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.

Scene ii (which in the Quarto ends with the reconciliation of Charalois and Romont, the entry of Du Croy, Charmi, etc. being marked as the beginning of a third Scene, though the place is unchanged and the action continuous, wherefore modern editors disregard the Quarto’s division and count Scene ii as including all the remainder of the Act) presents the usual distinctive earmarks of a Massinger passage. The last third of it, however (ll. 80–121), has, on account of the presence of several rhymes, been commonly assigned to Field. No doubt his hand is here discernable; l. 118, mark’d me out the way how to defend it, is scarcely a Massinger construction either; but I cannot think Field’s presence here more than that of a reviser, just as in the latter half of I, ii. The language remains more Massinger’s than Field’s; and while the passage is over-short for metrical tests to be decisive, the 39 per cent. of double endings and 35 per cent. of run-on lines which it yields (for the earlier part of the Scene the figures are respectively 28 per cent. and 35 per cent.) are corroborative of Massinger’s authorship. Cf. also ll. 96–8 with this from The Renegado (C-G. 157 a):

Of the final Scene, V, iii, little need be said. It brings before us again a court-room, with another trial, and continues the manner of its predecessor, I, ii, as only Massinger can. His customary formulae, stand bound, play the parasite, etc., are here; characteristic too are his opposition of wanton heat and lawful fires (ll. 141–2—cf. C-G. 37 b; D. V. 476), while further material for comparison may be found in ll. 95–6 with Respect, wealth, favour, the whole world for a dower of The Virgin Martyr (C-G. 6 b), and in ll. 165–7:

Char.

You must find other proofs to strengthen these

But mere presumptions.

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