The final reservation raises mixed feelings. I am tired of those writers who grudgingly attribute to Massinger the leavings of other playwrights, making him the whipping boy of his age, and who proceed to qualify their theories by doubts as to his ability to attain to the excellences which they perforce discover in them. I will be so far generous to Mr. Brooke as to allow that “the magnificent poetry of the un-Fletcherian parts” is unlike Massinger, because there is no reason for supposing that he wrote any of these parts. Massinger’s fame can stand on its own merits without these churlishly conceded ascriptions of doubtful work. And now let us pass to Boyle’s notable article on this subject.(339) Much as I admire his learning and zeal, I am amazed at the perversity of his judgment and the thinness of his arguments. Let us take them in order. “There is a want of development in the dramatic character”(340) of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_. This Boyle ascribes to the fact that, as elsewhere, Massinger’s conceptions were blurred by Fletcher’s co-operation in other parts of the play. As this argument begs the question it has no weight. “Allusions to Shakspere are characteristic both of Massinger and _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.”(341) Are we to suppose that no one imitated Shakspere except Massinger? “The metrical structure of the play corresponds closely with Massinger’s general style.”(342) Here, however, Boyle has to allow that the percentages for double endings are not what you would expect. And I look with suspicion on a writer who professes to be so certain of these tests that he can assign I., 1-40, and V., 1-19, to Fletcher. “Massinger is fond of classical allusions, as is the author of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.”(343) This argument deserves no consideration when we remember that the fact is true of other Elizabethan writers. For example, we find “the helmeted Bellona,”(344) and Massinger is fond of the sonorous word.(345) Yes, but Bellona is not unknown in Shakspere. M. Arnold has pointed out that she occurs in a weak passage of Macbeth.(346) “Medical and surgical similes occur in both.”(347) When we come to investigate these we find that the remarks in question are of a commonplace kind. “The characters of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ resemble those of Massinger.”(348) Theseus, for example, resembles Lorenzo in _The Bashful Lover_. I see no resemblance. “Palamon and Arcite may be met with in many of Massinger’s plays.”(349) I fail to find them anywhere. “The three ladies are grossly sensual in their remarks.”(350) I have dealt with this point before, and it really amounts to a mischievous obsession in Boyle’s mind. Let us take the passages seriatim; Emilia is talking privately to Hippolyta(351) about a dead girl friend to whom she was devoted when young. In the course of this beautiful passage she says: