When, however, we turn from the raw rough sketch to the enriched and ennobled version of the present play we find it in this its better shape more properly comparable with another and a nobler work of Jonson's--with that magnificent comedy, the first avowed and included among his collection by its author, which according to all tradition first owed its appearance and success to the critical good sense and generous good offices of Shakespeare. Neither my duly unqualified love for the greater poet nor my duly qualified regard for the less can alter my sense that their mutual relations are in this one case inverted; that _Every Man in his Humour_ is altogether a better comedy and a work of higher art than the _Merry Wives of Windsor_. Kitely is to Ford almost what Arnolphe is to Sganarelle. (As according to the learned Metaphraste "Filio non potest praeferri nisi filius," even so can no one but Moliere be preferred or likened to Moliere.) Without actually touching like Arnolphe on the hidden springs of tragedy, the jealous husband in Jonson's play is only kept from trenching on the higher and forbidden grounds of passion by the potent will and the consummate self-command of the great master who called him up in perfect likeness to the life. Another or a deeper tone, another or a stronger touch, in the last two admirable scenes with his cashier and his wife, when his hot smouldering suspicion at length catches fire and breaks out in agony of anger, would have removed him altogether beyond the legitimate pale of comedy. As it is, the self-control of the artist is as thorough as his grasp and mastery of his subject are triumphant and complete.