l. 207, and that the remaining four lines of the Scene are a Massinger

tag. _The Maid of Honour_ (C-G. 28 a) furnishes a striking parallel for ll. 208-9, while for 210-1 cf. C-G. 192 a. The metrical tests for IV, i, confirm Field: 22 per cent. double endings; 22 per cent. run-on lines.

With the next Scene the hand of Massinger is once more in evidence with all its accustomed manifestations. One interested in his duplication of characteristic phrasing may refer for comparison ll. 13-4 to C-G. 299 b; l. 17 to C-G. 241 a; ll. 24-6 to C-G. 547 b; ll. 29-30 to C-G. 425 b; l. 57 to C-G. 41 b, 70 b; l. 94 to C-G. 182 b. The Scene contains 32 per cent. double endings and 37 per cent. run-on lines. The authorship of its two songs is less certain. Field was more given to song-writing than was Massinger, and the second of this pair is reminiscent in its conception of the Grace Seldom episode in _Amends for Ladies_ (II, i).

The short IV, iii is by Massinger. In evidence of him are its 36 per cent. of double endings and 55 per cent. of run-on lines, its involved sentence structure, and the familiar phrasing which makes itself manifest even in so brief a passage (e. g.: _To play the parasite_, l. 7--cf. V, iii, 78 and C-G. 334 b. Cf. also ll. 9-10 with D. III, 476; and l. 22 with C-G. 40 b, 153 a, 262 b.).

The same dramatist’s work continues through the last Scene of the Act. This, the emotional climax of the play, representing a quasi-judicial procedure, affords him abundant opportunity for fervid moralizing and speech-making, of which he takes advantage most typically. Massinger commonplaces are l. 29, _Made shipwreck of your faith_ (cf. C-G. 55 b, 235 a, 414 b); l. 56, _In the forbidden labyrinth of lust_ (cf. C-G. 298 b); l. 89, _Angels guard me!_ (cf. C-G. 59 b, 475 b); l. 118-9, _and yield myself Most miserably guilty_ (cf. C-G. 61 b, 66 b, 130 a; D. VI, 354); etc.; while within a year or so of the time when he wrote referring to “those famed matrons” (l. 70), he expatiated upon them in detail (see _The Virgin Martyr_, C-G. 33 a). Yet more specific parallels may be found: for l. 63 cf. C-G. 179 a; ll. 76-7, cf. C-G. 28 a; l. 78, cf. C-G. 32 b; ll. 162-3, cf. C-G. 3 b, in a passage wherein there is a certain similarity of situation; l. 177, cf. D. IX, 7. Were any further confirmation needed for Massinger’s authorship, the metrical tests would supply it, with their 36 per cent. double endings and 34 per cent. run-on lines.

The most cursory reading of V, i is sufficient to establish the conviction that its author is not identical with that of the earlier comic passages--is not Field, but Massinger. The humor, such as it is, is of a graver, more restrained sort--satiric rather than burlesque; it has lost lightness and verve, and approaches to high-comedy and even to moralizing. One feels that the confession of the tailor-gallant is no mere fun-making devise, but a caustic attack upon social conditions against which the writer nurtured a grudge. Massingerian are such expressions as _And now I think on’t better_ (l. 77--cf. C-G. 57 b, 468 a, 615 a; D. XI, 28), and _use a conscience_ (l. 90--cf. C-G. 444 a, 453 a), while the metrical evidence of 36 per cent. double endings and 29 per cent. run-on lines fortifies a case concerning which all commentators are in agreement. But despite the unanimity of critical opinion hitherto, I am not sure that Field did not contribute a minor touch here and there to the Scene. Such contribution, if a fact, must have been small, for the Massinger flavor is unmistakable throughout; yet in the _Plague on’t!_ and the _’Slid!_, in the play upon words (ll. 13-4, 20-1, 44), which is rare with Massinger and common with Field, in the line, _I only know_ [_thee_] _now to hate thee deadly_: (cf. _Amends for Ladies_, M. 421: _I never more Will hear or see thee, but will hate thee deadly._), we may, perhaps, detect a hint of his hand.