[73:1]When in the chronicle of wasted time I see description of the fairest wights, _And beauty making beautiful old ryme_ In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights; Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see this antique pen would have expresst Even such a beauty as you master now. _Sonnet 106._ In the Arrangement of the Plot also there are circumstances which point emphatically to Shakspeare's agency. [Sidenote: Shakspere seen in the simplicity of the plot.] One strong argument is furnished by a very prominent quality of the plot as it is managed,--its simplicity. [Sidenote: He relied on the execution of the parts, not the complication of the whole.] This quality is like him, as being in this case the result of a close adherence to the original story; but it is also like him in itself, since the arrangement of all his works indicates the operation of a principle tending to produce it, namely, a reliance for dramatic effect on the execution of the parts rather than on the mechanical perfection or complication of the whole. His contemporaries, in their own several ways, bestowed extreme care on their plots. [Sidenote: Beaumont and Fletcher's plots depend more on surprise and incident.] With Beaumont and Fletcher, hurry, surprise, and rapid and romantic revolution of incident are the main object, rather than tragic strength or even stage effect: their plays would furnish materials for extended novels, and are often borrowed from such without concentration or omission. Shakspeare's comparative poverty of plot is not approached by them even in their serious plays, and the lively stir of their comic adventures is the farthest from it imaginable. [Sidenote: B. Jonson's plots admirably constructed.] Jonson's plots are constructed most elaborately and admirably: one or two of them are without equal for skill of conduct and pertinency and connection of parts. This cautious and industrious poet never confided in his own capability of making up for feebleness of plan by the force of individual passages; and his distrust was well judged, for the abstract coldness of his mind betrays itself in every page of his dialogue, and his scenes need all their beauty of outline to conceal the frigidity of their filling up. Ford and Massinger agree much in their choice of plots, both preferring incidents of a powerfully tragic nature: but their modes of management are widely different. [Sidenote: Ford's gloomy plots softened by tenderness and regret.] Ford, on the gloom of whose stories glimpses [74:1]of pathos fall like moonlight, delights, when he comes to work up the details of his tragic plan, in softening it down into the most dissolving tenderness; at his bidding tears flow in situations where we listen rather to hear Agony shriek, or look to behold Terror freezing into