Romont, however, is the finest figure of the play. He draws to himself rather more than his share of interest and sympathy, to the detriment of the protagonist. Of a type common enough on the stage of that day--the bluff, loyal soldier-friend of the hero--he is yet so thoroughly individualized that we can discuss him and calculate what he will do in given situations, even as with a character of Shakespeare’s. The portrait suffers from no jarring inconsistencies; almost his every utterance is absolutely in part, and adds its touch to round out our conception of him. His negligence of his personal appearance, his quick temper, his impulsiveness, his violence, his lack of restraint, his fierce, uncompromising honesty, his devotion to the “grave General dead” and his unshaken fidelity to the living son, his flashes of unexpected tenderness, his homage for the reverend virtue of Rochfort--a sort of child-like awe for what he knows is finer if not of truer metal than his own rough spirit, his ill-disguised scorn for Novall Junior and his creatures, “those dogs in doublets,” his lack of tact which unfits him for effective service in the delicate task of preserving Beaumelle’s honor, and dooms his story to Charalois to disbelief and resentment, his prompt, fearless decisiveness of action, the tumultuous flood of nervous and at times eloquent speech which pours from his lips when he is aroused, yet dies in his throat when he is lashed by a woman’s tongue--a flood of speech which is most torrential when the situation is most doubtful or hopeless of good issue, but which gives place to a self-possessed terseness when he is quite sure of his ground:--all go to give detail and reality to a character at once amazingly alive and irresistibly attractive. “Romont is one of the noblest of all Massinger’s men,” says Swinburne, “and Shakespeare has hardly drawn noble men more nobly than Massinger.” To find a parallel creation who can over-match him in vigor of presentation and theatrical efficiency, we must go back to the Melantius of Beaumont and Fletcher. These two characters represent the ultimate elaborations of the stock figure of the faithful friend and blunt soldier; Melantius is the supreme romantic, Romont the supreme realistic, development of the type. Yet though Romont is the most compelling of the _dramatis personae_, into none does Massinger enter more thoroughly than the noble figure of Rochfort. Utter devotion to virtue, to which he had paid a life-long fidelity, is the key-note of the nature of the aged Premier President, and accordingly in him the deep-seated ethical seriousness of the “stage-poet” found a congenial expression. A statelier dignity is wont to echo in his lines than in the utterance of any other character; they breathe an exalted calm, a graciousness, a grave courtesy, as though the very spirit of their speaker had entered them.