.'' — A Cure for a Cuckold, 410, 
 1 66 1. By John Webster and William Rowley. 
 
 Rowley's share in these plays has never been disputed ; Shakespeare's and 
 Webster's are doubtful. Fleay, Chronicles, etc., ii. 99 and 105. 
 
6 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 which may be determined with some certainty ; and " A Match 
 at Midnight," of which the authorship, although it is ascribed 
 to him alone on the title-page, must now be regarded as doubt- 
 ful.i This is undoubtedly a small amount of material ; much of 
 it, too, appears at first to be of a discouragingly uncertain char- 
 acter. But there is no need to despair, for when we have arrived 
 at as great a degree of certainty as possible in regard to Row- 
 ley's share in the doubtful plays, and know what we have to 
 depend upon for our testimony, the outlook becomes decidedly 
 more hopeful. 
 
 In regard to "The Birth of Merlin" and "A Cure for a 
 Cuckold," as Rowley's collaborators are unknown, it would be 
 impossible for us to define his share in them before we had 
 made that very study of his style in which we wish to use them 
 as evidence. They are not, however, without value to us in our 
 inquiry ; for as it is not disputed that Rowley had a consider- 
 able share in their composition, the presence in them of epi- 
 sodes, characteristic expressions, and the like, which are found 
 in undoubted Rowley plays, may be admitted to add strength 
 to the probability that such episodes, etc., are characteristic of 
 Rowley, and that when they appear in scenes of the joint plays, 
 they indicate his influence upon those scenes. They can, at 
 least, furnish supplementary evidence. 
 
 In the case of " The Maid in the Mill," we are assisted by the 
 fact that Rowley's coadjutor was so well known and strongly indi- 
 vidual a man as Fletcher, for whatever may be said of the justice 
 of Mr. Macaulay's conclusions concerning "The Woman Hater," 
 " Philaster," and " A Maid's Tragedy," it must be admitted that 
 he has established beyond a reasonable possibility of doubt 
 that Fletcher's later verse invariably showed a very large pro- 
 portion of feminine endings and end-stopt lines, a proportion 
 much-exceeding one half,^ while an examination of the last act 
 of " All 's Lost by Lust," 292 lines, shows but seventy-one femi- 
 nine endings, and throughout the unassisted Rowley plays the 
 number of feminine endings seldom exceeds one in four and 
 usually falls under that proportion. Moreover, most of these 
 have only one extra syllable, while Fletcher^ lines commonly 
 have two or even three, and the proportion of run-on lines is 
 
 1 See pages 7-13. 
 
 ^ Francis Beaumont: G. C. Macaulay. 
 
of the Middleton-Rowley Plays. 7 
 
 greater than in Fletcher, i. e., one in four. Now examining "The 
 Maid in the Mill," with these characteristics of the two men in 
 mind, we notice ^ that in I. i, 2, 3 ; III. 2, 3 ; V. 2 (first part) 
 the number of feminine endings greatly exceeds that of the 
 masculine ones and the lines are almost invariably end-stopt, 
 while in II. i, 2; III. i ; IV. i, 2, 3 and V. i, 2 (last part) the 
 proportion of feminine endings never rises above one in four and 
 a large number of lines run on. The effect of the verse is, of 
 course, entirely different in these different scenes, and the con- 
 clusion is, I believe, inevitable. We may regard the latter 
 group as Rowley's work. 
 
 We come now to " A Match at Midnight," the authorship of 
 which, as has been said, was, until lately, ascribed to Rowley 
 alone, but is now regarded as doubtful.^ This play is a pecul- 
 iarly complicated puzzle and requires more attention than its 
 merits seem to warrant ; but as every piece of evidence as to 
 Rowley's style is valuable, we cannot afford to omit it. 
 
 Evidently Mr. Fleay has bestowed a good deal of thought 
 upon it, for as often as he has had occasion to publish his opin- 
 ion on its authorship, he has brought forward a different one. 
 In the " Shakespeare Manual," 1876, page 94, he prints it, like 
 everyone else, under Rowley's name, dating it "before 1622" 
 and assigning it to the Red Bull. In the "History of the 
 Stage," 1890, he gives it to Rowley aided by Middleton, for 
 the Queen's Revels' Children at Blackfriars, 1603-1609;^ and 
 in the "Chronicles of the English Drama," to Middleton alone, 
 with the assertion : " ' A Match at Midnight ' was certainly 
 acted at this time (1607) by the same boys "* (the Children of 
 the Revels). It would certainly have been convenient for the 
 student of Middleton and Rowley if Mr. Fleay had given his 
 reasons for these surprising changes of opinion, but he has con- 
 tented himself with the bare statement and left us to construct 
 a case for him as best we may ; and Mr. BuUen, who holds the 
 same opinion as Fleay, has done little better. He says in his 
 
 1 Since making the following division of the play I have noticed that Fleay 
 {Chrons. etc., i. loi) has made the same division. The coincidence certainly 
 goes far to prove the justice of the test. 
 
 ' See Fleay, Chronicles of the English Drama^n. p. 95, and Bullen, Works 
 of Thomas Middleton, Introduction, i. 
 
 * History of the English.Stage, p. 203. 
 
 * Chronicles of the English Drama, ii. p. 95. , 
 
8 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 Introduction to Middleton's works only : " I strongly favor Mr. 
 Fleay's view that Rowley merely altered it {circa 1622) for a 
 revival, and that the real author was Middleton. It is written 
 very much in the style of Middleton's early comedies of in- 
 trigue." 
 
 These are, of course, mere statements of opinion. Fortu- 
 nately, however, it is not difficult to guess at the arguments 
 which would support them. The case is briefly this. It is cer- 
 tain that the published version of the play was brought out a 
 considerable time after November 18, 1620, for as it contains a 
 reference to the battle of Prague fought on that day, it must 
 have been written after the news of it had reached England; 
 indeed, it is likely that it was acted as late as the next year, 
 for there is an allusion (III. 2) to a story book called " Rey- 
 nard, the Fox," and this probably refers to a new and abridged 
 edition of this work, the oldest extant copy of which is dated 
 162 1, rather than to the old version which appeared in 148 1 and 
 would not have been such fashionable reading in Rowley's day. 
 Nevertheless, in spite of these marks of date, the title page of 
 the quarto assigns the play to the Children of the Revels. Now 
 although it is true that there was a company acting at the Red 
 Bull about that time which had been licensed under the name 
 "Children of the Revels,"^ yet, being a company of men, not 
 boy actors, it was commonly known as the Company, not the 
 Children, of the Revels, and the company of boys usually known 
 by that name had been disbanded long before 1620. Moreover, 
 there is no evidence that Rowley ever wrote for any company so 
 called, and " A Match at Midnight " is very unlike the plays he 
 was writing in the years immediately following the battle of 
 Prague, that is to say, during the period of "The Changeling," 
 " The Spanish Gipsy," " All 's Lost by Lust " and " The Maid 
 in the Mill." These are all romantic plays, and "A Match 
 at Midnight" belongs to the class of the comedies of man- 
 ners. 
 
 These are the difficulties that confront the supporters of the 
 
 1 History of the English Stage, Fleay, p. 270. The privy seal of the com- 
 pany, July 8, 1622, is reprinted in History of the English Dramatic Poets, 
 by J. Payne Collier. The names of three of the members appear in the 
 Bill of Complaint versus Baskerville, filed May 23, 1623 {Transactions of 
 the N. Sh. Society, 1885) ; evidently these plaintiffs were not boys. 
 
af the MiddletonrRowley Plays. 9 
 
 Rowley authorship theory. On the other hand, Middleton in 
 1607 was writing regularly for the boys' company which was 
 commonly known as the Children of the Revels plays of the 
 same general character as " A Match at Midnight." They were 
 such plays as " A Trick to Catch the Old One," " Your Five 
 Gallants," and " A Mad World, my Masters," all distinctly come- 
 dies of manners, written mainly in prose, light, witty, with a 
 vein of caustic satire running through them, each dissecting 
 and holding up to ridicule some one phase of the society of the 
 time, and their plots turning upon an amusing misunderstanding 
 which is always patent to the audience, but whose clearing up for 
 the dramatis personcB forms an effective denouement for the play. 
 
 Now the plot of " A Match at Midnight " is strikingly similar 
 to the plots of these comedies. It centres about the miser, 
 Bloodhound, who is scheming to marry a rich widow, and who^ 
 it appears, is unhappy in his children. He wishes to marry his 
 daughter Moll to a rich informer, but she falls in love instead 
 with a penniless ancient whom her father has cheated out of 
 his estates, and she runs away with him at midnight, carrying 
 the title-deeds of the stolen property. Tim, the younger son, is 
 foolish, though thrifty, and gets himself well cheated in a tavern 
 the same night, while Alexander, the elder, who is a spendthrift, 
 becomes his father's rival with the widow, and he and the 
 widow's servant arrange to frighten Bloodhound by tales of a 
 fictitious Sir Nicholas Nemo, who is supposed to be in hot pur- 
 suit of the lady, get him to meet at midnight a courtesan whom 
 he supposes to be the widow, carry her home out of the clutches 
 of her rufiflan pursuers, and order the wedding feast for the next 
 morning. Meanwhile Alexander is to win the true widow during 
 the night, marry her, and bring her to a feast which shall cost 
 him nothing. Everything is done as planned. But at the end 
 master Alexander finds that he has been cheated as neatly as 
 his father ; for the widow's servant turns out to be her husband 
 in disguise, and carries her off from them all. 
 
 All this is certainly very much like the plots of the Middleton 
 comedies ; indeed, the best of the play, the schemes of Blood- 
 hound to get the rich widow away from the imaginary Sir 
 Nicholas Nemo, and the final cozening of all the suitors, seems 
 to have been directly modeled upon that part of "A Trick to 
 Catch the Old One," in which Hoard and Lucre scheme to 
 
lo An inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 capture another supposedly rich widow, and are equally well 
 cozened for their pains. Mr. Fleay evidently thinks that the 
 similarity is an indication of identity of authorship and not of 
 imitation. Moreover the dialogue is full of references to the 
 law and lawyers, a well-known Middleton trait, and it contains 
 a surprising number of puns and quips that appear in almost 
 identical form in the Middleton comedies written for the child- 
 players. Some of these were doubtless common property, not 
 peculiar to Middleton, but some are unusual, and at least the 
 number of the coincidences is striking. 
 
 Alexander : " You will eat nothing an you will but a poached spider 
 and wash it down with sirup of toads." — A Match at Midnight, I. i. 
 
 White Pawn : " Your food shall be blackberries, and upon gaudy 
 days a pickled spider." — A Game at Chess, III. 2. 
 ' Tangle : " Very sirup of toads and preserved adders." — 7?ie Phce- 
 nix, IV. I. 
 
 Sim : " I know ray master will make dice of them [the chandler's 
 bones] ; then 't is but letting Master Alexander take them to the tem- 
 ple," etc. — A Match at Midnight, I. 3. 
 
 Tangle : " Make dice of my bones and let my councillor's son play 
 away his father's money with them." — The Phoenix, IV. i. 
 
 Bloodhound : " Mark that ! " 
 
 Alexander : " Can you lend me a mark upon that ring, sir ? " — 
 A Match at Midnight, I. i. 
 
 Tailby : " Mark ! Why I think you 've left me ne'er a penny, sir." 
 — Your Five Gallants, III. 2. 
 
 It is doubtless upon such facts as these, — namely, the simi- 
 larity of "A Match at Midnight" to many plays of Middleton 
 and its dissimilarity to any of Rowley's, the repetitions in it of 
 many phrases found in Middleton's comedies, and the possible 
 explanation the Middleton authorship affords of the ascription 
 of the play to the Children of the Revels, — that Fleay has 
 founded his latest theory, which seems to be that the play was 
 written by Middleton about 1607, along with his other comedies 
 of manners for the Children of the Revels, and having been 
 partially forgotten, was revised by Rowley shortly after 1620 
 for the use of one of the companies with which he was con- 
 nected about that time, — the Prince's or the Lady Elizabeth's.^ 
 
 * The World Tost at Tennis: — "Q^y the Prince, his Servants, of 1620. 
 The mask celebrated the nuptials of Charles, Lord Howard, and Lady Mary 
 
of the MiddletonrRowley Plays. 1 1 
 
 Then when it came to be published in 1633, it was brought out 
 under the name of the reviser instead of the original author, but 
 was ascribed, not to the company for whom the revision was 
 made, but to the players of the earlier revision. 
 
 As we have seen, there are strong points in favor of this 
 theory ; but it does not by any means do away with all the diffi- 
 culties in the case. In the first place, although a student of 
 our early dramas is prepared to ascribe almost any degree of 
 eccentricity to their publishers, the particular line of action that 
 we are compelled to assume here is certainly unparalleled. Why 
 a publisher should have printed the revised version of a play and 
 ascribed it to the reviser, at the same time setting it down to a 
 company that had gone out of existence some years before the 
 revision was made, and do all this not much more than ten years 
 after the date of the revision, when it must have been fairly 
 fresh in his own mind and in that of his public, is, one must 
 own, hard to explain. Moreover no one has as yet discovered 
 in the play any marks of revision such as Fleay has noted in 
 "A Woman Never Vexed." ^ Yet this revision, if one was 
 made, must have introduced considerable alterations in the text, 
 for the play bears many marks of Rowley's handiwork. The 
 situations of Moll, Earlack, and the Ancient strikingly resemble 
 situations in " A Fair Quarrel " (I. underplot),^ and, more partic- 
 ularly, in "A Woman Never Vexed." In all these plays we 
 have a young girl presented by her father to rich but clownish 
 suitors whom she mocks and discards for a poorer but younger 
 and handsomer man, whereupon the discarded suitors continue 
 to make sport for the audience ; in no case does the girl's mother 
 appear, a character never introduced by Rowley, but much 
 affected by Middleton, who was particularly successful with 
 middle-aged woman (q. v. Maudlin in " A Chaste Maid at Cheap- 
 side," and the old mother in " Women Beware Women "). In 
 III. 2, Moll spits at her lover, a curious incident paralleled in 
 "A Fair Quarrel," III. 2, and in "All's Lost by Lust," II. 
 I, but not in any unassisted play of Middleton's. Moreover, 
 
 Effingham, married April 22, 1620. "Upon the Sunday after, being the 4th 
 of January, 1623, by the Qtteene of Bohemians Company, The Changeling," 
 etc. Note of such plays as one acted at court in 1623 and 1624. 
 
 * See Chronicles of the English Drama, Fleay, ii. 103. 
 
 ^ See page 36. 
 
12 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 although there is very little verse in "A Match at Midnight," 
 less than is usual in Middleton's comedies, what there is bears 
 the Rowley stamp. For instance : — 
 
 Ancient : " The wise man 
 Derides and jeers you, as puffs really of 
 Virtue and valor (those fair twins 
 That are born, breathe, die together ! ) then 
 You 'II no more be called butterflies, iDut men." — II, 3. 
 
 Set beside these lines, the roughest verse that can be found in 
 the plays that Middleton wrote for the Children of the Revels 
 flows smoothly as a meadow brook ; but Rowley's rhythm is noto- 
 riously rough. Compare a bit of verse from " A Woman Never 
 Vexed:" — 
 
 Stephen : " The fortunes of the dice you see." 
 Widow : " They are the only Wizards, I confess, 
 The only fortune-tellers ; but he that goes 
 To seek his fortune from them must never hope 
 To have a good destiny allotted him. 
 Yet it is not the course that I dislike in thee, 
 But that thou canst not supply that course." — II. i. 
 
 In both the masculine endings, the run-on lines, the inversions 
 in other feet than the first and that following the caesura, and 
 the carelessness about the number of unaccented syllables, are 
 evidences of Rowley's hand. Middleton's verse shows quite dif- 
 ferent qualities.^ 
 
 r Now all these considerations — the difficulty of explaining, on 
 the Middleton authorship hypothesis, the ascription of the play 
 to Rowley, and also to the Children of the Revels ; the simi- 
 larity of many scenes in this play to scenes found in Rowley's 
 other work, and of the verse to Rowley's usual rhythm, and also 
 the absence of any mark of the revision which must, according 
 to this hypothesis, have been made for the production after 
 1622 — lead us to feel that the difficulties in assuming Middle- 
 ton's authorship balance those that the assumption removes. 
 Moreover, one cannot get rid of the feeling that this play is more 
 like a clumsy imitation of the Middleton comedies than it is like 
 the real thing. It has little of the verve and lively repartee of 
 
 ^ For the characteristics of the verse of Middleton and Rowley, see below, 
 pages 25-28. 
 
of the MiddletorirRowley Plays. 13 
 
 "A Mad World, My Masters," and "A Trick to Catch the Old 
 One ; " the plot is more complex than is Middleton's fashion ; 
 the satire lacks subtlety and the wit an edge ; there is but one 
 scene of any great excellence in execution, i. e. the teasing of 
 Moll by her brother and the Ancient, III. 2, and that is suc- 
 cessful rather from its good-humored drollery than from its 
 sharpness of wit. These qualities, as we shall see when we 
 come to consider the style of the two men, indicate Rowley 
 rather than Middleton ; and altogether it seems to me that unless 
 some definite proof of Middleton's authorship is advanced, we 
 have not sufficient reason to justify us in disregarding the asser- 
 tion of the publisher, and removing "A Match at Midnight" 
 from the list of the Rowley plays. 
 
 In either case, however, whether the reader chooses to regard 
 this play as Middleton's for the Children of the Revels, revised 
 later by Rowley, with copious emendations, for another com- 
 pany, or prefers to consider it a close imitation of Middleton 
 written wholly by Rowley, for the Company, licensed Children, 
 of the Revels, when he was changing from the Prince's to the 
 Lady Elizabeth's, and so for the time was unattached to any 
 company, he must ascribe to Rowley a considerable share in the 
 published version ; and it is certainly justifiable to assert that 
 those characteristics that are found here and in other plays with 
 which Rowley was connected, but not in plays in which Mid- 
 dleton worked with him, are due to his cooperation, and belong 
 to him rather than to Middleton. In other words, we may 
 safely use this play as we may use " The Birth of Merlin " and 
 " A Cure for a Cuckold." We may admit that it is capable of 
 furnishing corroboratory evidence in cases where a probability 
 of Rowley's authorship has been established by the verse test 
 or by reference to characteristics of " All 's Lost by Lust," of 
 the first three acts of " A Woman Never Vexed," and of acts 
 II. 12 ; III. I ; IV. I, 2, 3 ; and V. i, 2 (last part) of "The Maid 
 in the Mill." 
 
 III. 
 
 There is, then, a reasonable amount of material for such a 
 study of both Rowley and Middleton as seemed necessary before 
 we could make any comparison between the style of the two 
 men or pronounce any judgment upon their respective shares 
 in the joint plays, and this study will, I believe, show that there 
 
14 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 is a considerable difference between their styles, both in comedy 
 and in tragedy. 
 
 Rowley's style of humor hardly needs other illustration than 
 a reference to the character of his best comedy with its exag- 
 gerated, delightfully absurd conception of the woman oppressed 
 by a superabundance of blessings. It is tinged throughout by 
 whimsicality, verging on the burlesque, in other words, by ex- 
 aggeration, and the fun is somewhat broad. The conception 
 of the scold. Mistress Foster, reminds us in its coarseness and 
 natvet^ of the gossips in such old comedies as " Gammer Gur- 
 ton's Needle," where the method was frankly that of exaggera- 
 tion ; and in Rowley's, as in these old plays, this method often 
 leads to buffoonery and horse-play. It does so in the foolery 
 of Jaques, the country clown, and in the atrocious underplots of 
 " The Birth of MerUn " and "A Cure for A Cuckold." On the 
 other hand, however, it is often successful. Mr. Bullen speaks 
 of the "rich vein of humor Rowley could sometimes discover." 
 His best-drawn characters, like the widow who longs for vexing, 
 and the scold who prays for peace, are irresistibly droll ; and 
 even in the worst scenes there is a heartiness and good humor 
 which is somehow infectious. They do not call forth the 
 chuckle of intellectual appreciation, it is true ; but they have 
 often raised a hearty laugh. In his attempts at verbal clever- 
 ness, however, Rowley makes absolute failures. An example 
 of such an attempt may be found in the repartees of Jane and 
 her lovers ("A Woman Never Vexed," III. i), with their weari- 
 some reiteration of puns on " observation " and " experience ; " 
 another in the jokes of Lothario and Jaques. Lothario enters 
 with a halter, crying, "Whichever way the day goes, I 'm sure 
 this is my way," and meeting Jaques, he begs him to hang 
 
 him. " Hum," muses Jaques, " Well, I will hang , but my 
 
 conscience bears me witness! 'tis not for any good will I bear 
 unto thee, nor for any wrong I know thou hast committed ; but 
 innocently, for thy lands, thy leases, thy clothes, and thy money." 
 ("All's Lost by Lust," V. 2.) Undoubtedly, as in "A Match 
 at Midnight," the wit lacks an edge ; the puns are fantastic, the 
 jokes clumsy, and the exaggeration deprives the scenes of that 
 semblance of reality which is the necessary condition of effec- 
 tive satire. Rowley would have been wise if he had always, as 
 in his best work, depended, not upon the cleverness of the dia- 
 logue, but upon a droll conception and vigorous action. 
 
of the MiddletonrRowley Plays. iS 
 
 Turning to his tragedy, we find very similar characteristics. 
 " All 's Lost by Lust " is little known and difficult of access, 
 but an idea of its character may be given in short space. It is 
 founded upon the old story, popular since the earliest days of 
 Spanish ballad literature, of II Re Roderigo, last Christian king 
 of Spain, who brought destruction upon himself and his king- 
 dom through his love for the maiden Jacinta. He sends her 
 father away to command against the Moors and takes advan- 
 tage of the old man's absence to gratify his passion. The girl, 
 who is unswervingly virtuous, profits by her jailor's drunken 
 sleep to escape, and fleeing to her father, urges him to avenge 
 her. Being a loyal subject, the general can with difficulty be 
 brought to believe her story ; but when he is at last convinced 
 of his dishonor, his loyalty gives way, and he leagues with the 
 Moors, whom he has just conquered, to drive the guilty king 
 from Spain. The Moor, however, once in possession, turns 
 against his benefactor, and puts him to the sword after forcing 
 him by a stratagem to kill his daughter, who has rejected the 
 advances of the new king as she had those of Roderigo before. 
 In connection with this story an underplot is developed telling 
 of the sad fate of a country girl, Margaretta, who is wooed by a 
 young nobleman by the name of Antonio, and persuaded to a 
 secret marriage. He soon tires of her, and denying the marriage, 
 weds a well-born lady. The poor girl, half maddened by her 
 wrongs, forms the plan of enticing her faithless husband to her 
 at night and strangling him in his bed. The plan is carried out 
 with the assistance of a clownish brother, who makes some sport 
 for the audience ; but in accordance with a detestable plot, an- 
 other is substituted for the husband, and Margaretta, going to 
 denounce herself to the judges for Antonio's murder, is met by 
 her husband himself, who approaches with his new bride. She 
 is not unavenged, however, for he has been wounded to death by 
 the hand of her father, and he dies before her eyes, confessing 
 with penitence the injury he has done her. The two women, 
 both of whom love the man in spite of his crimes, stab them- 
 selves and fall dead beside his body. 
 
 Both these plots furnish great dramatic opportunities. They 
 are, however, worked out with entire absence of subtlety. The 
 motives of the characters are much simpler than is natural ; they 
 seem each to be moved by but one passion^ of which they are 
 
l6 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 somewhat conventionalized and extravagant exponents, and the 
 passions are the universal ones of love, revenge, honor. Rowley 
 makes no attempt to analyze conflicting emotions, or to exhibit 
 both the strength and the weakness of his characters ; the study 
 of the subtler motives of human action had no attractions for 
 him. Indeed the simplicity of motives in this play is almost 
 brutal, and the directness of their influence upon the action 
 removes it from the domain of reality : life is more complicated 
 than Rowley shows it to be. At the same time, however, the 
 very exaggeration makes possible a grandeur of effect which is 
 attainable by realistic work only when it is of the highest quality. 
 If the characters are little more than types, at least they are 
 built upon great patterns. For instance, in Jacinta, in whom 
 the dramatist seems to have intended us to note a resemblance 
 to the noble Roman woman, — 
 
 " There have been ravishers ; remember Tarquin." 
 
 " There 've been chaste ladies ; remember Lucrece," — 
 
 we see a truly exalted picture of heroic chastity. Her character 
 lacks sweetness, and she sometimes repels us by the violence of 
 her vituperation and the tiger-like fierceness of her hatred for 
 the Moor ; but it cannot be denied that hers is a fine and heroic 
 figure in which an actress might see great histrionic possibilities, 
 and whose conception and consistent presentation shows in the 
 dramatist the power of imagination, the respect for human 
 nature, and belief in the possibility of virtue that are among the 
 essential parts of the outfit of a writer of tragedy. Margaretta, 
 too, if less heroic, is equally virtuous. At first we see in her 
 only the youthful gentleness and purity which, joined with the 
 extravagant infatuation of Antonio, make a pretty and romantic 
 little idyl of the beginning of their loves ; but we soon find that 
 she too has something of the tiger in her. She is as completely 
 swayed by love as is Juliet, and the passion has the same 
 strengthening effect upon her character. Betrayed, the gentle, 
 unsuspecting girl becomes a murderess and exults in her crime. 
 With the calmness of an avenging angel she bids Fidelia tighten 
 the string about the throat of her faithless husband ; and then, 
 when the maid begs her to fly, she cries scornfully : — 
 " Conceal the deed ? e' en to the bended brow 
 Of the stern judge, I '11 speak and call for justice ; 
 
of the MiddletotirRowley Plays. 17 
 
 Proud of my glorious vengeance, I will smile 
 Upon my dreadful executioner. 
 'T was that was first enacted in my breast. 
 She should not dare to kill that dares not die." 
 
 This is distinctly fine ; these women of Rowley's show a nobility 
 of character, an exalted virtue, aiid a possibility of heroism that 
 is Shakespearian. Almost equally fine, too, is the figure of the 
 old General Julianus. Early in the play we seem to see in him 
 only the impersonation of pride and loyalty ; but at the end, 
 when both have been broken down, as with bloody sockets he 
 gropes his way upon the stage for the last time, holding his 
 daughter's hand and crying to his torturers, — 
 
 " 'T is night with me forever ; where 's this tyrant ? — 
 I '11 borrow eyes to guide me of my child. 
 And her I '11 lend a tongue to curse thee with," 
 
 he is still a noble and dignified, although profoundly pitiful 
 figure, nobly conceived and presented with strength and feel- 
 ing. 
 
 In the power to imagine and to draw such figures as these 
 lies Rowley's strongest claim to greatness. To be sure, they 
 are romantic, and indeed Rowley shows in all his serious work a 
 tendency to romanticism which finds a parallel in the fantastic 
 drollery of his comedies. Hazlitt says of him that he " appears 
 to have excelled in describing a certain amiable quietness of dis- 
 position and disinterested tone of morality carried almost to a 
 paradoxical excess as in his ' Fair Quarrel ' and the comedy of 
 ' A Woman Never Vexed ; ' " and we have seen that the same 
 romantic glamour hangs about the characters of Jacinta, Marga- 
 retta and Julianus ; it is evident, too, in " The Spanish Gipsy," 
 and perhaps even more clearly in "A Cure for a Cuckold," where 
 the fantastic story, turning upon a lady's command to her lover 
 bidding him kill his best friend, gives excellent opportunity for 
 the display of over-fine-spun notions. Evidently our dramatist 
 troubled himself very little to study human nature or to repro- 
 duce it with moderation and "truth. He wished to exhibit through 
 his fictitious men and women the noble sentiments and virtues 
 of humanity, and he wished his characters to win the sympathy 
 of the audience and to hold it to the end of the play. To accom- 
 plish these aims he used the easy method of exaggeration, and 
 
1 8 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 we must admit that in this method undoubtedly lies the strength 
 as well as the weakness of his work. Here, too, as will appear, 
 lies the chief cause of the difference between his work and 
 Middleton's. 
 
 If he had confined his exaggeration to his conception, to a 
 romantic view of life and human nature, all would have been 
 well ; but unfortunately it is equally apparent in his execution, 
 and here it is a source of weakness. His characters say too 
 much ; they foam at the mouth, beat each other and hurl invec- 
 tives with astonishing freedom. The fierceness of Mistress 
 Foster's language may help to carry out the humorous concep- 
 tion of her character, but the same cannot be said of the in- 
 vectives in "All 's Lost by Lust :" — 
 
 Jacinta : " Out, shame of woman, thou the falsest art, 
 Be lost forever looking on my face. . . . 
 Out, hag ! " — I. I. 
 
 Jacinta : " Art officer of hell ? 
 Thou jailor to the devil, fleshly fiend." — III. i. 
 
 Jacinta : " O that I could spit out the spider's bladder, 
 Or the toad's entrails into them ! " — III. i. 
 
 Jacinta : " O that their eyes were worth the plucking out." — Idem. 
 
 RoDERiGO : " Dog, hell-hound, thou shalt be my foot-ball, slave." — 
 Idem. 
 
 Here exaggeration becomes absurdity. 
 
 Rowley's weakness in execution is further shown by his inca- 
 pacity for sustained work of a high order. When Julianus ends 
 a speech which is in many ways admirable by the blatant 
 
 couplet : — 
 
 " But my affliction teaches me too late, 
 On, bloody revenger, finish up my fate," 
 
 we smile instead of weeping ; King Roderigo slashes and rants 
 among the ghosts in the vault in what we recognize as King 
 Cambyses' vein ; Antonio, dying with the doggerel upon his 
 lips, — 
 
 " With honor I got honor ; thus my sin thrives ; 
 Thus falls the wretched husband of two wives," 
 
 is droll without intending it ; and the same inadequacy of expres- 
 sion is noticeable in some of the serious parts of " A Woman 
 Never Vexed." 
 
of the MiddletovrRowley Plays. 19 
 
 Equally noticeable, too, is a slovenly confusion of plot, an 
 inartistic piling up of incidents and interests, that appears to 
 be characteristic of Rowley. For instance, in " All 's Lost by 
 Lust," we find a serious fault of construction in the character 
 and the over-elaboration of the underplot To fulfill its proper 
 function, an underplot should be simple and strictly subordi- 
 nated to the main plot ; and as the chief purpose in introducing 
 it is to afford relief from the severe strain of sustained tragedy, 
 it should furnish frequent opportunity for the introduction of 
 comic scenes. Now instead of such a series of lightly handled 
 scenes, we have in " All 's Lost by Lust " another tragedy devel- 
 oped side by side with the main action and almost equaling it 
 in intensity of passion, crowded with characters and incidents, 
 and offering as relief to the tragic tension only the clumsy drol- 
 leries of a country clown which have no vital connection with 
 the story. Its only merit as an underplot is the relief the open- 
 air freshness of its early scenes affords to the close atmosphere 
 of the scenes between Jacinta and her tempters. Except for this, 
 even regarded as a play by itself, apart from its definite function, 
 it is not well planned. Too great importance is given to the 
 character of the second bride, Dionysia, who plays a merely 
 adventitious part in the story, and as a tragedy it has the serious 
 blot of a catastrophe brought about by accidental means, spring- 
 ing from no necessity inherent in the action. In his treatment 
 of the main plot, also, Rowley has shown lack of skill. He has 
 followed the original story closely in its principal features, but 
 he has allowed the theme to be obscured, so that at the moment 
 of the catastrophe,^ which is what has been happily named " a 
 solution by massacre," it is only by an effort of will that we 
 refer it to the crime of Roderigo, and not merely to the second- 
 ary cause, the treason of Julianus ; the prominence given to the 
 passion of the Moor has reduced the crime from which the 
 tragedy springs to the rank of an episode in the persecution of 
 the unhappy Jacinta, and consequently the final effect is con- 
 fused and weak. 
 
 In Rowley as a dramatist, then, we recognize as characteristic 
 
 a crude simplicity in the treatment of characters and situations, 
 
 leading in comedy to whimsical burlesque which only too often 
 
 degenerates into buffoonery and horseplay, and in more serious 
 
 ' See above, page 17. 
 
20 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 work to romantic exaggeration ; we recognize a great weakness 
 in execution, shown in a tendency to blatancy, an incapacity for 
 sustained work, and also in serious defects in construction; — all 
 this offset in part, however, by the power springing from imag- 
 ination, seriousness of purpose, and the deep respect for human 
 nature, and enabling him to create noble, consistent and unswerv- 
 ingly virtuous characters, who can win and keep the sympathy 
 of the audience. 
 
 Middleton's qualities are, as has been suggested, entirely dif- 
 ferent. In the first place, his comic work is of an entirely 
 different quality; it has different merits, different faults. In 
 contrast to Rowley's bluntness and extravagance it is remark- 
 able for the clever double entendre of the lines, the biting satire 
 that seasons it, and the absence of exaggeration in conception 
 and in the working out of the dialogue, — in other words, its 
 realism ; it constantly appeals to our intellect, our good sense 
 and knowledge of life. The first scene of " A Chaste Maid in 
 Cheapside " is so excellent an example of the dramatist's methods 
 that it is worth while to quote a few speeches. 
 
 Touchwood Junior, intending to steal away the daughter of 
 Yellowhammer, the goldsmith, goes to buy the ring of his pros- 
 pective father-in-law, who is plotting to give the girl to another 
 man. 
 
 Yellowhammer : " What 's your posy, now, sir ? " 
 Touchwood, Jun. : "Mass, that's true: posy? i' faith e'en this, 
 sir: — 
 
 Love that 's wise 
 
 Blinds parent's eyes." 
 
 Yellowhammer : " How, how ? If I may speak without offense, sir, 
 I hold my life" — 
 
 Touchwood, Jun. : " What, sir ? " 
 
 Yellowhammer : " Go to, — you '11 pardon me ? " 
 
 Touchwood, Jun. : " Pardon you ? Ay, sir." 
 
 Yellov^hammer : " Will you, i' faith ? " 
 
 Touchwood, Jun. : " Yes, faith, I will." 
 
 Yellowhammer : " You '11 steal away some man's daughter ; am I 
 near you ? 
 
 Do you turn aside ? You gentlemen are mad wags. 
 
 I wonder things can be so warily carried 
 
 And parents blinded so ; but they 're served right 
 
 That have two eyes and were so dull a' sight." 
 
of the MiddletorirRowley Plays. 21 
 
 It would be impossible to match this scene in Rowley's plays. 
 Scenes equally remarkable, however, for realistic treatment, for 
 self-restraint, satire, and power of characterization abound in 
 Middleton's comedies. At times, it is true, especially in his 
 early period, we find instances — as in "The Phoenix," I. 4 — 
 where over-refined subtlety of wit has resulted in artificiality, the 
 off-set of Rowley's buffoonery ; but such instances are rare, and 
 over against them we may set innumerable scenes where keen- 
 ness of insight into human nature, joined with absolute accuracy 
 of expression and a fertile invention, have produced some of the 
 best comic work in English literature. A bit of one such scene 
 has already been quoted ; another may be found in the episode 
 of the tricksters tricked in " A Mad World, my Masters," where 
 the dramatist's self-restraint is particularly remarkable only 
 because such incidents as the mystification of the Constable offer 
 especial temptations to exaggeration and burlesque; another 
 still, is the scene where the gossips dispute for precedence ("A 
 Chaste Maid in Cheapside," II. 4), where the action is common- 
 place and the scene depends for its success entirely upon skill 
 in characterization ; another in the scene mentioned below, the 
 game of chess between Livia and the old mother in "Women 
 Beware Women." 
 
 Evidently, then, we have in Middleton a comic writer whose 
 work, depending upon the clever presentation of actual absurdi- 
 ties rather than upon exaggeration and whimsical invention, and 
 distinguished as it is by remarkable technical skill, diflfers essen- 
 tially both in character and in value from the comedy of his col- 
 league, Rowley. 
 
 In tragedy the difference between the two men is not less 
 marked than it is in comedy. Perhaps the character of this dif- 
 ference cannot be brought out better than by a comparison of 
 Middleton's play, "Women Beware Women," with Rowley's 
 tragedy which we considered above ; for the plays have the same 
 motive, and therefore show the two men working independently 
 along the same lines. 
 
 To begin with, " Women Beware Women " is superior to 
 " All 's Lost by Lust " in construction. Although here, too, the 
 fault may be found that the catastrophe, sweeping enough to 
 befit a tragedy of blood, is by no means inevitable, still the 
 theme is clearly evident throughout, proportion is well pre- 
 
22 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 served, and there are no unrelated episodes, — every scene is 
 necessary to the development of the plot. This cannot be said 
 of " All 's Lost by Lust." Accordingly, the movement of Mid- 
 dleton's play is swifter and the effect more striking. The un- 
 derplot, too, is better. The objection made to the story of 
 Margaretta, that its interest distracts the attention from the 
 main plot, cannot be made here : and although its subordination 
 appears to be due less to the intention of the dramatist, who has 
 lavished upon it some of his iinest lines, than to the inherent 
 repulsiveness of the story, which repeats the theme of the main 
 plot as Rowley's does, yet it is at least simpler in movement and 
 more skillfully connected with the main story than is Rowley's 
 underplot, and it has the merit of filling the stage with people at 
 such convenient seasons as the banquet and the wedding festival. 
 It seems to have been designed with some reference to the main 
 plot, and supplements it to some extent ; it is therefore better 
 planned as an underplot than Rowley's. It fails to give comic 
 relief, it is true ; but this is less important, for the story of Bianca 
 itself affords opportunity for one of Middleton's best bits of 
 comedy, the scene of the game of chess between Livia and the 
 old mother, which is so admirable for the double entendre of the 
 lines and their subtle suggestiveness that one questions whether 
 its success may not have suggested to Middleton the possibility 
 of utilizing the idea for his great- satire of 1624. Nothing com- 
 parable to this is offered by the Jacinta story, which is sombre 
 throughout, except for the waking of the drunken jailor by the 
 king's kicks after Jacinta's escape. The fellow takes his master 
 for his former captive, and yells out, " I '11 tell the king and he'll 
 tickle you for this." " I '11 tickle you for this," repeats the king 
 grimly, kicking him again. There is always a savage humor in 
 such a swift turn of the tables upon a villain ; but it is too 
 slight a bit of comedy to atone for lack of gayety in the under- 
 plot. 
 
 There is a similar difference in style throughout the two 
 plays. As we have seen, for drollery and horse-play, Middleton 
 gives us wit and satire ; likewise for the loud rant of Roderigo 
 and the women's ill-sustained outbursts of passion he gives us 
 self-restrained, dignified dialogue and the noble eloquence of 
 Leantio and the Cardinal ; ^ and for romantic types, living men 
 
 * See Women Beware Women, III. 2; IV. i. 
 
of the MiddletoiP-Rowley Plays. 23 
 
 and women who are not by any means slaves to one motive, but 
 who, if we once admit in man a predisposition to evil, are drawn 
 with an absolute fidelity to nature, an accuracy of detail and 
 observation that make them living realities rather than mere 
 creations of fancy. Note, for example, the delicate shades of 
 characterization in the first scene of the third act, when Lean- 
 tio, returning home, is made aware of his misfortune. The 
 young husband's mystification when he sees the sudden change 
 in his once foolishly fond bride, and his overdone acting of sur- 
 prise for the benefit of the Duke's messenger ; the girl's saucy 
 smartness and the shameless, clever way in which she turns 
 aside his inquiries ; the old mother's gossipy delight in recalling 
 all the circumstances of the Duke's first view of her daughter- 
 in-law, — here are three characters drawn for us in the space of 
 three or four pages, with as great truth of observation, as much 
 fitness of setting and subtlety of motive as could be desired by 
 any modern realist. 
 
 But in the predisposition to evil which appears in them all 
 alike — excepting perhaps the old mother, who soon drops out, 
 lies the weakness of the play ; and here we find almost the 
 only important point in which Middleton was inferior to his col- 
 league. In " Women Beware Women," characters that at first 
 win our sympathy soon lose it by reason of the pitiful, more 
 than human, weakness they show under temptation ; and their 
 yielding is followed by a saucy impudence in wickedness, a 
 meanness of spirit of which no hint was given at their introduc- 
 tion, and which is to be explained only by the doctrine of innate 
 depravity needing nothing but opportunity to display itself. 
 They become despicable, and finally move us to neither pity nor 
 hate ; so that, in spite of the vividness with which the scenes 
 are set before us, and the exquisite irony that underlies them, 
 we find that our interest in them fails us long before we reach 
 the catastrophe, and we have no feeling of emotion, unless it be 
 one of relief, when the whole infamous band are deservedly 
 done to death in the last act. In "All 's Lost by Lust," on the 
 contrary, the dramatis persona inspire intense sympathy in the 
 reader, and merely by reason of this one characteristic, Rowley's 
 tragedy would probably make a more popular acting play than 
 "Women Beware Women," infinitely superior as the latter un- 
 doubtedly is in literary merits. 
 
24 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 Middleton, then, we see, found satire more congenial than 
 burlesque, and in his view of life was the reverse of romantic. 
 He showed a far closer study of life than Rowley, and a keener 
 insight into motives ; he drew his characters from nature, and, 
 carefully refraining from exaggeration, filled in his sketches 
 with all the unsparing accuracy of the realist. Rowley's supe- 
 rior in matters of technique, he could construct a plot more 
 intelligently, showed himself better equal to the demands of the 
 situations he created, whether comic or tragic, and, never blatant, 
 restrained the passions of his personages within due bounds of 
 propriety. With many excellences> however, we see that owing 
 to his low view of human nature, he was inferior to Rowley in 
 power to win sympathy for his characters, to hold the reader's 
 interest in them to the last. We find that his serious plays de- 
 crease in interest towards the end, — this is as true of " More 
 Dissemblers Besides Women," whose characters, though they 
 are not, with the exception of Lactantio, wicked, are wholly 
 devoid of dignity, as it is of " Women Beware Women,", — and 
 that no one of them has that romantic charm that distinguishes 
 Rowley's best work. 
 
 Evidently the differences between Middleton and Rowley in 
 style and temper are sufficiently marked to be of great value to 
 us in our attempt to fix the shares of the two men in the joint 
 plays, but there is still another difference between them which 
 is yet more striking, namely, that in the construction of the 
 verse. To bring this out, it is only necessary to pursue the 
 same method that has already been followed in determining 
 other characteristics of their respective styles ; that is, to com- 
 pare unassisted Middleton plays with unassisted plays of Row- 
 ley. 
 
 The Middleton plays most suitable for this purpose are natu- 
 rally those that belong to the period most nearly coincident with 
 the Middleton-Rowley partnership ; that is to say, the class of 
 plays represented by " Women Beware Women," " More Dis- 
 semblers Besides Women," and " A Game of Chess." The 
 comedies written by him for the child-players, as they were 
 almost all brought out more than ten years earlier than " A Fair 
 Quarrel," cannot properly be held to furnish examples of Mid- 
 dleton's versification at the time of his cooperation with Row- 
 ley ; and as there is plenty of more suitable material they will 
 not be considered here. 
 
of the MiddletonrRowley Plays. 25 
 
 Examining the verse of the later group, we find that it is 
 usually smooth and flows easily. It is true that the lines vary 
 in number of syllables and that Middleton shifts the accent with 
 considerable freedom ; but the extra syllables commonly come 
 at the ends of the lines, sometimes before the caesura, and the 
 inversions or irregularities are almost invariably confined to the 
 first foot and the foot after the caesura. The character of his 
 verse appears in the short speech of Livia to Bianca : — 
 
 LiviA : " I heard you were alone, and t' had appeared 
 An ill condition in me, though I knew you not 
 Nor ever saw you — yet humanity 
 Thinks every care her own — t' have kept your company 
 Here from you and left you all solitary : 
 I rather ventur'd upon boldness then, 
 As the least fault, and wished your presence here ; 
 A thing most happily motioned of that gentleman, 
 Whom I request you, for his care and pity, 
 To honor and reward with your acquaintance ; 
 A gentleman that ladies' rights stands for, 
 That 's his profession." — Women Beware Women, II. 2. 
 
 These verses run smoothly ; the alternation of the light and 
 heavy syllables is regular except in lines 7 and 9, where the first 
 foot is inverted, and the extra syllables come at the ends of lines 
 2, 4. S. 8, 9, 10. 
 Again, in " More Dissemblers Besides Women : " — 
 
 The Duchess : " O there's no art like a religious cunning, 
 It carries away all things smooth before it ! 
 How subtly has his wit dealt with the lords. 
 To fetch in their persuasions to a business 
 That stands in need of none, yields of itself, 
 As most we women do when we seem farthest." — IV. 2. 
 
 In " A Game at Chess : " — 
 
 Black Queen's Pawn : " He 's a gentleman 
 Most wishfully compos'd ; honour grows on him. 
 And wealth piled up for him ; has youth enough, too. 
 And yet in the sobriety of his countenance 
 Grave as a tetrarch, which is gracious 
 I' th' eye of modest pleasure. Where 's the emptiness ? 
 What can you more request ? " — III. 2. 
 
 It will be noticed that the characteristics here are the same as in 
 
26 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 the first citation, and the curious reader will find other examples 
 in abundance merely by opening his Middleton at any of the 
 plays written at this period. Some interesting illustrations will 
 be found in the colloquy of the Pawns of the Black Bishop and 
 the White Queen, " A Game at Chess," II. i ; of the old mother 
 and Bianca, " Women Beware Women," III. i ; and of Leantio 
 and Livia, idem. III. 2. He will notice that throughout these 
 plays while the verse lacks the sensuous melody of Dekker's 
 lines, it has a vibrant quality, an ease and elasticity, that fit it 
 to be the instrument of a versatile, polished and ready writer. 
 
 Now Rowley's rhythm produces an entirely different effect. 
 We find that, far from confining his inversions to the first foot 
 and the foot after the caesura, he very frequently inverts his 
 second and last feet, and that he shows great freedom in the 
 use of unaccented syllables within the line. These licenses 
 make his verse exceedingly rough. Examples are not far to 
 seek. Old Foster in " A Woman Never Vexed," I. i, speaking 
 of his reckless brother, says : — 
 
 " Twice have I raised 
 His decayed fortunes to a fair estate ; 
 But with as fruitless charity as if I had thrown 
 My safe-landed substance back into the sea ; 
 Or dress in pity some corrupted jade, 
 And he should kick me for my courtesy. 
 I am sure you cannot but hear what quicksands 
 He finds out ; as dice, cards, pigeon-holds, 
 And which is worse, should I not restrain it, 
 He 'd make my state his prodigality." * 
 
 The difference between this verse and the citations from Mid- 
 dleton is at once apparent. Notice the irregularity of the second 
 foot in lines 2 and 4, the length of its first syllable, the extra 
 syllable after the third foot in line 3 ; the omission of the last 
 
 ^The characteristics cited as Rowley's distinguish all the acts of AlVs 
 Lost by Lust and the first three acts of A Woman Never Vexed. They are 
 also found in The Travails of Three English Brothers, 1607, sc. 10, the 
 verse of which, as will appear to any reader, differs radically from that of 
 Day and Wilson, and is therefore distinguishable as belonging to their third 
 collaborator, and in The Maid in the Mill, see above, page 7. Citations 
 from all these plays would occupy much space, and as readers may verify the 
 conclusions reached by reference to scenes chosen at random from any of 
 these plays, such verification will be left to their curiosity. 
 
of the MiddletonrRowley Plays. 27 
 
 syllable of the last foot in line 7, and the omission of the first 
 syllable of the following line; also, in line 10, the so-called 
 French arrangement of the accent, i. e. a syllable omitted in the 
 third foot is atoned for by the addition of a syllable at the end, 
 making the number of syllables in the line ten, the regular num- 
 ber. Middleton seldom tampers with his metrical scheme in 
 this manner, but in Rowley's verse lines admissible in neither 
 French nor English poetry occur frequently. 
 " And feathered ignorance thus our Poets does flight." — AlVs Lost by 
 
 Lust. Prologue. 
 "His owne proper glory, for such weak eyes see." — Idem, IV. 
 " For thou knowest what shall become of my poor Jacinta." — Idem, V. 
 
 Similar lines could, of course, be found in Middleton, as in 
 almost any writer of blank verse, but they are rare, while with 
 Rowley they are so common that his rough rhythm has become 
 notorious. 
 
 Moreover, it will be noticed that but one of the ten lines of 
 this citation has an extra syllable at the end, whereas in the 
 speech of Livia, 12 lines, there are six such feminine endings, 
 and of these three have two extra syllables. From this fact 
 alone it might be suspected that the two men belonged to 
 different schools of verse, and the suspicion is confirmed by 
 further reading. We find that although Middleton did not use 
 feminine endings and end-stopt lines as freely as Fletcher did, 
 yet he used them freely enough to be regarded as belonging to 
 the same school. In " A Game at Chess " the proportion of 
 run-on lines is one in five : that of feminine endings is approxi- 
 mately one in two, and many of them are double or triple. This 
 prominence of feminine endings, too, is evidently intentional, 
 for, like Fletcher, Middleton constantly adds " Sir," " Madam," 
 " my Lord," to an already complete line : — 
 
 White King : " Fear ? You were never guilty of an injury 
 To goodness but in that" 
 
 White Queen : " It stayed not with me, sir." 
 
 White King : " It was too much if it usurped a thought 
 Place a strong guard there." 
 
 White Queen : " Confidence is set, sir." — IV. 4. 
 
 Now, as we have seen when comparing Rowley's verse with 
 Fletcher's in the study of "The Maid in the Mill," Rowley 
 
28 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 belongs metrically to the older school of dramatists. His pro- 
 portion of feminine endings is generally less than one in four,i a 
 very considerable difference from Middleton's habit of one in 
 two, very few of them are double, and his run-on lines are also 
 usually one in four. And although in the latter point the 
 difference between his habit and Middleton's does not from 
 the count seem very marked, in reality Middleton's verse has 
 much more of the end-stopt effect than Rowley's, owing to a 
 habit of his of breaking successive run-on lines by regular 
 caesuras.^ The effect of a number of such verses differs little 
 from that of a block of end-stopt lines, and they are very 
 numerous in Middleton, whereas, if they are found in Rowley, 
 they are unusual phenomena. 
 
 These differences between the styles of Middleton and Row- 
 ley as well in the construction of the verse as in quality of wit, 
 conception of life and human character, and dramatic technique, 
 are certainly sufficiently great to make it possible to enter upon 
 an inquiry into the respective shares of the two dramatists in 
 their joint plays with some prospect of success ; and although 
 much of this work must be done by metrical tests, a method of 
 criticism which has justly been regarded with some suspicion, 
 yet in these plays, as I hope to show, peculiar circumstances 
 render it especially significant, so that it becomes a touchstone 
 by which we can distinguish with something very like certainty 
 the work of Rowley from that of Middleton. For this purpose, 
 the difference in the proportion of feminine endings is undoubt- 
 edly the most important, for, as will readily appear from refer- 
 ence to the extracts given, the character of the rhythm is entirely 
 changed by the frequent presence of the one or two extra sylla- 
 bles at the ends of the lines, and as these are found in large 
 numbers in all the verse of the Middleton plays of this period, 
 whereas in Rowley's there are so few that they are never con- 
 spicuous, we are here furnished with a ready and convenient 
 test by which we may make a rough division of the scenes of 
 the joint plays between the two dramatists. Accordingly, in 
 considering "A Fair Quarrel," I shall make the division first 
 upon this basis, and then endeavor to verify it by evidence 
 founded upon other investigations. 
 
 1 See p. 6. 
 
 * See extract from Women Beware Women, p. 25. 
 
of the Middleton-Rowley Plays. 29 
 
 IV. 
 
 The first result of the partnership of Middleton and Rowley 
 was "A Fair Quarrel," printed in 1617, with the title: "A 
 Faire Quarrel. As it was acted before the King and divers 
 times publicly by the Prince his Highness Servants. Written 
 by Thomas Midleton and William Rowley, Gentlemen." ^ The 
 entry of the court performance is not to be found, but that the 
 play was well received there is further evidence in its republica- 
 tion the same year with a new title page and " additions of Mr. 
 Chough's and Mr. Tristrem's Roaring." Rowley himself says 
 of it in his Dedication, " It has been seen, though I say it, in 
 good company, and many have said it is a handsome pretty- 
 spoken infant;" and it was brought out again in 1622. Evi- 
 dently it was a triumphantly successful piece. We find no 
 such evidences of popularity in the history of any play written 
 alone by either Middleton or Rowley, if we except Middleton's 
 " Game at Chess," whose remarkable vogue must be explained 
 largely by adventitious reasons ; and it is reasonable to suppose 
 that the happy result of this first venture encouraged the two 
 dramatists to continue the partnership. 
 
 The play is so well known that it is unnecessary to give the 
 story, but it should be remarked that it consists of a main plot 
 and an underplot, the former concerned with the story of 
 Captain Ager and his mother, and the latter, which was founded 
 on an Italian novel, with the fortunes of Fitzallen, Russell, 
 and Jane.2 The main plot includes, I. i (first part) ; II. i ; III. 
 I, 3 ; IV. 3 ; and V. (last part) ; and the underplot fills up the 
 rest of the play. 
 
 An examination of the verse gives peculiarly suggestive 
 results. In the first place, with reference to feminine endings. 
 Discarding prose ^ and unfinished lines, we find that in I. to 
 
 ' Title-page 4to. 
 
 ' Langbaine (^Account of English Dramatic Poets) says : " That part of 
 the Physician tempting Jane and then accusing her is founded on a novel of 
 Cinthio Giraldi, — see Dec. 4, Nov. 5 ; " but Giraldi's story is used merely 
 as a suggestion, the circumstances being much altered. 
 
 ' In speaking of "prose" and "verse" in connection with these early 
 plays, it should be remembered that the division is incontestable only 
 where it is evident to every ear. The quartos are so wretchedly printed 
 that they are not to be depended upon ; for instance, A Woman Never Vext, 
 
30 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 the entrance of Jane and Fitzallen (136 lines) there are 40 
 feminine endings ; I. the rest of the act (288 lines) 74 ; II. i 
 (228 lines) 121 ; II. 2 (106 lines) 27; III. i (184 lines) 94; III. 
 2 (176 lines) 50; III. 3 (44 lines) 23; IV. i, prose; IV. 2 (78 
 lines) 28; IV. 3 (124 lines) 55; IV. 4, prose; V. 1, to the 
 entrance of Captain Ager (172 lines) 41 ; remainder of the 
 scene (35 lines), 20. That is to say, in the scenes of the main 
 plot, the feminine endings reach or exceed the proportion of 
 one in two; while in the underplot, — except in I. first part, 
 and III. 2, which give one in three and which will be treated 
 below, — the proportion is one fourth or less. 
 
 There is here, as the reader will doubtless have noted, exactly 
 the difference that we found between Middleton's usual verse 
 and Rowley's in respect to the number of feminine endings,^ 
 and there is, moreover, a difference in the character of these 
 endings that corresponds to that previously noticed in the verse 
 of these two dramatists.^ In V. first part, 172 lines, there is 
 not a single double ending ; in the last part of the same act, 
 35 lines, there are two; in II. i (188 lines), there are 16; and 
 this relative proportion holds throughout the play. The differ- 
 ence in the sound of the verse is easily seen from short extracts. 
 
 Captain Acer : " I never felt a more severe necessz/)'. 
 Then came thy excellent pity. Not yet readj/ i 
 Have you such confidence in my just ■ma.w.hood. 
 That you dare so long trust me, and yet tempt me 
 Beyond the toleration of man's -mtue ? 
 Why would you be more cruel than your '\wjury 1 
 Do you first take pride to wrong me, and then think me 
 Not worth your fury ? " — III. i. 
 
 Capt. Acer : " It kills 
 At one report two reputations, 
 A mother's and a son's. If it were possiMe 
 
 is printed throughout as verse, the lines, it need hardly be said, being divided 
 upon no principle that can be discovered. Whenever possible, it is probably 
 safest to follow the reading of Dyce, whose ear for rhythm is invariably correct. 
 He has altered the arrangement of the text rather freely ; but his edition of 
 the Middleton-Rowley plays is, on the whole, reliable, and it furnishes the 
 basis for the following examination of their verse. 
 
 ^ See above, pp. 27, 28. 
 
 * See above, p. 28. 
 
of the Middleton-Rowley Plays. 31 
 
 That souls could fight after the body fell. 
 This were a quarrel for 'em ; he should be one indeed 
 That never heard of heaven's joy nor hell's torment 
 To fight this out." — II. I. 
 Lady Ager : " I did that 
 For my affection's sake — goodness forgive me for' f, 
 That were my own life's safety put upon 't, 
 I 'd rather die than do 't. Think how you used me then; 
 And yet would go and hazard yourself too." — iV'. 3. 
 
 Over against these, stand such lines as, — 
 
 Physician : " Indeed I cannot tell you ; you know, nurse, 
 These are above the quantity of price ; 
 Where is the glory of the goodliest trees 
 Eut in the fruit and branches ? the old stock 
 Must decay ; and sprigs, scions such as these 
 Must become new stocks, for us to glor^ 
 In the fruitful issue ; so we are made 
 Immortal one by other." — III. 2. 
 
 Or — 
 
 Jane : " Can art be so dim-sighted, learned sir ? 
 I did not think her so incapacious. 
 You train me, as I guess, like a conjurer, 
 One of our fine oraculous wizards. 
 Who from the help of his examinant 
 By the near guess of his suspicion 
 Points out the thief by the marks he tells him." — II. 2. 
 
 Russell : " Welcome, son-in-law ! this was beyond your hope : 
 We old men have pretty conceits sometimes. 
 Your wedding day 's prepared and this is it ; 
 How think you of it ? " — V. i. 
 
 Examining these two groups of passages, we find that not 
 only do they differ essentially from each other, but they differ 
 in the same ways in which the citations from Middleton given 
 above differed from the passages cited from Rowley ; that is to 
 say, the verse of the one group resembles Middleton's verse, 
 and that of the other resembles Rowley's. If we compare the 
 first group with the Middleton passages,^ we find that there is a 
 remarkable similarity in the employment of feminine endings 
 and end-stopt lines, and also that in both sets of passages the 
 
 ^ Page 25. 
 
33 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 alternation of accent is regular. The second group will be 
 found to agree as completely with the speech of Old Foster,^ 
 There are very few feminine endings, a large number of the 
 lines run on, and there is the same carelessness in the placing 
 of the accent. Compare, for example, the second line of Old 
 Foster's speech with the fifth of the Physician's, the tenth with 
 the last of Jane's, the fourth with the first of Russell's. Notice 
 also the irregularity of accent in the last two feet in the fourth 
 line of the Physician's, the inversion of the last foot in the 
 fourth line of Jane's, the excess of syllables in the third, and 
 the so-called French treatment of the accent in the second line 
 of Russell's speech. These are all marks of Rowley's hand, 
 and such marks are found in great numbers in all the verse of 
 the underplot ; but they are not found in that of the main plot, 
 from which passages similar to those cited, showing Middleton's 
 characteristics and differing widely from these, may be selected 
 at random. 
 
 ■' Now it is true that the metrical test is not invariably reliable. 
 We are not to suppose that a poet's manner may not differ 
 essentially in different periods of his life, or that he may not 
 intentionally on occasion adopt a rhythm different from the one 
 he habitually uses. Indeed a shadow of uncertainty is thrown 
 over Mr. Macaulay's very careful and intelligent division of the 
 Beaumont and Fletcher plays by the fact that we can so often 
 give some aesthetic or practical reason why Fletcher should 
 have employed the Shakespearean verse in a given passage 
 instead of the rhythm peculiar to himself. Nevertheless, there 
 may be circumstances under which such objections as these are 
 invalid, when similarity of verse must be admitted to be a strong 
 argument for identity of authorship ; and in these cases the 
 very mechanical character which is urged against the test be- 
 comes an advantage in making it peculiarly convenient, and 
 permitting less difference of opinion among critics than is 
 inevitable when the question is one of temper and literary 
 quality instead of one of feminine endings and run-on lines. 
 
 This appears to be a case where circumstances give a particu- 
 larly strong support to its validity. As we have seen, the 
 difference in verse between the scenes of the play is very great, 
 too great to have been accidental; it must mean something. 
 
 * Page 26. 
 
of the Middleton-Rowley Plays. 33 
 
 Apparently, it must mean one of two things. Either a differ- 
 ence in the character of the scenes rendered such a difference 
 in verse desirable for art's sake, or natural as a convenience, — 
 certainly a possible explanation in some of the Beaumont and 
 Fletcher plays ; or else the metrical habits of the two men con- 
 cerned in it were different, and the difference in verse means a 
 difference in authorship. But here the former supposition is 
 evidently very far from the truth, for the verse of the familiar 
 Fletcherian type is regularly used in the most serious and 
 impressive scenes, while an attempt at a more dignified mascu- 
 line style of rhythm is made in the commonplace situations of 
 the underplot, an arrangement the reverse of which is found in 
 the Beaumont and Fletcher plays, and the reverse of what 
 would have been natural if the rhythm had been consciously 
 chosen. On the other hand, the latter supposition is rendered 
 exceedingly likely by the facts ascertained in the study of the 
 unassisted plays of Middleton and Rowley, first, that the met- 
 rical habits of the two men were so different that we should 
 expect two kinds of verse in a joint play, and secondly, that the 
 differences were such as to correspond exactly with those noted 
 in the different parts of this play written in partnership ; that 
 is to say, the difference between the scenes of "A Fair Quarrel " 
 is precisely what we should naturally expect to find in a play in 
 which both Middleton and Rowley were concerned. The con- 
 clusion is, I believe, almost inevitable that Middleton wrote the 
 scenes in which the verse shows his usual characteristics, and 
 Rowley wrote those whose verse bears such decided marks of 
 his hand. 
 
 It seems then that, if we except the first part of the first act 
 and the second scene of the third, which we will leave for the 
 moment, the whole weight of evidence furnished by the verse 
 test — and we have seen it to be in this case particularly heavy 
 — is thrown in support of the division of the play which would 
 assign the main plot to Middleton and the underplot to Rowley. 
 Moreover, this division is further supported by numerous other 
 bits of evidence, considerations of style and plot, parallel pas- 
 sages, and the like, which although they might not in themselves 
 prove convincing, are yet extremely valuable as corroboratory 
 evidence, strengthening an established probability. 
 
 For example, the construction of the main plot is far better 
 
 3 
 
34 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 than that of any play of Rowley's. Each episode moves the 
 plot on, and each speech is essential to the adequate presenta- 
 tion of the situation in which it appears : it would be exceed- 
 ingly difficult to cut the Captain Ager episode. Even the 
 introduction of the Colonel's sister, who is brought in at the 
 end in order to make possible, the required marriage consumma- 
 tion of a comedy, is cleverly used as a means of bringing about 
 the reconciliation of the two friends and of displaying the exag- 
 gerated magnaminity of the Colonel, which is, of course, his 
 contribution towards making the quarrel a " Fair " one. There 
 are none of those absurdly unrelated episodes which distract the 
 attention from the theme, such as we have found in " All 's Lost 
 by Lust." In the swiftness of its movement and the unity of 
 its effects, the main plot of " A Fair Quarrel " resembles " Wo^ 
 men Beware Women" and the Middleton comedies, not the 
 plays of Rowley. 
 
 Moreover, the way in which the situations are developed sug- 
 gests Middleton. To make the virtue of the mother appear 
 clearly to the audience, without a single aside, through the 
 denials of her innocence, while yet the son, who doubts it, never 
 loses their sympathy for an instant, is a task that required all 
 the subtlety of treatment that Middleton revealed in the women's 
 dialogue, "Women Beware Women," II. 2, and in the "Game 
 at Chess," but of which Rowley never showed himself capable. 
 The dialogue in these scenes, moreover, shows great self-con- 
 trol, and also the entire adequacy of the dramatist to the de- 
 mands of unusually trying situations. No one can read the 
 duel scene without being struck with the noble moderation, the 
 essential gentlemanliness, displayed in the dialogue. Charles 
 Lamb has chosen this scene for his strongest commendation, 
 and it is unnecessary to try to add to his well-known praises of 
 its execution ; but a reader of Rowley has only to call to mind 
 the last act of his tragedy and consider the opportunities in this 
 duel scene for invective, for bathos, and for cut-and-thrust action, 
 to feel convinced that the workmanship here is not his. 
 
 These scenes of the main plot, then, are distinguished by quali- 
 ties we have noted as belonging to Middleton and not to Rowley. 
 Now setting them over against the scenes of the underplot, we 
 feel at once a difference in treatment, and see in the latter 
 Rowley's characteristics as plainly as in the former we saw 
 Middleton' s. 
 
of the MiddletoTirRowley Plays. 35. 
 
 In the first place there is Rowley's usual lack of firmness in 
 construction and of the sense of proportion. Much space is' 
 given to the scenes connected with the Roaring School, which 
 certainly have a slight enough connection with the story of 
 Fitzallen, Jane, and the Physician ; and in IV. 4, three charac- 
 ters, Captain Albo, Meg and Priss, appear prominently, although 
 they have absolutely no office to fill in the evolution of the plot 
 and do not appear again. This slovenly construction reminds 
 us of that of the underplot of " All 's Lost by Lust " and the 
 disconnected scene that Rowley contributed to "The Travails 
 of Three English Brothers." 
 
 Moreover, the quality of the fun is characteristic of Rowley. 
 It depends very largely upon the action and the conception, is 
 clownish rather than satirical, and the verbal wit, what there is 
 of it, is in the form of puns. Russell gets two bad ones into a 
 few lines : — 
 
 " But I '11 bring one within a day to thee 
 Shall rouse thee up, for he 's come up already : 
 One Master Chough, a Cornish gentleman ; 
 Has as much land of his own fee-simple 
 As a crow can fly over in half a day : 
 And now I think on 't, at the Crow at Oldgate 
 His lodging is." — I. i. 
 
 Farther on, 
 
 Russell : " How do you like her, sir ? " 
 
 Chough : " Troth, I do like her, sir, in the way of comparison to 
 anything a man would desire." — II. 2. 
 
 Now Middleton is not particularly fond of puns, but Rowley's 
 passion for them is notorious. One remembers that he even 
 saw fit to introduce them into epitaphs, writing on Greene, the 
 actor, the extraordinary lines : — 
 
 " How fast bleak Autumn changeth Flora's dye ; 
 What yesterday was Green, now 's sere and dry," 
 
 and ended his elegy to Hugh Atwell, another actor, with 
 
 " He 's changed his Hugh, yet he remains At-well." 
 
 In view of these facts, the remarkable number of examples of 
 this form of wit to be found in the underplot of " A Fair Quar- 
 rel " seems decidedly significant. 
 
36 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 There are here, too, innumerable figures, allusions and the 
 like that are common in Rowley plays. To be sure, some of 
 them are not original with him, and their presence does not 
 furnish absolute proof. Still it seems worth while to quote a 
 few, for some of them are decidedly striking; they are not 
 found in the main plot, and they do not appear to have been 
 used by Middleton elsewhere. 
 
 Jane : " Thou 'st fished with silver hooks and golden baits, 
 But I '11 avoid all thy deserving slights." — A Fair Quarrel, III. 2. 
 
 Jane: "And baited fishes with your silver hooks." — A Woman 
 Never Vexed. 
 
 Jane : " As men pull roses 
 
 For their own relish, but to kill the flower." — A Fair Quarrel, V. i. 
 
 Jacinta : " Say that some rapine hand had plucked the bloom, 
 Jacinta, like that flower." — All 's Lost by Lust, III. i. 
 
 Chough : " I '11 wear my bachelor's buttons still." 
 
 Trimtram : " So will I, i' faith ; they are the best flowers in any 
 man's garden next to heart's-ease." — A Fair Quarrel, V. i. 
 
 Compare with this the use made by Robert and Jane of the 
 language of flowers, "A Woman Never Vexed," III. i. 
 
 Much more significant is the fact that there are several situ- 
 ations in this underplot which are similar in character to situa- 
 tions constantly found in plays bearing Rowley's name, and 
 they are treated in a similar manner. For instance, in the 
 second act we have the episode of the young girl introduced by 
 her father to a clownish suitor which has been remarked in " A 
 Woman Never Vexed" and "A Match at Midnight." As in 
 them, the mother does not appear. Comparing the talk of Rus- 
 sell, Jane, and Chough in "A Fair Quarrel," II. 2, with that 
 of Brewer, Speedwell, Lambkin, and Jane in " A Woman Never 
 Vexed," III. i, and that of Moll and Earlack, "A Match at Mid- 
 night," II. 2, we find that the quality of these corresponding 
 scenes of the three plays is similar. Again, in III. 2, we find 
 Jane spitting at the Physician, a curious incident paralleled in 
 "All's Lost by Lust"" and " A Match at Midnight;" and the 
 freedom of the girl's invectives, 
 
 " O you 're a foul dissembling hypocrite ! " 
 " Out, outside of a man ; thou cinnamon tree." 
 " Poison thyself, thou foul empoisoner ! " 
 reminds us strongly of Jacinta's in " All 's Lost by Lust." Mid- 
 
of the MiddletotirRowley Plays. ■^j 
 
 dleton's women, even the fiercest of them, are more moderate 
 in speech. 
 
 This last scene, it will be remembered, was one of the two in 
 which feminine endings appeared in somewhat greater numbers 
 than usual, and which therefore was properly treated as doubt- 
 ful in dividing the play on the basis of metrical tests. A fuller 
 examination of the scene, however, shows that there is no valid 
 reason here for doubting Rowley's authorship. In the first 
 place, the excess of feminine endings is not large, — not large 
 enough to give the verse any resemblance to Middleton's in 
 sound, and none of these endings is double. In the second 
 place, the verse shows Rowley's management of the accent. Its 
 character appears from the passage quoted above, the Physi- 
 cian's speech, which, as has been shown, is characteristically 
 Rowley's. From the verse itself, then, the scene would be 
 classed as Rowley's, and as we have found, it contains a charac- 
 teristic Rowley situation treated in Rowley's usual manner. It 
 is practically impossible to doubt his authorship of it. 
 
 The case of the other scene in which the proportion of femi- 
 nine endings rises somewhat above that usual with Rowley is 
 very similar to this. A large number of these extra final sylla- 
 bles occur in the last part of Russell's opening speech, where 
 the verse certainly sounds much like Middleton's, and it is of 
 course possible that he had a hand in it. It is dangerous, how- 
 ever, to rely wholly upon a verse test in so short a passage 
 as this, and certainly it is going too far to assume merely from 
 the character of this passage that Middleton wrote the whole of 
 the episode in which it occurs.^ And in the rest of the scene, 
 while there seem to be no evidences of Middleton's authorship, 
 there are many of Rowley's. The proportion of feminine end- 
 ings rises very little above the usual Rowley proportion ; the 
 endings are commonly of but one extra syllable, which may often 
 be slurred in reading ; run-on lines abound ; and the verse has 
 the Rowley roughness^ 
 
 " Here has been such a stormy encounter twixt 
 My cousin Captain and this brave Colonel, 
 About I knew not what — nothing indeed — 
 Competitions, degrees, and comparatives 
 
 > Fleay {Chronicles of the English Drama, ii. 98), assigns all of this scene 
 before the entrance of Jane and Fitzallen to Middleton. 
 
38 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 Of soldiership ; but this smooth passage of love 
 
 Has calmed it all." 
 This carelessness in the management of the accent does not 
 suggest Middleton. There are also suggestions of Rowley in 
 the phrasing. A pun occurs which is repeated in Rowley's 
 Dedication to the play and also in " All 's Lost by Lust." 
 
 Capt. Ager : " I have done, sir, but " — 
 
 Russell : " But ? I '11 have no more shooting at these butts." — 
 II. I. 
 
 Compare, 
 
 " Tis but a play, and a play is but a butt against which many shoot 
 
 many arrows of envy." — Dedication, 
 
 Antonio : " Nay, but " — 
 
 Clown : " I '11 shoot at no such butts." — AlVs Lost hy Lust, IV. i. 
 
 It is also worthy of notice that Russell constantly uses the ex- 
 clamation Tush ! Middleton's favorite expression is Push ! He 
 also uses Pish ! but very rarely Tush ! It is, however, common 
 with Rowley. 
 
 The fact that this scene introduces the characters of the main 
 plot, which, as a whole, is assigned to Middleton, is not an ob- 
 jection to the assignment of this scene to Rowley. As we shall 
 see later, Rowley wrote the opening scene of "The Change- 
 ling " also, introducing us to the main plot, which is developed 
 almost entirely by Middleton. 
 
 Scenes i and 4, act IV. being in prose, admit of no verse 
 test, and it might be urged that the idea of the Roaring School 
 is much like that of Lazarillo's school for managing husbands 
 held in "Blurt, Master Constable," III. 3. But with the idea 
 the resemblance ends. Middleton's scene is an example of his 
 occasional artificiality. It is worked out with a careful elabora- 
 tion that wearies in spite of the brilliancy of the wit and the- 
 keen edge of the satire, which is of his finest quality ; the care 
 and art seem misplaced upon a conception of such inherent 
 absurdity, and the actors all wear a smirk of self-consciousness 
 which spoils the fun. It was not a conception suited to Mid- 
 dleton's temper, which led him rather to realistic accuracy than 
 to the exaggeration of burlesque ; but with an absurd notion in 
 his head to work out, Rowley was in his element, and so we 
 turn with pleasure from Lazarillo's ladies to the Roaring School. 
 
of the Middleton-Rowley Plays. 39 
 
 In spite of the coarseness and foolishness of their repartee, 
 scholars and preceptors alike have a dash, a rollicking jollity 
 that pleases us, sets us in a good humor, and is not natural to 
 Middleton's characters. It is the quality of " A Woman Never 
 Vexed." 
 
 If we assign these prose scenes to Rowley, together with 
 those other scenes of " A Fair Quarrel " that seemed to us in 
 the foregoing investigation to be of a character more congenial 
 to his genius than to Middleton's, we shall have assigned to 
 him the whole of the underplot ; and for similar reasons, as we 
 have seen, we should assign the main plot, except the first scene, 
 to Middleton. But this, it will be remembered, was precisely the 
 division that, wherever it could be applied, was first made on 
 the basis of the verse test. Accordingly we see that, far from 
 disproving the validity of this test, investigation of the charac- 
 ter of this play has tended to establish it ; and as no explanation 
 of the difference in verse seems possible except that based 
 upon a difierence in authorship, and as the verse test is sup- 
 ported, as we have seen it to be, by much supplementary evi- 
 dence, we are surely justified in regarding it as reliable in this 
 instance. 
 
 In the first play, then, in which the two dramatists worked 
 together, they followed the plan of assigning the main plot to 
 one and the underplot to the other. Their second production 
 was a mask, whose slender thread of plot did not permit such a 
 division as this. It was called "The World Tost at Tennis," 
 and must have been written early in 1620, for it celebrated the 
 marriage of Charles, Lord Howard, to the Lady Mary, daughter 
 of Sir William Cockaine, married April 22, 1620, and it was 
 entered at Stationer's Hall on July 4 of that year. Apart from 
 the verse there seems to be no definite evidence which can serve 
 to fix the shares of the two men in this attractive little piece ; 
 but up to the entrance of the Five Starches, the number of 
 feminine endings is small, and the verse shows Rowley's care- 
 lessness in the management of the accents and of unaccented 
 syllables, while beyond that point the proportion of feminine 
 endings is enormously increased, and the rhythm is smooth and 
 flowing. This difference in verse appears at once if we put 
 beside each other two extracts which fairly exemplify the style 
 of the two parts of the mask. The extracts chosen are taken 
 
40 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 from successive speeches, the one before and the one after, the 
 entrance of the Starches : — 
 
 Jupiter : " I tell thee, glorious daughter, and you, things 
 Shut up in wretchedness, the world knew once 
 His age of happiness, blessed times owned him, 
 Till those two ugly ills, Deceit and Pride, 
 Made it a perished substance. Pride brought in 
 Forgetfulness of goodness, merit, virtue, 
 And placed ridiculous officers in life. 
 Vain glory, fashion, humour, and such toys, 
 That shame to be produced." . . . 
 
 Enter the Starches. 
 
 White Starch : " What, no respect amongst you ? Must I wake you 
 In your forgetful duties ? jet before me ! 
 Take place of me ? — You rude presumptuous gossip. 
 Pray who am I ? not I the primitive Starch ? 
 You blue-ey'd frokin, looks like fire and brimstone ; — 
 You caudle-colour, much of the complexion 
 Of High Shrove-Tuesday batter, yellow-hammer ; — 
 Know I 'm Starch Protestant, thou Starch Puritan." 
 
 These passages, as appears from application of the verse test, 
 are distinctly Rowley and Middleton verse, and, as has been said, 
 they are representative passages ; we find that the respective 
 characteristics of the two men appear with equal clearness in 
 the rest of the mask. Accordingly, if this verse test is admitted 
 to be reliable, we must assign to Rowley the portion before 
 the entrance of the Starches, and to Middleton the remaining 
 portion. 
 
 The next play produced by Middleton and Rowley in partner- 
 ship was probably " The Changeling ; " but, that we may have 
 all possible evidence in before proceeding to what is undoubtedly 
 the chief point of interest in our discussion, it will be advisable 
 to stop for a moment and consider the fourth and last play on 
 the list, " The Spanish Gipsy." 
 
 This seems to have appeared somewhat after " The Change- 
 ling," for Costanza seems to allude to that play in one place,^ but 
 evidently it came not very long after, for it was noted by Sir 
 Henry Herbert among the court plays of 1623 and 1624, and 
 "The Changeling" appears in the same list. It is a graceful 
 * " None but myself shall play the changeling." — II. i. 
 
of the MiddletonrRowley Plays. 41 
 
 and interesting little piece, of a romantic turn, possessing some 
 scenes of very considerable merit and a good deal of agreeable 
 verse, but not remarkable for any strength of thought or origi- 
 nality of conception. Most of the verse is of what we have already 
 recognized a^the Middleton quality, the exception being found 
 in the verse of Act II., which introduces the gypsies as well as 
 continues the story of Clara. Here the feminine endings fall 
 much below the Middleton proportion, and, moreover, the joking 
 of Sancho and Soto strongly resembles that of Chough and his 
 man in " A Fair Quarrel ; " puns abound ; and in the serious 
 scenes the verse often halts badly, showing Rowley's common 
 characteristics. From these indications it would appear probable 
 that Act II. was written wholly or in large part by him. As for 
 the rest of the play, in Act I. the lines constantly maintain the 
 Middleton proportion of feminine endings, one in two, and they 
 run with the smoothness that comes of regularity of accent. 
 Moreover, the dialogue is full of poetic images of great beauty, 
 reminding the reader of those with which Middleton has sweet- 
 ened the more distasteful subject of the underplot of " Women 
 Beware Women," and it maintains itself upon a higher level of 
 elegance and dignity than that upon which Rowley was accus- 
 tomed to write. Act III. affords only scattered passages of 
 blank verse, hardly enough to admit of any very certain applica- 
 tion of the verse test ; but Rowley has nowhere shown that he 
 possessed the metrical skill exhibited in the lively, jingling lit- 
 tle lyrics with which it closes, whereas Middleton has scattered 
 just such songs through " The Witch " and " More Dissemblers 
 Besides Women," IV. i ; the same remark applies to the fol- 
 lowing scene, which shows, moreover, in its unrhymed passages, 
 Middleton's usual proportion of feminine endings ; scene 3, too, 
 bears the marks of Middleton's hand as well in the smoothness 
 of its verse and the feminine endings as in the dignity and 
 self-restraint of the dialogue, which is admirably planned and 
 expressed. In the fourth act, the first scene, like the first scenes 
 of III., is full of jingling songs, and the double-pointed jests in 
 the gypsies' play in the later scenes are suggestive of Middleton. 
 Indeed, the episode reminds us strongly of the ironically appro-r 
 priate presentation of "The Slip" by Lord Owemuch's players 
 in "A Mad World, my Masters." Throughout this act and the 
 next, the blank verse shows a proportion of feminine endings 
 
42 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 rather greater than one in two, and is very regular as to the 
 placing of the accent. 
 
 As the excellence of the invention, the temperance of manner, 
 the dignity of the serious passages in these four acts, and the 
 evenness of style, bespeak Middleton rather than Rowley, there 
 seems to be little doubt but that here, as well as in f ' A Fair 
 Quarrel," the verse test points to the truth, and that the greater 
 part of the play — all but the second act — belongs to Middleton. 
 This is substantially the opinion of the critics who have con- 
 sidered the play. Fleay (" Chronicles of the English Drama," 
 ii. loi) thinks that the whole play is Middleton's, but Bui- 
 len (" Works of Middleton ; " Introduction, 72) says the gipsy 
 scenes " were doubtless largely the work of Rowley ; " and 
 Swinburne (" Introduction to Thomas Middleton," Mermaid Edi- 
 tion, 30 and 31) says : "Whatever is best in the tragic or in the 
 romantic part of this play bears the stamp of Middleton's genius 
 alike in the sentiment and the style j " adding, however, " the 
 rough and ready hand of Rowley may be traced not indeed in 
 the more high-toned passages, but in many of the most animated 
 scenes of 'The Spanish Gipsy.'" The reader will find these 
 animated scenes in the second act, where Rowley's hand has 
 already been traced. 
 
 Returning to "The Changeling," we find it noted in Sir 
 Henry Herbert's " Office Book " as having been acted at White- 
 hall on January 4, 1623, by the Queen of Bohemia's Company, 
 and there is evidence that the play was an acting success. It 
 was presented at the Cockpit and at Salisbury Court ; just before 
 the Civil Wars, Robins acted the part of Antonio in it ; and we 
 learn that one of Betterton's best parts was that of De Flores. 
 In 1660-1661, Pepys went to see it, "the first time it hath been 
 acted these twenty years" — the period of the closing of the 
 theatres having intervened — "and it takes exceedingly." It 
 was printed for Humphrey Moseley in 1653, and was again put 
 forth in 1668 with a new title-page : — "The Changeling, as it 
 was acted (with great applause) by the Servants of His Royal 
 Highness the Duke of York, at the Theatre in Lincoln Inn 
 Fields." 1 
 
 The main plot of the play was suggested by a story in " God's 
 Revenge Against Murder," published in 1621, one of those col- 
 1 Dyce, Works of Thomas Middleton, vol. iv. 
 
of the MiddletorirRowley Plays. 43 
 
 lections of blood-curdling tales that helped to fill the place now 
 occupied by the " Police News " and kindred publications ; but 
 the dramatists used the story with great freedom. The novel 
 contains no hint of the physical horror with which De Flores 
 inspires Beatrice ; on the contrary, he is described as " a gallant 
 young gentleman ; " there is no indication that the lady made 
 any resistance to his demands ; and the end of the story also is 
 changed. Few would agree with Ward that these considerable 
 changes are for the worse, and it is impossible to understand 
 why Dyce, who admits that " The Changeling " displays in 
 several places a depth of passion unequalled throughout the 
 volumes of Middleton's plays, should yet have pronounced it 
 "on the whole inferior to the tragedy of 'Women Beware 
 Women.' " The underplot, it is true, is thin and clumsily con- 
 nected with the main story, and the introduction of madmen in 
 comedy is repulsive to our modem taste ; but it was far from 
 repulsive to an Elizabethan audience, and there are few plays 
 of this period that are not disfigured by equally objectionable 
 underplots. With a rough audience before him, and a " sad, too 
 sad a tragedy " in his mind, the dramatist was forced to devise 
 some such fooleries to throw as a sop to the howling pren- 
 tices in the pit, or possibly to other persons of a higher rank in 
 life but little better taste, who, as Dekker rather pathetically 
 observes, "having paid their money, have some right to be 
 considered," If an underplot possesses the requisites for pop- 
 ularity, it fulfills its function ; and, as we have seen from the 
 fondness of actors for it, the underplot of "The Changeling" 
 was popular. 
 
 Setting the underplot aside, I think that we should find few 
 plays outside of Shakespeare equal to "The Changeling" in 
 depth of passion and absolute truth of expression, in the relent- 
 less march of the plot to the catastrophe, and in the noble seri- 
 ousness with which it was conceived and treated throughout. 
 The growth of sin in the human soul has never been analyzed 
 with a keener insight or painted with a more relentless certainty 
 of touch than in the picture of the gradual breaking down of the 
 character of Beatrice Joanna after her first yielding to tempta- 
 tion ; and no one who has felt the power of the great scene in 
 the third act, or the horror of the closing scene of "The 
 Changeling," can regard as a matter of indifference the respec- 
 
44 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 tive shares of the authors in the conception and the execution 
 of this remarkable drama. It is undoubtedly by far the most 
 interesting of the plays we have to consider. 
 ^ We find that here, as in the others, there is much difference 
 in treatment between the different scenes. In the underplot, 
 I. 2 ; III. 3 ; IV. 3, forms of expression often recall those in 
 other plays in which Rowley had a hand. The queer joke : — 
 
 . Alibrius : " I am old, Lollio." 
 LoLLio : " No, sir, 't is I am old Lollio." — T%e Changeling, I. 2. 
 
 is paralleled in " The Maid in the Mill : " — 
 
 Philippo : " Oh, your wife, Franio ? " 
 
 Franio : " 'Tis ' oh, my wife ' indeed, my Lord," — V. 2. 
 
 Lollio, when he hears the noise the madmen are making over- 
 head, says : " Must I come amongst you, then ? Keep you the 
 fool, mistress ; I '11 go up and play left-handed Orlando among 
 the madmen," III. 3 ; reminding the reader of the Host in 
 "A Woman Never Vexed," when the gamblers get noisy: 
 " How, now, my fine trundle-tails, my wooden cosmographers ? 
 my bowling ally in an uproar.' Is Orlando up in arms? . . . 
 Have amongst you," II. i. Tony says: — 
 
 " Shall I alone 
 Walk through the garden of th' Hesperides, 
 And cowardly not dare to pull an apple ? " — The Changeling, III. 3. 
 
 and the same figure, almost the same words, occur in "The 
 Maid in the Mill : " — 
 
 Antonio : " Shall I walk by the tree, desire the fruit. 
 Yet be so nice to pull ? " — IV. i. 
 
 Again : — 
 
 Franciscus : " Give me thy hand," 
 
 Lollio : " Stay, let me put yours in my pocket first," [putting letter 
 into his pocket]. — The Changeling, IV. 3. 
 
 while in "All's Lost by Lust :" — 
 
 Antonio : " Is not this thy hand ? " 
 DiONYSiA : " I have three, then, it should seem, 
 ■ For I have two of my own fingering." — II. 
 
 Besides such parallel expressions, the scenes of the underplot 
 have many of the qualities that serve to distinguish Rowley's 
 
of the MiddletOTirRowky Plays. 45 
 
 work from Middleton's. There is a decided tendency to bur- 
 lesque and to horse-play in the antics of the supposed mad- 
 men, and there is none of the charm of delicacy of expression 
 and poetic fancy that Middleton could throw about even a dis- 
 tasteful subject Moreover, in examining into the character of the 
 fun furnished by these scenes, we find that their effectiveness 
 depends almost entirely upon the clown part of Tony, in the 
 same way that the fun in " All 's Lost by Lust " depends upon 
 Jaques, in "The Birth of Merlin" upon Joan's brother, and in 
 " The Maid in the Mill " upon Bustofa. Now the antic clown 
 pure and simple is not a Middleton creation, but Rowley, who 
 took clown parts himself (Jaques and Plumporridge) was remark- 
 ably fond of him. The clown appears not only in the instances 
 cited, but also, although occupying a less important position, as 
 the widow's servant in "A Woman Never Vexed," and as Tim in 
 " A Match at Midnight," and all of these bear a general resem- 
 blance to Tony. 
 
 Evidently the character of the scenes of the underplot sug- 
 gests Rowley rather than Middleton ; as we shall see,^ the verse 
 test strongly supports this probability ; and the critics who have 
 expressed an opinion in the matter have agreed in assigning it 
 wholly to him. (Fleay, " Chronicles of the English Drama," ii., 
 lOi ; Bullen, "Works of Thomas Middleton," Introduction, p. 59). 
 
 In the main plot, it will be noticed that the opening situation, 
 I., bears a considerable resemblance to a situation previously 
 shown to have been a favorite with Rowley. There is the usual 
 unattractive, although not in this case ridiculous, lover, who is 
 favored by the father, but set aside by the young lady in favor 
 of a more agreeable suitor, and, as usual with Rowley, the girl's 
 mother does not appear. Then the comic interlude of the 
 fooling of the servant man and the ladies' maid is comparable to 
 the waking of Lazarillo by kicks in " All 's Lost by Lust ; " it is 
 a broad kind of fun which Middleton is not fond of, and at which 
 no attempt is made in the other scenes of the Beatrice-Joanna 
 story. Notice also that Beatrice throws her glove at De Flores 
 with a taunt. This recalls the incidents where Moll spits at her 
 suitor, wishing to mock him, and Jacinta spits at her jailor. 
 Middleton, one remembers, was not fond of stage violence ; but 
 Rowley was by no means averse to it in his women. 
 
 1 Pp. 49, 50. 
 
46 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 In the intervening scenes, Beatrice's hatred of her betrayer 
 never manifests itself in physical movements, and in expression, 
 also, a similar self-control will be remarked. Here the contrast 
 with Rowley's usual methods is striking. The violence of the 
 language in the scenes between Jacinta and Lazarillo, and also 
 between Jane and the Physician, has already been pointed out. 
 In both these cases the impelling emotions are simple, direct, 
 sftid easily comprehensible, and they find expression in an ex- 
 aggerated and unrestrained vehemence that is almost brutal, 
 and that repels our sympathy by depriving the actors of dig- 
 nity. Both the girls surfeit us with a wealth of vituperation 
 that seems to us unwomanly. But in the great scene of the 
 temptation in the third act of " The Changeling," the restrained 
 dignity of the dialogue is even more remarkable than we have 
 found it in some of the scenes of " Women Beware Women." 
 From Beatrice, we hear only a few panting cries and pleas for 
 mercy, which, we hardly know how, manage to convey to us all 
 the story, which is by no means a simple one, of the girl's temp- 
 tation and fall, the dawn of suspicion in her mind, her horror 
 in the first certainty of her ruin, the conflict between physical 
 repulsion and the incitement of fear. The very repressed calm- 
 ness increases to an almost unbearable tension the strain upon 
 our sympathies, while the exaggerated vehemence of Rowley 
 often leaves us unmoved. In the one case, the reader feels 
 that the dramatist is doing his utmost and hardly rising to the 
 demands of the occasion ; in the other, the adequacy is unques- 
 tionable, and it is supported by a fund of reserve force ; we have 
 here the difference between the trained master of expression 
 and the undisciplined tyro ; between the conscious realist, keen, 
 cold, observant, and the honest and sympathetic, but coarse, 
 rough and ready writer, trained in the old school of romanticism ; 
 in other words, we have the difference between Middleton and 
 Rowley. 
 ^ This scene of the temptation contains at least three expres- 
 sions strikingly paralleled in other plays of Middleton's : — 
 
 Beatrice : " My joys start at mine eyes." 
 
 Duke : " Our joys break at our eyes." — The Phoenix, V. i. 
 
 Further on :^ 
 De Flores : " What makes your lip so strange ? " 
 
of the Middleton-Rowley Plays, 47 
 
 Leantio : " You make your lip so strange ! " — Women Beware Wo- 
 men, III. I. 
 
 and at the end : — 
 
 De Flores : " 'Las, how the turtle pants ! " 
 
 as in a similar situation, the Duke says : — 
 
 " I feel thy breast shake like a turtle panting." — Women Beware 
 Women, II. 2. 
 
 Throughout the main plot, with the exception of I. i ; V. 2, 3, 
 we find similar suggestions of Middleton's imagery and phrasing. 
 It is true the play shows equally striking parallelisms with plays 
 of other dramatists, — compare De Flores : " Come, rise, and 
 shroud your blushes in my bosom," III., 4, with the Duchess : 
 " Come let me shroud my blushes in your bosom " (" The 
 Duchess of Malfi," I. i), — and it would be dangerous to insist 
 upon such coincidences as proof of Middleton's authorship. 
 Still their number is certainly striking, and not paralleled in 
 any scenes of Rowley's, and their presence deserves notice as 
 increasing a probability which is made strong by other consid- 
 erations. 
 
 Not only III. 4, but also the other scenes of the main plot, 
 with the exceptions made above, are full of subtlety and relent- 
 less realism, which study of the two dramatists has convinced 
 us are not Rowley's. The shock with which the pampered girl 
 realizes that the man she has brought to murder is indeed 
 wicked and capable of hurting her as well as her victim ; the 
 gradual growth of a kind of abnormal afiection for her betrayer, 
 " His face loathes one j 
 But look upon his care, who would not love him ? " 
 
 the relentless portrayal of a selfishness in this weak girl as 
 colossal as that of Bianca Capello, who assents to her husband's 
 ruin with the careless words to the Duke, 
 
 " I love peace, sir." — Women Beware Women, IV. i. 
 
 the irony of the situation when Alsemero is brought to reward 
 De Flores for duping him ; these were subjects more congenial 
 to Middleton's temper than they would have been to the straight- 
 forward crudeness of Rowley's genius. 
 
 When we come to the last scene we see the difference in the 
 work of the two men in situations of similar character. Here 
 
48 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 we have Rowley again. There is no more of that self-control 
 that we have found so admirable in preceding scenes. The dia- 
 logue is full of invectives and violent expressions that recall the 
 energetic language of " All's Lost by Lust ! " Alsemero : 
 " Peace, crying crocodiles ! " " You twins of mischief ! " " O 
 cunning devils ! " Vermandero : " Horrid villain ! " Beatrice : 
 " He lies ! The villain does belie me ! " and there is a violence 
 in the action that makes the catastrophe as unlike as it well 
 could be to the ending of " Women Beware Women," where 
 the victims are either quietly poisoned or else dropped through 
 trap-doors, in which case a crash tells the story, and the audience 
 is left convinced but unappalled. We are here reminded of the 
 last act of Rowley's tragedy, in which Julianus, appearing upon 
 the stage with bloody sockets, is forced to kill his daughter 
 before he himself is slain, and Margaret strangles the supposed 
 Antonio before the eyes of the audience and afterwards stabs 
 herself, falling upon the dead body of her husband. The story 
 of " The Changeling " did not admit of such a bloody scene as 
 this, but as much as possible has been made of the physical 
 horror that the tale permitted : — 
 
 Beatrice (within) : "0,0,0! " 
 
 Alsemero : " Hark ! 't is coming to you." 
 
 De Flores (within) : " Nay, I'll along for company." 
 
 Beatrice (within) : " O, O ! " 
 
 Vermandero : " What horrid sounds are these ? " 
 
 Alsemero : " Come forth, you twins 
 Of mischief ! " 
 
 {Re-enter De Flores dragging in Beatrice wounded). 
 
 Vermandero : " Horrid villain ! 
 Keep life in him for further tortures." 
 
 De Flores : " No ! 
 I can prevent you ; here's my pen-knife still. 
 It is but one thread more (stabbing himself), and now 't is cut. 
 Make haste, Joanna, by that token to thee, 
 Canst not forget, so lately put in mind ; 
 I would not go to leave thee far behind." (Dies.) 
 
 Beatrice : " Forgive me, Alsemero, all forgive ! 
 'T is time to die when 't is a shame to live." (JDies.) 
 
 Rowley is writing at his best here. The power of this scene 
 is unquestionable. But before we reach the end of it, we find a 
 
of the Middleton-Rowley Plays. 49 
 
 signal illustration of his inability to keep for a length of time 
 upon the high level that he could sometimes reach. Scarcely 
 have the last words left the lips of Beatrice when the remaining 
 personages begin that curious punning upon the title of the play 
 which brings us down abruptly from the lofty plane of tragic 
 action to something resembling the conventional extravaganza, 
 Middleton furnishes us with no similar instances of tactless pun- 
 ning, while Rowleys fondness for this form of wit is notorious, 
 and its employment here is not perhaps remarkable for a man 
 who could regard it as suitable to an elegy upon a friend. 
 
 We iind, then, that in "The Changeling," as in "A Fair 
 Quarrel " and " The Spanish Gipsy," the style of different 
 scenes show diflFerent characteristics, corresponding to those of 
 Rowley's style and Middleton's. Throughout the underplot the 
 character of the fun, the burlesque and horseplay, constantly 
 suggests Rowley ; forms of expression recall passages in Row- 
 ley plays, and the prominence given to the clown part is charac- 
 teristic of him. In the main plot, also, he seems to have had a 
 hand. The opening situation is similar to situations in Rowley 
 plays ; vehemence in action and expression is noticeable, par- 
 allel expressions occur, and the character of the comic interlude 
 suggests " All 's Lost by Lust." In the last scene also, we saw 
 traces of his hand. Here again, there is violence in action and 
 expression, much vehemence and extravagance ; there is an 
 attempt at physical horror, the style shows lack of sustained 
 power, and a series of excessively inappropriate puns smacks of 
 Rowley. In the intervening scenes of the main plot, on the 
 other hand, we found great self-restraint in action and expres- 
 sion, an absolute adequacy to the demands of singularly trying 
 situations, and a subtlety of conception and treatment that 
 seemed to be Middleton's ; forms of expression suggested him, 
 and the relentless realism that distinguishes him was noticeable 
 throughout. 
 
 Now coming to the metrical examination of the play, we find 
 our suspicions confirmed. In Acts II. i, 2 ; III. i, 2, 4 ; IV. i, 
 2 ; and V. i, 2 (the scenes in which we have found traces of Mid- 
 dleton), the proportion of feminine endings is approximately one 
 in two ; a large number of these endings are double or triple, — 
 ten in the one hundred and seventy lines of III. 4; the end-stopt 
 line prevails, and the verse flows easily and smoothly, showing 
 
 4 
 
so An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 few lines in which the inversions fall on other than the first foot 
 or the foot immediately following the caesura. On the other 
 hand, in acts I. i, 2 ; III. 3 ; IV. 3 ; and V. 3, in which we have 
 already seen traces of Rowley's hand, the proportion of feminine 
 endings is less than one in four, — in I. i (205 lines) there are 
 only forty; they are very rarely double or triple, — in I. i, but 
 two of the forty have double endings ; run-on lines and weak 
 endings abound, and the accent is very frequently inverted in 
 the second and the last foot. These are exactly the usual differ- 
 ences between Middleton's rhythm and Rowley's, the differences 
 we found between the scenes of " A Fair Quarrel ; " and here 
 the peculiarities of the two men are somewhat more fully de- 
 veloped than in the earlier play. 
 
 How striking is the dissimilarity of the verse may be seen by 
 comparison of the shortest extracts from any scenes belonging 
 to the two groups. In III. 4, De Flores replies to Beatrice's 
 
 repulse : — 
 
 " Soft, lady, soft ! 
 The last is not yet paid for : O, this act 
 Has put me into spirit ; I was as greedy on 't 
 As the parch'd earth of moisture, when the clouds weep : 
 Did you not mark, I wrought myself into 't, 
 Nay, sued and kneel'd for 't ? why was all that pains took ? 
 You see I 've thrown contempt upon your gold ; 
 Not that I want it not, for I do piteously, 
 In order I '11 come unto 't and make use on 't, 
 But 't was not held so precious to begin with. 
 For I place wealth after the heels of pleasure." 
 
 The likeness between this verse and that of Livia's complaint 
 to Bianca, cited above,^ is evident at once. There is the same 
 preponderance of end-stopt lines and of feminine endings, — one 
 a double ending and three of them refusing to be slurred over, — 
 and the same regularity of accent. But compare the confes- 
 sion of Beatrice in V. 3, when she declares herself a murder- 
 ess: — 
 
 " A bloody one, 
 
 I have kissed poison for it, strok'd a serpent : 
 
 That thing of hate, worthy in my esteem 
 
 Of no better employment, and him most worthy 
 
 To be so employ'd, I caused to murder 
 * Page 2j. 
 
of the Middleton-Rowley Plays. 5 1 
 
 That innocent Piracquo, having no 
 Better means than that worst to assure 
 Yourself to me." 
 
 Note the inversion of the second foot in lines 4 and 7; the 
 superfluity of syllables in 4 which is followed by a short line 5 ; 
 the irregularity of 7, and the weak ending in 8. This second 
 passage bears as strong a resemblance to Old Foster's speech 
 (page 26) as the preceding bears to Livia's. As these are typi- 
 cal passages, it must be admitted that the verse test throws all 
 its evidence in favor of assigning the first group of scenes to 
 Middleton and the second to Rowley. Moreover, in this case, 
 as in that of " A Fair Quarrel," this test gains peculiar signifi- 
 cance from the fact that the Fletcherian verse, or that abound- 
 ing in feminine endings and end-stopt lines, is used constantly 
 in the most exalted passages, although it was regarded as pecul- 
 iarly well suited to familiar, witty conversation, while the funny 
 parts of the play are written in verse modelled after what was 
 considered the more classic rhythm. Again, the same difference 
 is found between the verse of scenes of similar character, such 
 as III. 4, and V. 3. It would be difficult to explain these peculiar 
 differences by any other theory than that which assumes that 
 scenes bearing Middleton's verse characteristics were written 
 by him, and those bearing Rowley's by Rowley ; and as this 
 division is, as we have seen, supported by other testimony of 
 considerable weight, it seems hardly possible to come to any 
 other conclusion than that suggested by this verse test, — 
 namely, that the underplot, with the opening and closing scenes 
 of the main plot were written by Rowley, and the intervening 
 scenes of the latter by Middleton. , 
 
 We find, then, that in regard to all four of the plays we have 
 considered here, careful investigation has led us to agree sub- 
 stantially with the division which was made by Mr. Fleay in his 
 " Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama," ^ but which was 
 not there supported by evidence. We should differ from him 
 in assigning to Rowley the whole of the first scene of " A Fair 
 Quarrel," which he gives to Middleton, and the second act of 
 " The Spanish Gipsy," in which play he does not trace Rowley's 
 
 * Fleay's treatment of the Middleton-Rowley question will be found: 
 Chronicle of the English Drama, ii. 95-105. Bullen's conunents and also 
 Swinburne's are quoted in full in the first part of this essay, pages 4, 8, 42. 
 
S3 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 hand ; we should also ascribe the first scene of the third act of 
 " A Fair Quarrel " to Middleton, which indeed he probably would 
 have done had not the type-setter prevented, and should fix the 
 point of division in " A World Tost at Tennis " at the entrance 
 of the Starches, which he has neglected to do. With these dif- 
 ferences and additions, however, we should cordially assent in 
 the main to his evident opinion that the more important, the 
 more memorable scenes of these pla^s were the work of Middle- 
 ton ; it may, as we have seen, be supported by evidence of the 
 most convincing character, and so be removed from the uncer- 
 tain domain of mere opinion, and placed upon the firmer ground 
 of well-substantiated fact. 
 
 V. 
 
 There is one point, however, upon which Mr. Fleay has not 
 touched, and which is exceedingly important if one is to make a 
 just estimate of the work of the two dramatists. Having consid- 
 ered the character of the scenes of these plays written by Middle- 
 ton in comparison with that of the scenes contributed by Rowley, 
 the reader is almost inevitably hurried to the conclusion that 
 Rowley's contribution to the plays written in this partnership 
 was a comparatively insignificant one, and that their remarkable 
 excellence is largely, if not wholly, due to Middleton's genius. 
 Indeed this has been the common opinion, and even Mr. Swin- 
 burne, who seems to be disposed to do full justice to Rowley,* hav- 
 ing remarked in connection with " A Fair Quarrel " that his part 
 in it is easy for any tyro in criticism to unify, assigns him the 
 underplot, and says that here his " besetting faults of coarseness 
 and quaintness, stiffness and roughness, are so flagrant and 
 obtrusive that we cannot avoid a feeling of regret and irritation 
 at such untimely and inharmonious evidence of his partnership 
 with a poet of finer if not of sturdier genius." But this conclu- 
 sion is not a necessary one, and, although if we should confine 
 Rowley's share in these plays to the scenes actually written by 
 him, we should be disposed to agree with Mr. Swinburne, I 
 believe that a second and more careful consideration of the 
 character of the dramas in the light of our somewhat minute 
 investigation into the respective qualities of the two dramatists, 
 will show that this position is not tenable, and that the contribu- 
 tion of Rawley was the reverse of insignificant. 
 
of the Middleton-Rowley Plays. 53 
 
 In the first place, it is not necessary to confine Rowley's 
 influence upon these dramas to the scenes which show traces of 
 his hand ; for the fact that it is possible to divide plays, and set 
 aside certain scenes as having been written by Middleton and 
 certain others by Rowley, does not by any means necessarily 
 imply that these scenes belong to their respective writers in 
 the same sense in which their unassisted work belongs to 
 them. 
 
 This may appear to be a distinction too nice for serious con- 
 sideration ; but it is possible to maintain the point. Playwrights 
 accustomed to collaboration assert that, often enough, after a 
 play is done, neither of the collaborators is able to state exactly 
 what is his and what is the other man's. As they talk over the 
 plan, the plot grows insensibly, situations develop and charac- 
 ters become fixed, and the man who is strong in plots is helped 
 out by the other who can, perhaps, manage the details better 
 than he. At the end, if one has more time or greater literary 
 skill than the other, he may, perhaps, set the whole play down ; 
 or at least it sometimes happens that the man who has had a 
 less important share in the conception and planning out of any 
 one scene may be the actual writer of it. But as the dialogue 
 is not by any means the whole of a drama, it would be exceed- 
 ingly unjust to give all the credit for the scene to him. Evi- 
 dently, then, unless there is some reason why we should not 
 admit that the partnership of Middleton and Rowley may have 
 been of this nature, we are doing great injustice to Rowley if 
 we assume, as critics generally have done, that his share in the 
 plays was necessarily unimportant merely because those scenes 
 that bear the mark of his hand happen to be the inferior ones. 
 
 And there is certainly nothing to prevent us from making 
 such an admission. In the first place, the division of the respon- 
 sibility for the actual writing-out of the scenes is a wholly 
 natural one. Rowley took low comedy parts on the stage, and 
 therefore may be supposed to have felt peculiar confidence in 
 his knowledge of what was required in the underplot to make 
 such a part strike the popular favor ; and from the few notices 
 we have of him, it is evident that he was an extremely busy 
 man, manager and pla)rwright at the same time. Middleton not 
 only was the better literary workman, but also seems to have 
 bad suflBcient leisure to be able to devote himself exclusively to 
 
54 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 the business of dramatic writing. Therefore it was natural that 
 he should take upon himself the portions of these plays that 
 required particular care and labor, leaving to his colleague the 
 easy, farcical scenes of the underplot. 
 
 In the second place, it is not only possible that Middleton and 
 Rowley consulted freely, and consequently influenced each other ; 
 it is extremely probable. Although in " The Changeling " they . 
 were compelled to deal with the same characters in trying sit- 
 uations — and those such difficult characters as Beatrice and 
 De Flores — yet as we pass from one scene to another, we 
 notice nothing incoherent in these parts, the treatment is con- 
 sistent ; and this achievement could hardly have been possible 
 without a thorough mutual understanding. Evidently the two 
 men consulted ; and once admitting this fact of consultation, 
 and the consequent influence of one man's ideas upon the other, 
 the whole question of the respective shares of Middleton and 
 Rowley in their joint plays assumes a new aspect. 
 
 I believe that the character of the plays at once becomes more 
 comprehensible. For it grows more and more evident to the 
 student, as he reads his Middleton carefully, that there is some- 
 thing in the scenes which were evidently written by him in 
 " A Fair Quarrel," "The Spanish Gipsy," and "The Change^ 
 ling" that is not found in the work he did without Rowley's 
 aid. This appears in "A Fair Quarrel." We have seen that 
 Middleton's attitude toward the world and humanity was dis- 
 tinctly an unromantic one : the innocence of his women was 
 the perishable innocence of ignorance, and after the first young 
 period of "The Phoenix" he gave the stage no more romantic 
 paragons of the male sex. And yet here we have a play whose chief 
 characteristic, whose one distinguishing feature, and, we may 
 add, whose great enduring charm is extreme, exaggerated roman- 
 ticism. Its hero is required " to know the boundaries of honour, 
 to be judiciously valiant, to have a temperance which shall beget 
 a smoothness in the angry swellings of youth, to esteem life as 
 nothing when the sacred reputation of a parent is to be defended, 
 yet to shake and tremble under a pious cowardice when that ark 
 of an honest confidence is found to be frail and tottering, to feel 
 the true blows of a real disgrace blunting that sword which the 
 imaginary strokes of a supposed false imputation had put so 
 keen an edge upon but lately " (Lamb's "Specimens ") ; and this 
 
of the MiddletorirRowley Plays. 5 5 
 
 not for an act or two, the space that Leantio ^ can preserve his 
 dignity, the Duchess ^ her chaste desires, and the Cardinal ^ his 
 disinterestedness, but through the whole of the five acts of the 
 play. Its principal woman figure, moreover, shows a purity and 
 dignity of character unparalleled among Middleton's women ; 
 her motherly devotion is so complete that it exceeds her care for 
 her honor ; and the magnanimity of the Colonel, were it not so 
 extravagant as to appear somewhat unnatural, might well serve 
 as a model. Moreover, these characters never sUp from the 
 high plane of morality on which they move, but continue to act 
 dignified parts to the end of the play, — a thing unparalleled in 
 any play of Middleton's. 
 
 It is certainly not on the face of it probable that all these 
 model personages proceeded from the brain that habitually 
 evolved such figures as Lactantio, the Duke of Florence, Guar- 
 diano, and the debonair rascals and rich old schemers and profli- 
 gates that act their amusing parts in Middleton's witty comedies ; 
 but on the other hand, this exaggerated excellence smacks 
 strongly of William Rowley, the creator of General Julianus, of 
 Margaretta, Jacinta, and "The Woman Never Vexed." More 
 than this, the main theme of the play, the duel between friends 
 under romantic conditions, is the theme of "A Cure for a 
 Cuckold," also, and, with the substitution of the friend's son for 
 the friend, it forms an important episode in "The Spanish 
 Gipsy," in which Rowley was concerned ; Middleton has never 
 treated the theme in any play written without Rowley's assist- 
 ance. 
 
 "The Spanish Gipsy," likewise, is an essentially romantic 
 piece of work. Here the unswerving virtue and remarkable 
 magnanimity of Clara, the extravagant command of Costanza to 
 her lover, and his implicit obedience, recalling the command of 
 the other Clara to Lessingham, bidding him kill his best friend, 
 and the duel scene before alluded to, — all seem to point to the 
 influence of Rowley upon the conception of a play which we 
 have seen to have been largely the work of Middleton. These 
 episodes and qualities, although they are found in no Middleton 
 play, are prominent in the work of his colleague. 
 
 When we go on to " The Changeling " we find similar evi- 
 
 * Women Beware Women. 
 
 ' More Dissemblers Besides Women. * Idem. 
 
56 An Inquiry into the Authorships 
 
 dences of Rowley's influence upon the conception of the charac- 
 ters and upon the plot. We have already noted that the one 
 point in which " Women Beware Women " falls short of " All 's 
 Lost by Lust " is in the sympathy which the actors in the two 
 dramas inspire in the audience or the reader, and that the reason 
 for this inferiority is Middleton's lack of belief in the essential 
 dignity and beauty of human nature, a belief which Rowley pos- 
 sessed and without which sustained tragedy is impossible. Now 
 "The Changeling" is concerned largely with the same theme as 
 that of the other two tragedies ; but while the characters in 
 " Women Beware Women " become contemptible and lose our 
 sympathy long before the beginning of the fifth act, in " The 
 Changeling," as in "All's Lost by Lust," they do not. 
 
 In the first place, Beatrice, selfish, weak, cruel as she shows 
 herself to be, yet engages our sympathy by the genuine horror 
 and shame with which she first recognizes the certainty of her 
 dishonor. This scene of the temptation, as has already been 
 shown, bears marks of Middleton's hand; but while insisting 
 upon these, we should also point out the striking similarity here 
 in temper and in plan to the temptation of Jane by the Physician, 
 which has been shown to be Rowley's. In both a service is ren- 
 dered for which the lady offers payment in gold. This is scorn- 
 fully refused : — 
 
 Physician : " You will not offer it ? 
 Do not esteem my love so mercenary 
 To be the hire of coin." 
 
 De Flores : " Do you place me in the rank of verminous fellows 
 To destroy things for wages .' " 
 
 The lady, surprised, proffers it again, and when the accomplice 
 suggests the desired recompense, Jane and Beatrice reply in the 
 same words : — 
 
 Jane : " I understand you not." 
 Beatrice : " I understand thee not." 
 
 When compelled to comprehend the demand, both meet it with 
 like scorn and incredulity. Here the similarity between the 
 two scenes ends ; but up to this point, it has certainly been 
 striking. 
 Now we must remember that in the novel there is no hint of 
 
of the Middkton^Rowley Plays. 57 
 
 any. such reluctance on the part of the lady, — the innocence of 
 Beatrice as well as the ugliness of De Flores, was the inven- 
 tion of the dramatists ; and considering Middleton's well-known 
 contempt for feminine virtue, and the invariable readiness of 
 his women to yield to temptation, we must admit that it is not 
 an invention which seems natural for him. In consideration of 
 this improbability, and of the fact that this scene strongly re- 
 sembles a scene known to be by Rowley, it seems reasonable 
 to conclude that his influence was powerful in determining its 
 character. 
 
 Moreover, Rowley's influence is traceable beyond this point. 
 In the later scenes, Beatrice is hardened and unlovely enough, 
 it is true, and some of her speeches — 
 
 " How heartily he serves me ! his face loathes one ; 
 
 But look upon his care, who would not love him ? " — V. i. 
 " Here 's a man worth loving." — Idem. 
 
 show what would have been her character had the sole manage- 
 ment of the plot been left to Middleton, whose theory of the 
 weakness of humanity is epitomized in Livia's comment on 
 Bianca's first bitterness : — 
 
 " Sin tastes at the first draught like wormwood water ; 
 But drunk again, 'tis nectar ever after." 
 
 Rowle/s view of the matter is clear enough irom his great 
 conception of the triumphant virtue of Jacinta, and from the 
 imiversal purity of his women. 
 
 Now we find that, although the plot of the novel would have 
 permitted it, Beatrice does not develop wholly in accordance 
 with Middleton's theory; she preserves some of her finer 
 instincts to the end, or at least, she is never a shameless wan- 
 ton, Uke Isabella, and like Bianca Capello, whose character pro- 
 mised better than hers at the introduction. She keeps so much 
 of womanliness that, as she gasps out the words of shame 
 and penitence that Rowley has put into her mouth before her 
 death in his last scene, the words ring true ; they do not seem 
 inconsistent with her character as developed in the Middleton 
 scenes. In spite of her sins, she has kept our sympathy ; we 
 pity her. 
 
 Alsemero, too, although he is successfully deceived^ is never 
 
58 An Inquiry into the Authorship 
 
 ridiculous ; indeed the dramatist has succeeded in engaging our 
 sympathy for all the actors in the trdgedy, with, of course, the 
 intentional exception of De Flores. This Middleton never suc- 
 ceeded in doing in his unassisted plays, but Rowley did ; and 
 under such circumstances, it does not seem rash to assume that 
 Rowley's conception of the characters influenced that of his 
 colleague. 
 
 If, however, we ascribe the humane treatment of this play to 
 Rowley's influence, and if, furthermore, it is true that the roman- 
 tic character of " A Fair Quarrel " and " The Spanish Gipsy " 
 is due to him, then we must inevitably be led to the conclusion 
 that in the consultation preceding the writing down of the 
 scenes, Rowley filled so important a part that his share in these 
 plays is very inadequately represented by the scenes that show 
 actual marks of his hand. Indeed, this would appear probable 
 if only from the fact that the joint plays possess qualities that 
 are not to be found in Middleton's unassisted work, but we have 
 found furthermore that precisely these qualities are exceedingly 
 prominent in all the work with which Rowley's name was con- 
 nected, and this fact, I believe, increasing the probability that 
 his influence upon the plays was strong, throws fresh light upon 
 the whole subject of the Middleton-Rowley partnership. 
 
 We are here, of course, upon ground where dogmatic asser- 
 tion is peculiarly out of place. While we were speaking of dif- 
 ferences of literary expression, of characteristics of verse, of 
 repetitions of phrase and simile, we were treating matters that 
 at least admitted of some definite investigation and certainty of 
 discovery. There might well be a difference of opinion as to 
 the amount and kind of evidence necessary to establish a proof, 
 but there could be no doubt but that with sufficient evidence 
 proof was possible. Here, however, speaking of such elusive 
 matters as personal influence, we can only proffer a suggestion 
 as more or less probable, and it is for every reader of Middleton 
 and Rowley to decide for himself whether the romantic tone of 
 "A Fair Quarrel," "The Changeling," and the "The Spanish 
 Gipsy," like as it is to the tone of Rowley's unassisted plays, and 
 unlike that of Middleton's ; the respect for human nature, espe- 
 cially for women, which is shown in the treatment of character 
 in all these plays, although it is so noticeably lacking in the 
 plays of Middleton; and the repetition and similar treatment 
 
of the MiddletotirRowley Plays. 59 
 
 here of episodes that appear in Rowley's plays ; whether all these 
 facts do or do not indicate any influence of Rowley upon these 
 great dramas which is not explained when we say, as I believe 
 the preceding investigation has justified us in saying, that he 
 wrote the first scene and the underplot of " A Fair Quarrel," 
 the first part of " A World Tost at Tennis," the second act of 
 " The Spanish Gipsy," and the first and last scenes, as well as 
 the underplot, of "The Changeling." 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 TEXTS. 
 
 " The Works of Thomas Middleton." Edited by the Rev. Alex, Dyce. 
 5 vols. London: 1840. 
 
 " The Works of Thomas Middleton." Edited by A. H. BuUen. 8 vols. 
 London: 1885. 
 
 " Thomas Middleton." Edited by Havelock Ellis. Mermaid Series. 2 
 vols. 1887. Introduction by Algernon Swinburne. 
 
 " A Select Collection of Old Plays." (Dodsley.) 12 vols. London: 1825. 
 Edited by W. C. Hazlitt, 1875. 
 
 " Old English Plays " (Dilke). 6 vols. London: 1814. 
 
 " A Fair Quarrel." 1622, 4to. Edited by Dyce, 1840; by BuUen, 1885 ; by 
 Ellis, 1887. 
 
 "The World Tost at Tennis." 1620, 4to. Edited by Dyce, 1840; by 
 Bullen, 1885. 
 
 '< The Changeling." 1653, 4to. Edited by Dyce, 1840 ; by Bullen, 1885 ; 
 by Ellis, 1887. 
 
 "The Spanish Gipsy." 1653, 4to. Edited by Dyce, 1840; by Bullen, 
 1885 ; by Ellis, 1887. 
 
 "The Old Law." 1656, 4to. Edited by Dyce, 1840; by Bullen, 1885. 
 
 " All 's Lost by Lust." 1633, 4to. 
 
 " A New Wonder, a Woman Never Vext." 1632, 4to. Dilke, 1814; Dods- 
 ley, edited by Hazlitt, ,1875. 
 
 "A Match at Midnight." 1633, 4to. Dilke, 1814; Dodsley, 1825 and 
 1875. 
 
 " The Travails of Three English Brothers." 1607, 4to. Edited by Bullen, 
 1 88 1, Works of John Day. 
 
 " The Birth of Merlin : or, the Child Hath Found his Father." 1662, 4to. 
 Edited by Warnke and Proescholdt, Halle, 1887. Shakespeare's Vorschule, 
 Tieck, 1829; Pseudo-Shakspere'sche Dramen, Delius, 1856; Doubtful Plays 
 of William Shakespeare, Moltke, 1869. 
 
 " The Maid in the Mill." Dyce, 1845, Works of Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 
 /'The Thracian Wonder." 1661, 4to. Dilke, 1814; Dodsley, edited by 
 Hazlitt, 1875. 
 
 "The Witch of Edmonton." Edited by Pearson, 1873, Works of Thomas 
 Dekkerj Coleridge, 1840, Works of Massinger and Ford. 
 
 "Fortune by Land and Sea." Edited by Barron Field (for the Shake- 
 speare Society), i84ii.by Pearson, 1874, Works of Thomas Heywood. 
 
 "A Cure for a CuScold." 1661, 4to. Edited by Hazlitt, 1857, Works of 
 John Webster. 
 
Bibliography. 6i 
 
 HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL. 
 
 "Chronicles of the English Drama." F. G. Fleay. London, 1891. 2 
 vols. 
 
 "A Chronicle History of the London Stage." F. G. Fleay. London, 
 1870. 
 
 "A History of English Dramatic Literature." A. W.Ward. London, 
 1875. Vol. ii. 
 
 " Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth." William 
 Hazlitt. New York, 1845. 
 
 "The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatic Poets." Gerard 
 Langbaine. " Improved and continued down to this time by a careful hand." 
 London, 1699. 
 
 " The History of English Dramatic Poetry to the Time of Shakespeare 
 and Annals of the Stage to the Restoration." John Payne Collier. London, 
 1831 ; 1879. 
 
 "Biographica Dramatica.'' David Erskine Baker. 3 vols. London, 
 1 81 2. 
 
 " Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court in the reigns of 
 Queen Elizabeth and James L" Peter Cunningham. For the Shakespeare 
 Society. London, 1842. 
 
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