patience; and there is often a want of coherence in his sentences, which amble down the page in a series of loosely-linked clauses.  I will not examine scene by scene in detail; for I must frankly confess that I feel myself sometimes at a loss to determine whether a particular passage is by Fletcher or Massinger.  Most of the impassioned parts belong, I think, to the former.  I would credit Massinger with the admirably conducted trial-scene in the fourth act; but the concluding scene of the play, where Barnavelt is led to execution, I would ascribe, without hesitation, to Fletcher.  In the scene (v. 1) where the French ambassador pleads for Barnavelt we recognise Massinger’s accustomed temperance and dignity.  To the graver writer, too, we must set down Leydenberg’s solemn and pathetic soliloquy (iii. 6), when by a voluntary death he is seeking to make amends for his inconstancy and escape from the toils of his persecutors.

There is no difficulty in fixing the date of the present play.  Barneveld was executed on May 13, 1619, and the play must have been written immediately afterwards, when all Christendom was ringing with the news of the execution.  In the third scene of the first act there is a marginal note signed “G.B.”  The initials are unquestionably those of Sir George Buc, Master of the Revels from 1610 to 1622.[141] On comparing the note with an autograph letter[142] of Sir George’s I find the hand-writing to correspond exactly.  The date, therefore, cannot be later than 1622, but the probability is that the play was produced at Michaelmas, 1619.

In our own day the great Advocate’s fame, which had been allowed to fall into neglect, has been revived with splendour by Mr. Motley, whose “Life of John of Barneveld” is a monument aere perennius of loving labour, masterful grasp, and rare eloquence.  Had the dramatists been in possession of a tithe of the facts brought to light from mouldering state documents by the historian, they would have regarded Barneveld’s faults with a milder eye, and shown more unqualified praise for his great and noble qualities.  But they are to be commended in that they saw partially through the mists of popular error and prejudice; that they refused to accept a caricature portrait, and proclaimed in unmistakable accents the nobility of the fallen Advocate.  Perhaps it is not so strange that this tragedy dropped from sight.  Its representation certainly could not have been pleasing to King James; for that murderous, slobbering, detestable villain had been untiring in his efforts to bring about Barneveld’s ruin.

Throughout the play there are marks of close political observation.  To discover the materials from which the playwrights worked up their solid and elaborate tragedy would require a more extensive investigation than I care to undertake.  An account of Barneveld’s trial, defence, and execution may be found in the following tracts:—­