the first part, in the sanguine enthusiasm of youthful generosity, has reclaimed her from vice, and in the second part, his own faith and love of virtue having been impaired with the progress of years, tries in vain to lure her back again to her former follies, has an effect the most striking and beautiful. The pleadings on both sides, for and against female faith and constancy, are managed with great polemical skill, assisted by the grace and vividness of poetical illustration. As an instance of the manner in which Bellafront speaks of the miseries of her former situation, ‘and she has felt them knowingly,’ I might give the lines in which she contrasts the different regard shewn to the modest or the abandoned of her sex. ‘I cannot, seeing she’s woven of such bad stuff, Set colours on a harlot bad enough. Nothing did make me when I lov’d them best, To loath them more than this: when in the street A fair, young, modest damsel, I did meet; She seem’d to all a dove, when I pass’d by, And I to all a raven: every eye That followed her, went with a bashful glance; At me each bold and jeering countenance Darted forth scorn: to her, as if she had been Some tower unvanquished, would they all vail; ’Gainst me swoln rumour hoisted every sail. She crown’d with reverend praises, pass’d by them; I, though with face mask’d, could not ‘scape the hem; For, as if heav’n had set strange marks on whores, Because they should be pointing-stocks to man, Drest up in civilest shape, a courtesan, Let her walk saint-like, noteless, and unknown, Yet she’s betray’d by some trick of her own.’ Perhaps this sort of appeal to matter of fact and popular opinion, is more convincing than the scholastic subtleties of the Lady in Comus. The manner too, in which Infelice, the wife of Hippolito, is made acquainted with her husband’s infidelity, is finely dramatic; and in the scene where she convicts him of his injustice by taxing herself with incontinence first, and then turning his most galling reproaches to her into upbraidings against his own conduct, she acquits herself with infinite spirit and address. The contrivance, by which, in the first part, after being supposed dead, she is restored to life, and married to Hippolito, though perhaps a little far-fetched, is affecting and romantic. There is uncommon beauty in the Duke her father’s description of her sudden illness. In reply to Infelice’s declaration on reviving, ‘I’m well,’ he says, ‘Thou wert not so e’en now. Sickness’ pale hand Laid hold on thee, ev’n in the deadst of feasting: And when a cup, crown’d with thy lover’s health, Had touch’d thy lips, a sensible cold dew Stood on thy cheeks, as if that death had wept To see such beauty altered.’