or less inevitable than the results of Shakespeare’s:  but the dragnet of murder which gathers in the characters at the close of this play is as promiscuous in its sweep as that cast by Cyril Tourneur over the internecine shoal of sharks who are hauled in and ripped open at the close of “The Revenger’s Tragedy.”  Had Middleton been content with the admirable subject of his main action, he might have given us a simple and unimpeachable masterpiece:  and even as it is he has left us a noble and memorable work.  It is true that the irredeemable infamy of the leading characters degrades and deforms the nature of the interest excited:  the good and gentle old mother whose affectionate simplicity is so gracefully and attractively painted passes out of the story and drops out of the list of actors just when some redeeming figure is most needed to assuage the dreariness of disgust with which we follow the fortunes of so meanly criminal a crew:  and the splendid eloquence of the only other respectable person in the play is not of itself sufficient to make a living figure, rather than the mere mouthpiece for indignant emotion, of so subordinate and inactive a character as the Cardinal.  The lower comedy of the play is identical in motive with that which defaces the master-work of Ford:  more stupid and offensive it hardly could be.  But the high comedy of the scene between Livia and the Widow is as fine as the best work in that kind left us by the best poets and humorists of the Shakespearean age; it is not indeed unworthy of the comparison with Chaucer’s which it suggested to the all but impeccable judgment of Charles Lamb.

The lack of moral interest and sympathetic attraction in the characters and the story, which has been noted as the principal defect in the otherwise effective composition of “Women Beware Women,” is an objection which cannot be brought against the graceful tragicomedy of “The Spanish Gipsy.”  Whatever is best in the tragic or in the romantic part of this play bears the stamp of Middleton’s genius alike in the sentiment and the style.  “The code of modern morals,” to borrow a convenient phrase from Shelley, may hardly incline us to accept as plausible or as possible the repentance and the redemption of so brutal a ruffian as Roderigo:  but the vivid beauty of the dialogue is equal to the vivid interest of the situation which makes the first act one of the most striking in any play of the time.  The double action has some leading points in common with two of Fletcher’s, which have nothing in common with each other:  Merione in “The Queen of Corinth” is less interesting than Clara, but the vagabonds of “Beggars’ Bush” are more amusing than Rowley’s or Middleton’s.  The play is somewhat deficient in firmness or solidity of construction:  it is, if such a phrase be permissible, one of those half-baked or underdone dishes of various and confused ingredients, in which the cook’s or the baker’s hurry has impaired the excellent materials of wholesome bread and savory meat.