PAULO. This friend was plighted to a beauteous woman, (Nature proud of her workmanship) mutual love Possessed them both, her heart in his heart lodged And his in hers.(150) From _The Bashful Lover_: ALONZO. By me, his nephew, He does salute you fairly, and entreats (A word not suitable to his power and greatness) You would consent to tender that, which he Unwillingly must force, if contradicted.(151) From _The Parliament of Love_: What coy she, then, Though great in birth, not to be parallel’d For nature’s liberal bounties, (both set off With fortune’s trappings, wealth); but, with delight, Gladly acknowledged such a man her servant?(152) It has been pointed out by Zielinski that “the perfection of language in regard to the formation of periods depends upon the presence and prevalence of abbreviated by-sentences,”(153) by which expression he describes “absolute” constructions. Secondly, he delights in an expedient which the poems of Robert Browning have made familiar to this generation, the frequent omission of the relative pronoun.(154) And so his sentences meander with a seemingly negligent grace to an unexpected conclusion. It is clear that such a style both requires and repays a careful study of the rhetorical art. I give as an instance of this combination the words of Paulinus in _The Emperor of the East_. He is talking of the Emperor’s sister and Prime Minister Pulcheria: She indeed is A perfect phœnix, and disdains a rival. Her infant years, as you know, promised much, But grown to ripeness she transcends, and makes Credulity her debtor. I will tell you In my blunt way, to entertain the time Until you have the happiness to see her, How in your absence she hath borne herself, And with all possible brevity; though the subject Is such a spacious field, as would require An abstract of the purest eloquence (Deriv’d from the most famous orators The nurse of learning, Athens, shew’d the world) In that man that should undertake to be Her true historian.(155) The style of Massinger is not only lucid and dexterous; it is strong, partly because of its ease, and more mature and modern than that of many of his contemporaries. Milton’s prose would have gained much in directness if he had studied Massinger. This strength does not show itself so much in isolated fine lines, for, as we have already seen, epigram was foreign to his nature, though from time to time we get such lines, as, for example, in _The Duke of Milan_: One smile of hers would make a savage tame; One accent of that tongue would calm the seas, _Though all the winds at once strove there for empire_.(156) Or, again, in the same play: