eal to sham. On the other hand, he is of all the Pre-
Shakespeareans known to us incomparably the truest, the richest, the most
powerful and original humourist; one indeed without a second on that
ground, for "the rest are nowhere." Now Marlowe, it need scarcely be
once again reiterated, was as certainly one of the least and worst among
jesters as he was one of the best and greatest among poets. There can
therefore be no serious question of his partnership in a play wherein the
comic achievement is excellent and the poetic attempts are execrable
throughout.

The recast of it in which a greater than Berni has deigned to play the
part of that poet towards a lesser than Bojardo shows tact and delicacy
perhaps without a parallel in literature. No chance of improvement is
missed, while nothing of value is dropped or thrown away. {125} There is
just now and then a momentary return perceptible to the skipping metre
and fantastic manner of the first period, which may have been
unconsciously suggested by the nature of the task in hand--a task of
itself implying or suggesting some new study of old models; but the main
style of the play in all its weightier parts is as distinctly proper to
the second period, as clear an evidence of inner and spiritual affinity
(with actual tabulation of dates, were such a thing as feasible as it is
impossible, I must repeat that the argument would here be--what it is
now--in no wise concerned), as is the handling of character throughout;
but most especially the subtle force, the impeccable and careful
instinct, the masculine delicacy of touch, by which the somewhat
ruffianly temperament of the original Ferando is at once refined and
invigorated through its transmutation into the hearty and humorous
manliness of Petruchio's.

It is observable that those few and faint traces which we have noticed in
this play of a faded archaic style trying as it were to resume a mockery
of revirescence are not wholly even if mainly confined to the underplot
which a suggestion or surmise of Mr. Collier's long since assigned to
Haughton, author of _Englishmen for my Money, or A Woman will have her
Will_: a spirited, vigorous, and remarkably regular comedy of intrigue,
full of rough and ready incident, bright boisterous humour, honest lively
provinciality and gay high-handed Philistinism. To take no account of
this attribution would be to show myself as shamelessly as shamefully
deficient in that respect and gr