_The Old Law_ does not owe much to Massinger. As it was a favourite play, it may have owed its association with his name to revision on his part.(505) There is a charming tenderness in places and a rollicking improbability about the whole scheme, both alien to the staid Massinger. The humour is not his, but better; his phraseology is markedly absent;(506) the prose scenes show another conception of art; the careless metre suggests Rowley. It is clear that whoever wrote the comic parts of _The Old Law_ was responsible for Chough, Trimtram, and the Roarers in _A Fair Quarrel_. The scene is laid in “Epire,” a region which seems to have been regarded by our ancestors as a place for strange things to happen, and a vague background like the city of Callipolis;(507) it seems to have the same character in the present day. A King of “Epire” figures among Diocletian’s court in _The Virgin Martyr_, and in _The Dumb Knight_(508) we find a Duke of Epire. The classical allusions and Latin phrases suggest that the author of _The Old Law_ was a man of some culture. My task is now ended. I shall consider myself happy if I persuade some of my readers to make the acquaintance of Massinger’s plays.(509) We have lately been celebrating the tercentenary of Shakspere’s death. The best way of honouring a great author is to read his writings; but to appreciate aright the greatness of Shakspere we should be wise to combine with our study a just estimate of his contemporaries and satellites; and, of the many dramatists of that century, none seem to me more worthy of affectionate consideration than Philip Massinger. It is especially instructive to return to his writings from the perusal of the masterpieces of his contemporaries; though from time to time they display rich gifts of pathos, poetry, and humour, they are too often marred by waywardness, unnaturalness, want of proportion, and grossness; it is a relief to resume the study of an author whose work is sober, well balanced, dignified, and lucid. While he shares with them the modern atmosphere of romance and adventure, he is the most Greek of his generation; and this is the real secret of his abiding charm. The passionate, the abnormal, the lurid, the farcical elements, in which his contemporaries revel, are not, indeed, entirely absent, but they are less conspicuous; the luxuriance of the thicket does not hinder the wayfarer from following the path; we pluck the roses without tearing our flesh on the thorns; and as we contemplate the marble splendour of his verse we almost forget that sculpture has its limitations. APPENDIX I. THE SMALL ACTOR IN MASSINGER’S PLAYS There are several passages in our author in which reference is made to the low stature of the actor of a female part. _Duke of Milan_, II., 1, 108: Graccho, speaking of Mariana: Of a little thing, It is so full of gall! II., 1, 156: MARCELIA. For you, puppet— MARIANA. What of me, pine-tree? 172: