I have used the word “lucid” of Massinger’s style; perhaps a more appropriate word would be dexterous; not that he is obscure like Chapman, or like Shakspere in his later manner, far less turgid, but he is not afraid of somewhat long sentences. What he is really afraid of, unlike Fletcher, is a full-stop at the end of the verse. There are two devices which the reader will notice, often in combination; in the first place, Massinger is very fond of the “absolute” construction, and loves to multiply parentheses. The following passages from _A New Way_ will serve as illustrations: FURNACE. She keeps her chamber, dines with a panada, Or water gruel, my sweat never thought on.(141) WOMAN. And the first command she gave, after she rose, Was, her devotions done, to give her notice When you approach’d here.(142) Or again, from _The Emperor of the East_: Astraea once more lives upon the earth, Pulcheria’s breast her temple.(143) Or from _The Bondman_: And, to those that stay, A competence of land freely allotted To each man’s proper use, no lord acknowledged.(144) We find the “absolute” construction occasionally in Shakspere, as in _The Merchant of Venice_: So are those crisped snaky golden locks Which make such wanton gambols with the wind, Upon supposed fairness, often known To be the dowry of a second head, The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.(145) Or in _Hamlet_: Folded the writ up in form of the other, Subscribed it, gav’t th’ impression, placed it safely, The changeling never known.(146) A passage from _The Fatal Dowry_ will show an elaborate use of parenthesis: What though my father Writ man before he was so, and confirm’d it, By numbering that day no part of his life In which he did not service to his country; Was he to be free therefore from the laws And ceremonious form in your decrees? Or else because he did as much as man, In those three memorable overthrows, At Granson, Morat, Nancy, where his master, The warlike Charalois, with whose misfortunes I bear his name, lost treasure, men, and life, To be excused from payment of those sums Which (his own patrimony spent) his zeal To serve his country forced him to take up!(147) Compare also these lines from _The Guardian_: And if you shew not An appetite, and a strong one, I’ll not say To eat it, but devour it, without grace too, For it will not stay a preface, I am shamed, And all my past provocatives will be jeer’d at.(148) From _The Picture_: HONORIA. That you please, sir, With such assurances of love and favour, To grace your handmaid, but in being yours, sir, A matchless queen, and one that knows herself so, Binds me in retribution to deserve The grace conferr’d upon me.(149) From _A Very Woman_: