a dash of the Amazon—­so decided a cross of the male in her—­was ever so noble, credible and lovable as Bess Bridges:  and Plymouth ought really to do itself the honor of erecting a memorial to her poet.  An amusing instance of Heywood’s incomparable good-nature and sweetness of temper in dealing with the creatures of his genius—­incomparable I call it, because in Shakespeare the same beautiful quality is more duly tempered and toned down to more rational compliance with the demands of reason and probability, whether natural or dramatic—­is here to be recognized in the redemption of a cowardly bully, and his conversion from a lying ruffian into a loyal and worthy sort of fellow.  The same gallant spirit of sympathy with all noble homeliness of character, whether displayed in joyful search of adventure or in manful endurance of suffering and wrong, informs the less excellently harmonious and well-built play which bears the truly and happily English title of “Fortune by Land and Sea.”  It has less romantic interest than the later adventures of the valiant Bess and her Spencer with the amorous King of Fez and his equally erratic consort; not to mention the no less susceptible Italians among whom their lot is subsequently cast:  but it is a model of natural and noble simplicity, of homely and lively variety.  There is perhaps more of the roughness and crudity of style and treatment which might be expected from Rowley than of the humaner and easier touch of Heywood in the conduct of the action:  the curious vehemence and primitive brutality of social or domestic tyranny may recall the use of the same dramatic motives by George Wilkins in “The Miseries of Enforced Marriage”:  but the mixture or fusion of tender and sustained emotion with the national passion for enterprise and adventure is pleasantly and peculiarly characteristic of Heywood.

In “The Wise Woman of Hogsdon” the dramatic ability of Heywood, as distinct from his more poetic and pathetic faculty, shows itself at its best and brightest.  There are not many much better examples of the sort of play usually defined as a comedy of intrigue, but more properly definable as a comedy of action.  The special risk to which a purveyor of this kind of ware must naturally be exposed is the tempting danger of sacrificing propriety and consistency of character to effective and impressive suggestions or developments of situation or event; the inclination to think more of what is to happen than of the persons it must happen to—­the characters to be actively or passively affected by the concurrence or the evolution of circumstances.  Only to the very greatest of narrative or dramatic artists in creation and composition can this perilous possibility be all but utterly unknown.  Poets of the city no less than poets of the court, the homely Heywood as well as the fashionable Fletcher, tripped and fell now and then over this awkward stone of stumbling—­a very rock of offence to readers of a more exacting