The parallel would have been more nearly complete if Moll
Cutpurse "had written her own Life in verse," and brought it to Selden
or Bishop Hall with a request that he would furnish her with a preface
to it.
The plays of Middleton are not so properly divisible into tragic and
comic as into realistic and romantic--into plays of which the mainspring
is essentially prosaic or photographic, and plays of which the
mainspring is principally fanciful or poetical. Two only of the former
class remain to be mentioned: "Anything for a Quiet Life" and "A Chaste
Maid in Cheapside." There is very good stuff in the plot or groundwork
of the former, but the workmanship is hardly worthy of the material, Mr.
Bullen ingeniously and plausibly suggests the partnership of Shirley in
this play: but the conception of the character in which he discerns a
likeness to the touch of the lesser dramatist is happier and more
original than such a comparison would indicate. The young stepmother
whose affectation of selfish levity and grasping craft is really
designed to cure her husband of his infatuation, and to reconcile him
with the son who regards her as his worst enemy, is a figure equally
novel, effective, and attractive.
Pages:
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173