such fashion that he had opportunity to exploit his greatest gift in no less than two formal trials, one informal trial, and a long Act besides given over almost exclusively to verbose disputes and exhortations. The circumstances of the discovery of the amour of Beaumelle and Novall, while penned by Massinger, are more likely an invention of Field’s, not only as faintly reminiscent of his Amends for Ladies, but as according better with the general spirit of his work.

Several plays of the Massinger corpus are more striking on first acquaintance than The Fatal Dowry, and yet others surpass it in regard to this feature or that. It has not the gigantic protagonist of A New Way to Pay Old Debts, or the admirable structure of that fine play, which works with ever-cumulating intensity to one final, tremendous climax. It has not the impressiveness of The Duke of Milan, or its sheer sweep of tragic passion and breathless intensity, or anything so compelling as its great scene of gathering jealousy that breaks forth at last in murder. Its verse is less poetic than that of The Maid of Honor; it lacks the charm of The Great Duke of Florence, and the ethical fervor of The Roman Actor. But in utter reality, in convincing simulation of life, which holds good under the most exhaustive study and makes that study forever continue to yield new suggestions and new appreciations, and in abundance and inherent truthfulness of detailed characterization, it stands alone, and these sterling qualities must so outweigh its defects as to insure for it a high place, not only among the productions of its authors, but among the plays of the Jacobean Period as a whole.

Stage History—Adaptations—Derivatives

Beyond the statement on the title-page of the 1632 Quarto, that The Fatal Dowry had been “often acted at the Private House in Blackfriars by his Majesties Servants,” nothing is known of its early stage history. It was not revived after the Restoration, and until the publication of the Coxeter edition of Massinger seems to have been almost unknown. At last, in 1825, an emended version was placed upon the boards by no less an actor than the great Macready. January 5 of that year was the date, and Drury Lane the place, of its initial performance, Macready himself taking the part of Romont, Wallack—Charalois, Terry—Rochfort, and Mrs. W. West—Beaumelle. “The play was well acted and enthusiastically applauded,” says Macready in his Reminiscences (p. 228); “its repetition for the following Tuesday was hailed most rapturously; but Friday12 came, and with it a crowded house, to find me laboring under such indisposition that it was with 

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