The Changeling is an illustration of the dual-plot construction common at the time in Elizabethan plays, in A Woman Killed with Kindness, for instance. A superbly conceived main-plot is disfigured by a trashy comic sub-plot, of which the best thing to be said is that it soon fades from memory. The mad-house scenes are by all critics assigned to Rowley. Worthless in themselves, revolting to modern taste, exhibiting Rowley's coarse and clumsy humor at its worst, they are united to the main plot in the flimsiest fashion; the only connection between the two actions is that Antonio and Franciscus are for a time suspected of Piracquo's murder, and that the final scene is almost ruined by the intrusion of these buffoons. The story of De Flores and Beatrice-Joanna is taken from God's Revenge against Murder (1621) by John Reynolds, a collection of gory murder stories, while the Diaphanta episode is borrowed from an old French fabliau. In its cheap sensationalism and offensive tone this latter shows the evil influence of the Fletcherian romantic work in the decadence of the drama. There are notable differences between Reynolds's narrative and the play, among them being a very decided change in the relations of De Flores and Beatrice, of which more hereafter, and a skilful compres sion of the ending. In the story, Alsemero kills his wife and her paramour and slays Tomaso Piracquo by treachery. On being arrested and tried for the latter crime he reveals the facts of Alonzo Piracquo's death, whereupon he is beheaded, and the bodies of De Flores and Beatrice exhumed and burned. The new ending not only ennobles Alsemero, but raises the sordid end of the paramours to the dignity of a tragic catastrophe by making the chief mover in the villainy the instrument of just retribution.

It is the characters that make the play great, and it is Rowley who introduces them. The first scene is undoubtedly his. The setting aside by a lady of a suitor favored by her father is used several times by Rowley; the bad punning is in his fashion; and Beatrice's action in throwing her glove at De Flores is of a piece with the violent behavior of other Rowley heroines. The verse, moreover, betrays metrical differences from Middleton's: it has fewer feminine endings, more run-on lines, is less smooth and colloquial in effect. But coming to the more important question of the conception of the characters as they appear in this scene, it is unwise to give to Rowley the entire credit for a masterly exposition. In a fundamental matter like characterization there must have been discussion and agreement between the collaborators as to the lines along which the people should be developed. De Flores and Beatrice are done with extreme care. The relations between them are so improbable that the exposition must be unusually thor

ough. Now almost the entire first scene is given to portraying the actual physical repulsion inspired in Beatrice by De Flores. The mere sight of the man fills her with loathing, expressed in her reception of his message, enforced in the following conversation with Alsemero, and driven sharply home by the glove incident. This antipathy, so dramatic in its conflict of wills, so provocative of curiosity as to what it will lead to, is a stroke of genius on the part of the dramatists. There is no hint of it in the source, for there De Flores is "a gallant young gentleman," to whose advances Beatrice makes no resistance. In the handling of De Flores there is a noteworthy restrained power. He appears, is repulsed, retires, and is kept at the back of the stage until the end of the scene. Exposition is managed by the very lack of action, the situation made clear by Beatrice's scorn and studied neglect. With act II Middleton takes up the pen, and is mainly responsible for the conduct of the story till the final scene. The verse becomes more fluent and yet more pointed, and an even excellence of dialogue is maintained of which Rowley seemed incapable. Between the first scene of the act, wherein the hatred of Beatrice for De Flores is emphasized, and the second, in which she accepts him as her tool for murder, the contrast is striking. The second scene in particular is masterly in its latent power, as Beatrice, confident that she is mistress of the situation, thinks she is playing upon De Flores by her seeming reluctance to divulge the service she requires, while he accepts the task open-eyed, in full assurance of its possibilities. Effective too is the laconic brevity of his reply to her promise of reward—" Aye, aye; we'll talk of that hereafter "; Beatrice disregards it, but its full significance appears in the finest scene of the play, III. iv. Here is Beatrice, rejoicing that Piracquo is out of her way, and thinking only of ridding herself at once and forever of De Flores; and here is De Flores, gloating over the fact that she is completely in his power. How subtly he weaves the web of complicity about her, how slowly she awakens to the fearful consciousness that he is her master! How simple the dialogue is, but how it cuts! Not even when she at last understands his demand can she comprehend that there is no es

cape:

Why, 't is impossible thou canst be so wicked,
Or shelter such a cunning cruelty

To make his death the murderer of my honor!"

