" The powerful soliloquy which closes the scene expresses no more
than the natural emotion of the man who has received so lovely a
revelation of his future bride's invincible and single-hearted love:
Cannot that woman's evil, jealousy,
Despite disgrace, nay, which is worse, contempt,
Once stir thy faith?
Coarse as is often the language of Marston's plays and satires, the man
was not coarse-minded--not gross of spirit nor base of nature--who could
paint so delicately and simply a figure so beautiful in the tenderness
of its purity.
The farcical underplot of this play is worthy of Moliere in his broader
mood of farce. Hardly any Jourdain or Pourceaugnac, any George Dandin
or Comtesse d'Escarbagnas of them all, undergoes a more grotesque
experience or plays a more ludicrous part than is devised for Mr. and
Mrs. Mulligrub by the ingenuity of the indefatigable Cocledemoy--a
figure worthy to stand beside any of the tribe of Mascarille as _fourbum
imperator_. The animation and variety of inventive humor which keep
the reader's laughing attention awake and amused throughout these
adventurous scenes of incident and intrigue are not more admirable than
the simplicity and clearness of evolution or composition which recall
and rival the classic masterpieces of Latin and French comedy.
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