Act V, with the exception of Scene ii, lines 80-120, which he considers

an interpolation of Field, whom he also believes to have revised the latter part of I, ii (from _Exeunt Officers with Romont_ to end).

Fleay (_Chron. Eng. Dra._, I, 208) exactly agrees with this division save that the latter part of I, ii, which Boyle believes emended by Field, he assigns to that author outright; and that he places the division in Act III twenty-seven lines later (Field after _Manent Char. Rom._).

In my own investigation I have used for each Scene the following tests to distinguish the hands of the two authors:

(_a_) Broad aesthetic considerations: the comparison of style and method of treatment with the known work of either dramatist.

(_b_) The test of parallel phrases. Massinger’s habit of repeating himself is notorious. I have gone through the entire body of his work, both that which appears under his name, and that which has been assigned to him by modern research in the Beaumont & Fletcher plays, and noted all expressions I found analogous to any which occur in _The Fatal Dowry_. I have done the same for Field’s work, examining his two comedies, _Woman is a Weathercock_ and _Amends for Ladies_, and Acts I and V of _The Knight of Malta_ and III and IV of _The Queen of Corinth_, which the consensus of critical opinion recognizes (in my judgment, correctly) as his. He is generally believed to have collaborated also in _The Honest Man’s Fortune_, but the exact extent of his work therein is so uncertain that I have not deemed it a proper field from which to adduce evidence. His hand has been asserted by one authority or another to appear in various other plays of the period, he having served, as it were, the role of a literary scapegoat on whom it was convenient to father any Scene not identified as belonging to Beaumont, Fletcher, or Massinger; but there is no convincing evidence for his participation in the composition of any extant dramas save the above named.

(_c_) Metrical tests. I have computed the figures for _The Fatal Dowry_ in regard to double or feminine endings and run-on lines. Massinger’s verse displays high percentages (normally 30 per cent, to 45 per cent.) in the case of either. Field’s verse varies considerably in the matter of run-on lines at various periods of his life, but the proportion of them is always smaller than Massinger’s. His double endings average about 18 per cent. I have also counted in each Scene the number of speeches that end within the line, and that end with the line, respectively. (Speeches ending with fragmentary lines are considered to have mid-line endings.) This is declared by Oliphant (_Eng. Studien_, XIV, 72) the surest test for the work of Massinger. “His percentage of speeches,” he says, “that end where the verses end is ordinarily as low as 15.” This is a tremendous exaggeration, but it is true that the ratio of mid-line endings is much higher in Massinger than in any of his contemporaries--commonly 2:1, or higher.

We find the First Scene of Act I one of those skillful introductions to the action which the “stage-poet” knew so well how to handle, for which reason, probably, he was generally intrusted with the initial Scene of the plays in which he collaborated. Thoroughly Massingerian are its satire upon the degenerate age and its grave, measured style, rhetorical where it strives to be passionate, and replete with characteristic expressions. Especially striking examples of the dramatist’s well-known and never-failing _penchant_ for the recurrent use of certain ideas and phrases are: _As I could run the hazard of a check for’t._ (l. 10)--cf. [8]C-G. 87 b, 156 b, 327 b; D. V, 328; XI, 28;--_You shall o’ercome._ (l. 101)--cf. C-G. 230 b, 248 b, 392 a;--and ll. 183-7--cf. C-G. 206 a, 63 a, 91 a, 134 b. The correspondence between ll. 81-99 and the opening of _The Unnatural Combat_ has already been remarked on, while further reminiscences of the same passage are to be found elsewhere in Massinger (C-G. 104 a, 195 b). Metrical tests show for the Scene 33 per cent. double endings and 29 per cent. run-on lines, figures which substantiate the conclusions derivable from a scrutiny of its style and content.[9]

In I, ii Massinger appears in his element, an episode permitting opportunities for the forensic fervor which was his especial forte. Such Scenes occur again and again in his plays: the conversion of the daughters of Theophilus by the Virgin Martyr, the plea of the Duke of Milan to the Emperor, of old Malefort to his judges in _The Unnatural Combat_, of Antiochus to the Carthagenian senate in _Believe as You List_. From the speech with which Du Croy opens court (I, ii, 1-3)--cf. the inauguration of the senate-house scene in _The Roman Actor_, C-G. 197 b,

_Fathers conscript, may this our meeting be Happy to Caesar and the commonwealth!_

--to the very end, it abounds with Massingerisms: _Knowing judgment_; _Speak to the cause_; _I foresaw this_ (an especial favorite of the poet’s); _Strange boldness!_; the construction, _If that curses_, etc;--also cf. l. 117 ff. with

_To undervalue him whose least fam’d service Scornes to be put in ballance with the best Of all your Counsailes._

(_Sir John van Olden B._, Bullen’s _Old Plays_, II, 232.)

We have seen that the hand of Field has been asserted to appear in the last half of this Scene. This is probably due to the presence here of several rhymed couplets, which are uncommon in Massinger save as tags at the end of Scenes or of impressive speeches, but not absolutely unknown in his work; whereas Field employs them frequently--in particular to set off a gnomic utterance. If Field’s indeed, they can scarcely represent more than his revising touch here and there; everything else in this part of the Scene bespeaks Massinger no less clearly than does the portion which preceeds it. There continues the same stately declamation, punctuated at intervals by brief comments or replies, the same periodic sentence-structure, the same or even greater frequency of characteristic diction. Massinger again and again refers in his plays to the successive hardships of the summer’s heat and winter’s frost (l. 184--cf. C-G. 168 b, 205 a, 392 b, 488 b); _stand bound_ occurs literally scores of times upon his pages (three times on C-G. 77 a alone);--typical also are _in their dreadful ruins buried quick_ (l. 178--cf. C-G. 603 a, 625 a, _Sir John van Olden B._, Bullin’s _Old Plays_, II, 209), _Be constant in it_ (l. 196--cf. C-G. 2 a, 137 a, 237 a, 329 a), _Strange rashness!_, _It is my wonder_ (l. 293--cf. C-G. 26 b, 195 b; D. VIII, 438; XI, 34). Cf. also l. 156,

_To quit the burthen of a hopeless life,_

with C-G. 615 b,

_To ease the burthen of a wretched life._

And ll. 284-6,

_But would you had Made trial of my love in anything But this,_

with C-G. 286 a,

_I could wish you had Made trial of my love some other way._

And again, ll. 301-3,

_and his goodness Rising above his fortune, seems to me, Princelike, to will, not ask, a courtesy._

with D. XI. 37,

_in his face appears A kind of majesty which should command, Not sue for favour._

and the general likeness of l. 258 ff. with C-G. 44 b-45 a, as above noted. Nor do the verse tests reveal any break in the continuity of the Scene; the figures for the first part are: double endings, 45 per cent.; run-on lines, 33 per cent.--for the second part: double endings, 36 per cent.; run-on lines, 36 per cent.

Passing to the Second Act, we discover at once a new manner of expression, in which the sentence has a looser structure, the verse a quicker _tempo_, the poetry a striving now and again for a note of lyric beauty which, although satisfactorily achieved in but few lines, is by Massinger’s verse not even attempted. A liberal sprinkling of rhymes appears. The Scene is a trifle more vividly conceived; the emotions have a somewhat more genuine ring. Simultaneously, resemblances to the phraseology of Massinger’s other plays become infrequent; _and, to increase the wonder_, is almost the only reminder of him in the whole of Scene i. On the other hand we must not expect to find in the work of Field the same large number of recognizable expressions as mark that of Massinger; for he was not nearly so given to repeating himself, nor are there many of his plays extant from which to garner parallels. The figure of speech with which Charalois opens his funeral address [Field shows a great predilection for “aqueous” similes and metaphors], the liberal use of oaths (_’Slid_, _’Slight_), a reference (l. 137) to the Bermudas (also mentioned in _Amends for Ladies_: M. 427), and the comparison to the oak and pine (ll. 119-121--cf. a Field Scene of _The Queen of Corinth_: D. V, 436-7) are the only specific minutia to which a finger can be pointed. The verse analysis testifies similarly to a different author from that of Act I, double endings being 20 per cent., run-on lines 15 per cent.--figures which are quite normal to Field.

To the actor-dramatist may be set down the prose of II, ii without question. Massinger practically never uses prose, which is liberally employed by Field, as is the almost indistinguishable prose-or-verse by which a transition is made from one medium to the other. The dialogue between Beaumelle and her maids is strikingly like that between two “gentlewomen” in _The Knight of Malta_, I, ii--a Scene generally recognized as by his hand; the visit of Novall Junior which follows is like a page out of his earlier comedies. Notable resemblances are ll. 177-8, _Uds-light! my lord, one of the purls of your band is, without all discipline, fallen out of his rank_, with _I have seen him sit discontented a whole play because one of the purls of his band was fallen out of his reach to order again_. (_Amends for Ladies_, M. 455); and l. 104, _they skip into my lord’s cast skins some twice a year_, with _and then my lord_ (_like a snake_) _casts a suite every quarter, which I slip into_: (_Woman is a Weathercock_, M. 374). The song, after l. 131, recalls that in _Amends for Ladies_, M. 465.

Of the verse which follows, most of the observations made in regard to the preceeding Scene are applicable. The comic touch in the midst of Romont’s tirade (ll. 174-206) against old Novall, when the vehemence of his indignation leads him to seek at every breath the epithet of a different beast for his foe, is surely Field’s, not Massinger’s. A Field scene of _The Queen of Corinth_, D. V, 438, parallels with its _Thou a gentleman! thou an ass_, the construction of l. 276, while there too is duplicated the _true-love knots_ of l. 314, though in a rather grotesque connection. The verse tests are confirmative of Field: 21 per cent. double endings; 19 per cent, run-on lines. While a few resemblances to phrases occurring somewhere in the works of Massinger can be marked here and there in the 355 lines of the Scene, they are not such as would demand consideration, nor are more numerous than sheer chance would yield in the case of a writer so prolific as the “stage-poet.” The parallel between ll. 284-297 and a passage from _The Unnatural Combat_ is pointed out under the head of DATE, and one of several possible explanations for this coincidence is there offered. These lines in _The Fatal Dowry_ are as unmistakably Field’s as any verse in the entire play; their short, abruptly broken periods and their rapid flow are as characteristic of him as the style of their analogue in _The Unnatural Combat_ is patently Massingerian.