219 IV., V. _Cf._ especially IV., 1, 138: LORENZO. Stay, I feel A sudden alteration. MARTINO. Here are fine whimsies. _ 220 Poetics_, 1454_a_, 33. 221 III., 3; V., 3, 33. After all, Corisca does not repent of her worst faults, only of her luxury and cruelty to her slaves. _Cf._ also The Projector in _The Emperor of the East_, I., 2, 257. On the other hand, the conversion of the courtiers in the same play (II., 1, 154) is according to character. _ 222 Poetics_, 1454_a_, 26. _ 223 Poetics_, 1454_a_, 28. 224 Leslie Stephen has anticipated me here. “The truth seems to be that Massinger is subject to an illusion natural enough to a man who is more of the rhetorician than the seer. He fancies that eloquence must be irresistible. He takes the change of mood produced by an elevated appeal to the feelings for a change of character” (_Hours in a Library_, ii., p. 164). 225 Here again I find myself in agreement with Leslie Stephen. “Massinger’s plays are a gradual unravelling of a series of incidents, each following intelligibly from the preceding situation, and suggestive of many eloquent observations, though not developments of one master thought. We often feel, that if external circumstances had been propitious, he would have expressed himself more naturally, in the form of a prose romance than in a drama” (_Op. cit._, ii., p. 157). _Cf._ also Coleridge’s remark that Massinger’s plays are “as interesting as novels.” How much character-drawing is there in Boccaccio or Paynter? 226 Mr. Nichol Smith (_Shakspere’s England_, ii., p. 202) doubts the “association of Pembroke with Shakspere.” 227 Sir Sidney Lee (_Life of W. Shakespeare_, 1915, p. 441) notes “the almost magical success” with which Massinger echoes Shakspere’s tones. 228 In a “mock” romance published at London in 1656, _Wit and Fancy in a Maze_ (Book 2, chapter iv.), the Enchantress Lamia and the hero Don Zara del Fogo go to Elysium and find everything in an uproar. Ajax and Ulysses are quarrelling; Homer and Hesiod; Statius and Virgil. Last of all Ben Jonson “had openly vaunted himself the first and best of English poets.” This is much resented by Chaucer, Chapman, and Spenser; last of all Shakspere and Fletcher appear “with a strong party” to claim the first place. Among “their life guard” are mentioned Goffe, Massinger, Dekker, Webster, Suckling, Cartwright, Carew. Did Ben Jonson dislike Massinger as Mr. Phelan conjectures? 229 II., 1, 100. 230 IV., 2. 231 IV., 3. 232 I., 3. 233 III., 1, 261. 234 III., 1. 235 II., 4. The good brigand goes back beyond Robin Hood to Herodotus, VI. 16. 236 IV., 1. 237 Compare especially V., 2, 104 with _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, II., 2, 145. 238 II., 1, 22. 239 II., 4. 240 III., 1, 24.