letter C, small and capital, in _The Parliament of Love_ is constantly

written thus, ⊕. A marked feature of the MS. is the doubling of consonants—_e.g._, tollerable, vallor, quallities, cullors. It looks as if, while it was in Gifford’s hands, ink had been used to restore letters here and there, and towards the end of the play there are several substitutions of words in a later ink. Gifford’s collation where I have tested it is correct in the main but I noted one or two mistakes—_e.g._:

I., 5, 87.—MS.: Sudainely.

G.: Speedily.

II., 3, 58.—MS.: The graces from the Idalian greene [_sic_].

G.: The Loves and Graces. This would make the line scan.

III., 2, 15.—MS.: If I compared it to an Indian slave’s.

G.: with.

V., 1, 158.—MS.: Have.

G.: Had.

V., 1, 292.—“To” in MS. begins line 293.

The sort of mistake which we find in this MS. lends support to two hypotheses, between which, as far as I can see, there is nothing to decide; either, as we saw there was ground for supposing in _Believe as You List_, the author altered his diction as he composed, or he was dictating to an amanuensis. The earlier corrections are all made in the same ink. In favour of the former hypothesis are such passages as the following:

I., 4, 84: “May you suc prosper.” “Succeed” was the original word, but cancelled for one which scans better.

I., 5, 23: “Clarindore” cancelled at end of line, “Cleremond” substituted. Clarindore is mentioned in the next line.

I., 5, 66: “Summer’s sunne”: “heate” substituted for “sunne.”

II., 1. 81: “That” deleted after “assurance”; the line thereby runs more smoothly.

II., 3, 5: “Thy selfe”: “selfe” deleted before “strengthe.”

III., 2, 16: “That with incessant labour to searche out.” After “labour” “searche” is deleted. In other words, the construction is changed: the main verb being “dives” in the next line, instead of the original intention, “searches.”

III., 3, 124: “Perform’d” deleted before “expir’d.”

V., 1, 111: “In hell’s most uglie cullors.” “Horrid coullors” is deleted before the last two words.

V., 1, 189: “Nor did I scorn”: “him” after “scorn” is deleted, as if the syntax had been changed.

V., 1, 206: “Acknowledged” deleted before “appointed.”

The sort of mistake that an amanuensis might make, either in copying or by dictation, occurs in:

II., 2, 12: “The scorne darts of scorne”; first “scorne” deleted.

II., 2, 111: After “Absolve me” “only can” deleted; it makes no sense, but had occurred in the previous line.

II., 3, 16: “But never thought: come, I must have thee mine.”

First three words deleted: they had occurred in the previous line.

III., 1, 120: “Blanque” deleted before “blanket.”

III., 3, 37: “A seeming courts”: “courts” deleted before “anger.” “Courtship” occurs at the end of the line.

V., 1, 46: “Weake weake men”; first “weake” underlined in later ink.(570)

V., 1, 190: “For truth is truth is truth.” All deleted. The sense requires: “for truth is truth.”

V., 1, 505: “Neglegt” deleted before “neglect.”

I add one or two notes of interest in correction of Cunningham’s edition.

II., 2, 156 should read thus, as in MS.:

“then to practise To find some means that he deserves thee best.”(571)

C. reads in I., 157: “he that,” which makes no sense.

At III., 3, 8 (folio 8_b_) there is a considerable blank in the MS. scrabbled over, but line 8 is completed at the top of folio 9_a_.

V., 1, 116 should read thus, as in MS.: “And not to be replied to.” C. misprints: “replied be.”

V., 1, 129: The MS. reads thus:

For that deitie (Such our affection makes him) whose dread power Tooke forthe choicest arrows, headed with Not loose but loyall flames, who aymed at mee Ame with greedie haste to meete the shaft.

C. reads line 131: ... the choicest arrow, headed with.

line 133: Who came with greedy haste to meet the shaft.

In 131 “the” is obviously left out by homoeoteleuton. The grammar of the passage is defective. It is all cancelled in the old ink.

Similarly, 138 is cancelled: “Of gold, nor of pale lead that breeds disdain.”

178-185 down to the word “matter” are cancelled.

294-296 are cancelled in the old ink.

V., 1, 371: MS. “to whore me.” A modern hand has written above “abuse.”

V., 1, 531: There is an addition in the original hand which will not scan.

“And gratious spectators.”

Gifford in his note (II., 312) on _Parliament of Love_, V., 1, 129, refers to a corrected copy of _The Duke of Milan_, which proves the writing of the _Parliament of Love_ to be Massinger’s. _Cf._ also Advertisement to his second edition, Vol. I., and the facsimile of the dedication of _The Duke of Milan_ to Sir Francis Foljambe (IV., 593). Where is this copy now? It was at one time in Gifford’s possession.

APPENDIX X. THE AUTHORSHIP OF “THE VIRGIN MARTYR”

Boyle assigns to Massinger, Act I., Act III., 1, 2, Act IV., 3, Act V., 2, a total of slightly less than half the play. As far as it goes, I agree with this assignation, but it does not seem to me quite satisfactory. It is true that there are serious passages in _The Virgin Martyr_ which do not resemble the rest of Massinger’s work; it does not therefore follow that they are due, like the comic parts, to Dekker. In the first place, the exaltation which breathes from these passages may be due to the rapture of youth. Why should Massinger not have shown in what must have been a youthful work an emotional brilliancy which he lost later? And secondly, it is a mistake to say that Massinger’s style is absolutely uniform; we could only lay this proposition down positively if we had all his works in our hands, and among those we possess I am much mistaken if differences, slight though real, cannot be detected. _A Very Woman_ and _The Bashful Lover_ stand apart from the rest of his plays by virtue of their greater degree of romantic nobility. In the third place, the serious scenes assigned by Boyle and others to Dekker do not seem to me to resemble the serious style of that author, except that there are certain passages where rhymed couplets are employed. Here again we might argue that Massinger was making an experiment which he dropped in his later work. The fact is that, as is usually the case in these matters, we have not enough evidence to prove one thing or the other.

The ascription of the play to Massinger and Dekker on the title-page of the 1622 edition might be held to prove that the lion’s share in it is due to the former, especially when we remember that he was the younger and presumably the less-known author of the two. I should not, however, wish to deny the possibility that Dekker contributed some of the serious parts. I feel rather disposed to suggest that in one or two of the scenes in question both authors were at work. There is nothing impossible or improbable in this hypothesis.

Charles Lamb says about the scene between Dorothea and Angelo, beginning