ETWEEN the publication of the first, and of the second, parts of The Honest Whore, a quarter of a century passed. The first part appeared in 1604, having the sub-title "With the Humours of the Patient Man, and the Longing Wife." In 1630 followed the second part, in which the sub-title is further expanded: "With the Humours of the Patient Man, the Impatient Wife: the Honest Whore, persuaded by strong arguments to turne Courtesan again : her brave refuting those Arguments. -And lastly, the Comical Passages of an Italian Bridewell, where the scene ends." Both title-pages give Dekker's name alone as author, although from a passage in Henslow's Diary, we learn that Middleton collaborated with him in the play.

It is impossible now to decide exactly what Middleton's share was, but it was certainly inconsiderable. Mr. Bullen points out, in his introduction to Middleton's works, the close resemblance between the scene where Bellafront prepares for her visitors, and the first scene in the 3rd Act of Middleton's Michaelmas Term; but this play did not appear until three years after the first part of Dekker's. Still the fact of Middleton's repeating the scene, goes to show that he had some special share in it, and certain other scenes in the first part are somewhat reminiscent of his style, as those in Acts I. and III., indicated by Mr. Bullen, where the gallants try to irritate Candido. The second part contains nothing that I should be inclined to allot to Middleton, agreeing in this with Mr. Swinburne, who remarks that it " seems SO thoroughly of one piece and pattern, so apparently the result of one man's invention and composition, that without more positive evidence I should hesitate to assign a share in it to any colleague of the poet under whose name it first

appeared." Mr. J. Addington Symonds has conjectured that the work as a whole has "the movement of one of Middleton's acknowledged plays," and it is possible that the main direction of the plot may have owed something to his more restraining dramatic sense of form. However this may be, the essential heart and spirit of the play are Dekker's beyond all question. Bellafront, Matheo, Friscobaldo, Candido, are creatures not to be mistaken; and their interplay is managed throughout in Dekker's individual manner. The source whence these, with the rest of the characters and episodes of the play, have been derived, has not been discovered: they were no doubt transcribed from life, and their secret lies hidden probably in Dekker's brain alone.

"There is in the second part of The Honest Whore, where Bellafront, a reclaimed harlot, recounts some of the miseries of her profession, a simple picture of honour and shame, contrasted without violence, and expressed without immodesty, which is worth all the strong lines against the harlot's profession, with which both parts of this play are offensively crowded. A satirist is always to be suspected, who, to make vice odious, dwells upon all its acts and minutest circumstances with a sort of relish and retrospective fondness. But so near are the boundaries of panegyric and invective, that a worn-out sinner is sometimes found to make the best declaimer against sin. The same high-seasoned descriptions, which in his unregenerate state served but to inflame his appetites, in his new province of a moralist will serve him, a little turned, to expose the enormity of those appetites in other men."-C. LAMB: Specimens of English Dramatic Poets.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

GASPARO TREBAZZI, Duke of Milan.

HIPPOLITO, a Count.

CASTRUCHIO.

SINEZI.

PIORATTO.

FLUELLO.

MATHEO.

BENEDICT, a Doctor.
ANSELMO, a Friar.

FUSTIGO, Brother of VIOLA.
CANDIDO, a Linen-draper.

GEORGE, his Servant.

First Prentice,

Second Prentice.

CRAMBO.

Рон.

ROGER, Servant of BELLA FRONT.

Porter,

Sweeper.

Madmen, Servants, &c.

INFELICE, Daughter of the Duke.

BELLAFRONT, a Harlot.

VIOLA, Wife of Candido.

Mistress FINGERLOCK, a Bawd.

SCENE-MILAN and the Neighbourhood.