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In "Michaelmas Term" the realism of Middleton's comic style is no
longer alloyed or flavored with poetry or fancy. It is an excellent
Hogarthian comedy, full of rapid and vivid incident, of pleasant or
indignant humor. Its successor, "A Trick to Catch the Old One," is by
far the best play Middleton had yet written, and one of the best he ever
wrote. The merit of this and his other good comedies does not indeed
consist in any new or subtle study of character, any Shakespearean
creation or Jonsonian invention of humors or of men: the spendthrifts
and the misers, the courtesans and the dotards, are figures borrowed
from the common stock of stage tradition: it is the vivid variety of
incident and intrigue, the freshness and ease and vigor of the style,
the clear straightforward energy and vivacity of the action, that the
reader finds most praiseworthy in the best comic work of such ready
writers as Middleton and Dekker. The dialogue has sometimes touches of
real humor and flashes of genuine wit: but its readable and enjoyable
quality is generally independent of these. Very witty writing may be
very dreary reading, for want of natural animation and true dramatic
movement: and in these qualities at least the rough-and-ready work of
our old dramatists is seldom if ever deficient.
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