"The Broken Heart" is free from the customary ribaldries; it is a tragedy of fate, the characters are noble. Ithocles is noble, despite the original wrong which he has committed in separating Orgilus and Penthea, and wedding Penthea to "the grey dissimulation" of the jealous Bassanes. Orgilus, who murders Ithocles, is noble in his death, the death of Seneca without the bath. Penthea is noble, and the wanderings of her mind at the end of her slow suicide, are beautiful in their sad fantasy; finally the dancing of Calantha, while one after another come messengers with the tidings that break her heart, is noble, and probably her endurance is the reason for the placing of the scene in Sparta. As in Greek tragedy, all are doomed by Fate; the Oracle of Delphi has spoken truth, with the wonted obscurity which only Time can unriddle. It is true that the interest shifts, in the last scenes, from Penthea to Calantha, whom we have scarcely looked on previously. But Ford aimed high, and came near to hitting his mark. He ought never to have, attempted his crazy low comedy scenes. Ford's "Perkin Warbeck" is by far the most readable historical play of the old stage, after Marlowe's "Edward II," and Shakespeare's Chronicle plays. Perkin's character is resolute and princely, as is that of his Gordon bride, "The White Rose". "If he lost his life he died a king" in royal bearing. As King Henry says The custom, sure, of being called a king Has fastened in his thought that he is such. Ford, in his Tragedies, is not to be reckoned among Mr. Swinburne's "splendid slovens". His blank verse never degenerates into skimble-skamble slackness, but, compared with most of his contemporaries, he does not shine as a lyric poet. He retired to the country after the overthrow of the stage and the beginning of the civil war. Shirley. James Shirley, of an honourable family, was born in London, in 1596. He entered the Merchant Taylors' School, and, in 1612, went to St. John's, Oxford, where Laud was then master. Laud, who believed in "the beauty of holiness," is said to have prevented Shirley, as a blemished man, with a large mole on his face, from taking holy orders. He migrated to Cambridge, to St. Catherine's Hall, published a poem in 1616, did take orders, received a living; left it on becoming a Catholic, turned schoolmaster at St. Albans, and then went to town as a playwright.