_A Very Woman_ or _The Prince of Tarent_ is based, as the Prologue tells us, on an old play; the author’s modesty cannot forbear saying that, good as it was before, it is “much better’d now.” By this he probably means that substantial additions have been made, that the plot has been put into better shape,(463) and that perhaps the comic element is cut down. Boyle assigns about two-fifths of the play to Massinger, including the quarrel between Cardenes and Antonio, and the great love scene between Antonio and Almira, but excluding the careful treatment of Cardenes’ melancholy by Paulo the doctor.(464) I should myself unhesitatingly assign the latter scene to Massinger. The only scenes which can be safely attributed to Fletcher are those of the slave-market,(465) and that where Leonora seeks to console Almira.(466) The sprightly vivacity of the former and the tenderness of the latter are good evidence for this assignation. A perusal of this admirable masterpiece leads us to the conclusion that if Massinger, instead of collaborating with Fletcher, had rewritten the plays of the latter, our literature would have been greatly enriched. I would not deny that a man may have several styles, and may write in the manner of another; especially is this possible when the other has been his bosom friend. Still there are a grace and delicacy about _A Very Woman_ which seem to suggest the hand of Fletcher. The characters are drawn with great refinement and vividness. There is a pair of devoted friends, Antonio and Pedro, and over against them two charming ladies, Leonora and Almira, the former at once sensible and kind, the latter almost worthy of a place beside Shakspere’s heroines. The great love scene, though suggested by Desdemona and Othello, is not unworthy of Shakspere himself.(467) Cuculo is an amusing study of the old courtier, such as we get elsewhere in Massinger. Borachia, the lady who loves wine, is drawn with a lighter hand than Massinger’s; yet I feel that Fletcher, unassisted or unpruned, would have made the scenes in which she appears grosser than they are. Antonio, the Prince of Tarent, reminds us of a clean-limbed, honest English public-school boy; he is slow to take offence, but brave when provoked, sorry for the mischance of which he is the innocent cause, courteous, and ready on all occasions. The plot has been shaped with great attention to detail. Thus, when Antonio, disguised as a slave, first meets his friend Pedro, his master Cuculo does not allow him to speak,(468) so that Pedro has no chance of identifying him by his voice. Later on, however, Pedro has an intuition that the slave is other than he seems to be: “I do see something in this fellow’s face still That ties my heart fast to him.”(469) He treats him as a friend, as though his intuition pierced through the external disguise,(470) and when the recognition takes place he naturally remarks: