baldo, he strikes off a fresh, original, and masterly
creation, consistently sustained throughout, and charming us by its
lovableness, as well as thrilling us by its power; but generally his
sentiment and imagination break upon us in unexpected felicities,
strangely better than what surrounds them. These have been culled by the
affectionate admiration of Lamb, Hunt, and Hazlitt, and made familiar to
all English readers. To prove how much finer, in its essence, his genius
was than the genius of so eminent a dramatist as Massinger, we only need
to compare Massinger's portions of the play of "The Virgin Martyr" with
Dekkar's. The scene between Dorothea and Angelo, in which she recounts
her first meeting with him as a "sweet-faced beggar-boy," and the scene
in which Angelo brings to Theophilus the basket of fruits and flowers
which Dorothea has plucked in Paradise, are inexpressibly beautiful in
their exquisite subtlety of imagination and artless elevation of
sentiment. It is difficult to understand how a writer capable of such
refinements as these should have left no drama which is a part of the
classical literature of his country.

One of these scenes--that between Dorothea, the Virgin Martyr, and
Angelo, an angel who waits upon her in the disguise of a page--we cannot
refrain from quoting, familiar as it must be to many readers:--

"_Dor._ My book and taper.

"_Ang._ Here, most holy mistress.

"_Dor._ Thy voice bends forth such music, that I never
Was ravished with a more celestial sound.
Were every servant in the world like thee,
So full of goodness, angels would come down
To dwell with us; thy name is Angelo,
And like that name thou art. Get thee to rest;
Thy youth with too much watching is oppressed.

"_Ang._ No, my dear lady; I could weary stars,
And force the wakeful moon to lose her eyes,
By my late watching, but to wait on you.
When at your prayers you kneel before the altar,
Methinks I'm singing with some quire in heaven,
So blest I hold me in your company.
Therefore, my most loved mistress, do not bid
Your boy, so serviceable, to get hence,
For then you break his heart.

"_Dor._ Be nigh me still then.
In golden letters down I'll set that day
Which gave thee to me. Little did I hope
To meet such worlds of comfort in thyself,
This little pretty body, when I, coming
Forth of the temple, heard my beggar-boy,