THE LADY'S TRIAL.] This play was licensed by the master of the revels, and performed at the Cockpit, May 3d, 1638. It was printed in the following year, and apparently with so little care, that from many passages it is now scarcely possible to extract any sense. tues. Auria, a noble Genoese, among whose hairs "some messengers of time had took up lodgings," had wedded a lady whose only dowry was her youth, her beauty, and her virWhatever this union might do for the happiness, it did little for the fortunes of Auria. Rich banquetings and revels contributed to embarrass his circumstances, and he proposes to retrieve his fortunes by an expedition against the Turkish pirates. In a scene of great tenderness he commits his young wife, Spinella, to the joint care of his uncle Trelcatio and her sister Castanna, while with his faithful but suspicious friend Aurelio, he deposites a sum of money to be disposed of as the occasions of Spinella may require. Strong contrasts are the glory of dramatic writing: and if our old dramatists had not learned the secret from nature herself, they would have been taught it by their predecessors, the compilers of interludes and moralities, with whom nothing is more frequent than exhibitions of the strong contrasts between the good and evil appetites existing in the mind of man. Accordingly from this beautiful scene of conjugal tenderness the reader is presently transplanted to one of a very different nature; but which, though drawn up with infinite spirit, will hardly be understood at the first perusal without a little previous explanation. Levidolche, niece of Martino, a Genoese citizen, had married far below her condition in life, by giving her hand, while almost a mere girl, to one Benatzi, servant to a young lord of Genoa, by name Adurni. Disagreements soon occur between these unequal yoke-fellows; and Levidolche, divorced from Benatzi, gives herself up entirely to the arms of her late husband's young master, between whom and herself there appears to have been a previous intimacy. Not content with this substitute for her late lawful enjoyments, this warm specimen of a southern sun soon courts a newer pleasure; and a letter, descriptive of her inclinations, is pres |