Add this too; when you feel her touch, and breath Like a soft western wind, when it glides o’er Arabia, creating gums and spices; And in the van, the nectar of her lips, Which you must taste, bring the battalia on, Well-arm’d, and strongly lined with her discourse, And knowing manners, to give entertainment; Hippolytus himself would leave Diana, To follow such a Venus.(454) The play which Massinger himself at one time esteemed the most highly was _The Roman Actor_,(455) but we have to remember that much of his best work was done after 1626, the date of the play. _The Roman Actor_, though most admirable, is strong and hard rather than inspired. More than any other of his works it shows us an element of greatness in the author’s mind, which reveals itself in many ways; in the attractive and noble character of Paris, in the mastery shown in dealing with a Roman theme, the local colour of which is put on with a light and yet sure hand, in the skill with which the story is invested with the atmosphere of tyranny, in the breathless interest with which we follow the last moments of Domitian in Act V., in the dexterity with which three smaller plays are introduced into the action without in the least confusing the construction. In making an actor the hero of the play, and in giving him so many opportunities of showing his art, Massinger no doubt felt every confidence in the genius of J. Taylor, but perhaps the chief charm of the play is due to the reflection which it inspires in the mind of the reader, that it expresses with fire and conviction the struggling author’s high ideal for the theatre as a social institution, and his esteem for actors. On the other hand, there is little comic relief, and little female interest beyond the infatuation of the Empress. Indeed, the women who take part in the play are one and all unattractive, and though it might be fairly urged that they are probably adequate portraits of the originals, we cannot help feeling that the author ought to have seen that they were timid sketches. In other words, we are face to face here with an acknowledged limitation of Massinger’s art. Nor should it be forgotten that while the play is full of noble and even impassioned rhetoric,(456) there are one or two prosy passages(457) and several small improbabilities.(458) In the third of the inserted plays Domitian, taking the part of an actor, avenges himself on Paris. This device by which characters in a play avenge themselves by taking parts in a subordinate play, occurs in the famous _Spanish Tragedy_ of Kyd, and in Middleton’s _Women, beware Women_. Most successful of all is the splendid climax of Act IV., where we have the clash of interest required by the highest form of tragedy; we sympathize with Paris, and yet we feel that the Emperor, who has been wronged, must avenge himself signally and at once.