To the actor-dramatist may be set down the prose of II, ii without question. Massinger practically never uses prose, which is liberally employed by Field, as is the almost indistinguishable prose-or-verse by which a transition is made from one medium to the other. The dialogue between Beaumelle and her maids is strikingly like that between two “gentlewomen” in _The Knight of Malta_, I, ii--a Scene generally recognized as by his hand; the visit of Novall Junior which follows is like a page out of his earlier comedies. Notable resemblances are ll. 177-8, _Uds-light! my lord, one of the purls of your band is, without all discipline, fallen out of his rank_, with _I have seen him sit discontented a whole play because one of the purls of his band was fallen out of his reach to order again_. (_Amends for Ladies_, M. 455); and l. 104, _they skip into my lord’s cast skins some twice a year_, with _and then my lord_ (_like a snake_) _casts a suite every quarter, which I slip into_: (_Woman is a Weathercock_, M. 374). The song, after l. 131, recalls that in _Amends for Ladies_, M. 465.
Of the verse which follows, most of the observations made in regard to the preceeding Scene are applicable. The comic touch in the midst of Romont’s tirade (ll. 174-206) against old Novall, when the vehemence of his indignation leads him to seek at every breath the epithet of a different beast for his foe, is surely Field’s, not Massinger’s. A Field scene of _The Queen of Corinth_, D. V, 438, parallels with its _Thou a gentleman! thou an ass_, the construction of l. 276, while there too is duplicated the _true-love knots_ of l. 314, though in a rather grotesque connection. The verse tests are confirmative of Field: 21 per cent. double endings; 19 per cent, run-on lines. While a few resemblances to phrases occurring somewhere in the works of Massinger can be marked here and there in the 355 lines of the Scene, they are not such as would demand consideration, nor are more numerous than sheer chance would yield in the case of a writer so prolific as the “stage-poet.” The parallel between ll. 284-297 and a passage from _The Unnatural Combat_ is pointed out under the head of DATE, and one of several possible explanations for this coincidence is there offered. These lines in _The Fatal Dowry_ are as unmistakably Field’s as any verse in the entire play; their short, abruptly broken periods and their rapid flow are as characteristic of him as the style of their analogue in _The Unnatural Combat_ is patently Massingerian.