The cold logic whereby he convinces her that she has become "the deed's creature," and one with him in crime and reward is unanswerable indeed. When Lamb was making his excerpts for his Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets he, oddly enough, omitted The Changeling, and it was left for Leigh Hunt to say of De Flores' conduct in this

scene that for "effect at once tragical, probable, and poetical it surpasses anything. in the drama of domestic life." It is interesting that a somewhat similar situation appears in our day in Sir A. W. Pinero's Iris.

There is, almost inevitably, a distinct letting down with the Diaphanta episode of the fourth and fifth acts. The chemical test of virtue and the method by which Diaphanta is disposed of, strike us as excessively curious. The whole episode, indeed, is so far below the level of the preceding scenes that it can be justified only on the ground that it exhibits the swift degradation of Beatrice's character under the influence of De Flores. In V. i, we see how absolutely she accepts him as her equal. The introduction of Alonzo's ghost is a cheap device, but it calls forth a superb speech from De Flores:

Ha! what art thou that tak'st away the light Betwixt that star and me? I dread thee not; 'T was but a mist of conscience; all's clear again. In the last scene "rough Rowley's Esau hand," in Swinburne's fine phrase, is dis

cernible in the more labored movement of the verse, the overcharged language, and the physical violence. We do not object to the deaths of Beatrice and De Flores-only in a scene of terror could such a story end. But it is undeniable that the solution of the action is inferior to the complication.

The play stands comparison with the work of Webster and of Beaumont and Fletcher, with all but the very greatest of its time. Not even Webster, indeed, gave us such a masterly piece of character-drawing as De Flores; Bosola is faltering in comparison. Nor, though the Duchess of Malfi and Vittoria Corombona are magnificent in fortitude of virtue and of crime respectively, is Webster's analysis of his women so profound, his understanding of them so thorough, as Middleton's of Beatrice. Had the last two acts been written with the restraint and poetic beauty of the first three, it would not be with Webster's tragedy that we should be forced to compare The Changeling, but with Lear and Macbeth and Hamlet.

To follow still whilst she flies from me? Well,

Fates, do your worst, I'll please myself with sight

Of her at all opportunities,

If but to spite her anger. I know she had

Rather see me dead than living; and yet She knows no cause for 't but a peevish

will.

Als. You seem'd displeased, lady, on the

sudden.

Beat. Your pardon, sir, 't is my infirmity; Nor can I other reason render you

Than his or hers, of some particular thing They must abandon as a deadly poison, Which to a thousand other tastes were wholesome;

Such to mine eyes is that same fellow there,

The same that report speaks of the basilisk.3

Als. This is a frequent frailty in our nature;

There's scarce a man amongst a thousand found

But hath his imperfection: one distastes

2 forestall.

He's out of his place then now.
(They talk apart.)

I am a mad wag, wench.

So methinks; but for your comfort, I can tell you, we have a doctor in the city that undertakes the cure of such. Jas. Tush, I know what physic is best for the state of mine own body.

Dia.

'Tis scarce a well-govern'd state, I believe.

Jas. I could show thee such a thing with an ingredient that we two would compound together, and if it did not tame the maddest blood i' th' town for two hours after, I'll ne'er profess physic again. Dia. A little poppy, sir, were good to cause you sleep.

Jas. Poppy? I'll give thee a pop i' th' lips for that first, and begin there. Poppy is one simple 5 indeed, and cuckoo (what-you-call 't) another. I'll discover no more now; another time I'll show thee all.

4 claim skill in.

5 medicinal herb.