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To conclude this discussion of the structural features of Brome's comedy, his dramatic motives should be mentioned. Three plays, the Northern Lass, the Court Begger, and Covent Garden Weeded, depend wholly upon expectation; no important surprise occurs. In all the others there is no use of surprise in the first four acts, but in the fifth there is always one surprise, usually in the identity of some character. This method is used several times by Jonson, notably in the Silent Woman. The Damoiselle has two surprises in the last act, and the Sparagus Garden three. Two of these last are prepared for by slight hints early in the play. This cheaper dramatic motive, is one of Brome's weaknesses, resulting from copying Jonson, who used it with real success but

once.

CHARACTERS

A perusal of any one of the plays will show that Brome has much more interest in plot itself, in devising and solving intricate situations, than his master, Jonson. He tries to carry out Jonson's principle in characterization, but he never allows his interest in humors to create a play of the type of Every Man in his Humor or Every Man out of his Humor. In fact, none of the Sons of Ben' attempted anything of the sort. However, Brome does introduce purely episodic humors into his plots.

Brome cared more for humor-study than any other of the Jonsonian imitators, and succeeded best in it. But his humors are nearly all imitations-stock characters of London life repeated over and over in this late period of the drama. Some of these characters portray touches of nature that make them stand out somewhat above their types, and show that Brome was an observer of

of his betters, is prone to convert his villain by main strength in the last scene. For this no preparation is likely to be adequate.'

men, though he lacked the creative impulse to break away from the conventional methods of depicting them.

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One of his favorite types is the jealous husband, a perennial figure in drama The four representatives in these plays have nothing distinguishing about them. There are four uninteresting foolish citizens 'wives, who are either indiscreet with their husbands' customers or pretend to be. Old knights who are still amorous, and decayed old gentlemen who live by projects or dishonorable employments, abound in the plays. The half-dozen of these, who bear such names as Sir Arnold Cautious and Sir Humphrey Dryground, are rather more disgusting than amusing, with the exception of old Hearty in the Jovial Crew. The blunt servingman' is a slightly drawn figure, who occurs in four plays. I imagine Brome's fondness for him may be caused by the fact that he himself was perhaps such a character when he was reading Tacitus to Ben Jonson; but this is dangerous dallying with surmise. The Puritan,1 the pedant, and the usurer, figure two or three times each. In his women-characters Brome is quite successful. The shrews, widows, nurse, silly lover of fashion, and foolish mother, as well as the bawd and the plentiful supply of eight harlots, all have an amusing self-assurance and great glibness of tongue. The last mentioned class of women are often drawn as rather pathetic creatures, with much good in them. Besides all these, there are one or two each of the class of ' wenchers,' projectors,1 a braggart, and a pickpocket. But Brome's best types are the foolish young countryman who comes to town to marry or to be made a gentleman, and is fleeced and made a fool of, the blunt old country gentleman, and the old justice. There are about seven in the first class, and a dozen in the last two. These old men with some special crotchet are the most amusing 1 See appendix II.

characters of the comedies, but repeated so often that there is too little variety in them.

In all this array of characters there is little originality. Not that they are feebly drawn, for there is considerable vigor in Brome's pen at times, but we have seen people with these same exaggerated peculiarities from the miracle plays to Jonson. About the best individual figures are Mrs. Pyannet Sneakup, a very good caricature of a shrew, in the City Wit; Constance, in the Northern Lass; and Springlove, in the Jovial Crew.' The last two are Brome's

only original contributions in the way of characterdrawing to English drama. Constance is a pathetic figure with a freshness, simplicity, and naturalness that are markedly contrasted with the rather unwholesome atmosphere of the most of Brome. She is the only example in all the comedies, of unsophistication made charming. Rev. Ronald Bayne suggests that the seventeenth century saw in her some of the charm of the heroines of Scott. The Yorkshire dialect she speaks adds much to this. Springlove is the best figure in Brome's best play; Charles Lamb speaks with some enthusiasm of him in a review of the play in 1819.2 Springlove is a gipsy, whom civilization has been unable to subdue. The love of the fields and woods and the call of the open road suggest the late nineteenth-century theme of vagabondia.3

1 Walter Baetke (Kindergestalten bei den Zeitgenossen und Nachfolgern Shakespeare's, Halle, 1908, pp. 73–76) considers Gonzago in the Queen and Concubine an original type of the child in drama, a creation of Brome's.

2 The Examiner, July 4, 5, 1819 (Works, ed. Lucas, 1. 186). 3 In connection with this notice of types of character I may mention Brome's use of dialect and foreign phrases. The Northern Lass contains a great deal of Yorkshire dialect; the Lancashire Witches considerable fairly accurate Lancashire; and the Sparagus Garden a little of the ordinary clown-dialect (Somersetshire ?)

REALISM AND ROMANCE

The chief interest in Brome's work to-day as drama is, of course, historic rather than intrinsic, but it also has a real interest to the student of the manners of the seventeenth century. In reading with this interest, one must be careful to remember that the realism' of the comedy with a complicated intrigue becomes almost as artificial and as divorced from actual life as work that is frankly romantic. The exigencies of such plots as Brome is fond of bring about situations that probably occurred as seldom in the life of the seventeenth century as in that of to-day. For instance, the association on the stage of women of character with harlots, a common situation in Brome, probably does not reflect the manners of the age. Likewise, the presence of gentlewomen at taverns was a much rarer thing in life than in Brome's comedies. Artificialities of this sort become dramatic conventions, just as types of characters do.

The student who reads Brome for manners must carefully consider this point. But there are some scenes which are doubtless transcripts of the daily life of England under Charles I. Such scenes are that in which a rabble duck a pandar in the Damoiselle (4. 1); that in which an old woman is ducked for scolding (in this case, however, a 'manscold') in the Antipodes; the very realistic tavernscenes in Covent Garden Weeded1 and the Sparagus Garden, and the scenes at an academy of deportment in the New

so frequently used by the Elizabethan dramatists. Some French and French English occurs in the Damoiselle, and one or two German phrases in the Novella. (For a complete list of dialect words, etc. see E. Eckhardt, Die Dialekt- und Ausländertypen des Alteren Englischen Dramas, Louvain, 1910-11). The City Wit has a great deal of Latin, and the Jovial Crew several scenes written in beggars' cant.

1 In 3. 1, an interesting tavern-bill is itemized.

Academy. At scenes of this sort Brome is very successful. In fact, the historian of society will find more for his purpose in Brome than in Jonson, who saw more humor in universal foibles than in ephemeral conditions.

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Realism was Brome's most congenial field, but, like Shirley, a typical playwright, he tried his hand at whatever was popular. As romance was in great demand through the latter half of the period of his activity, he made several attempts at two or three varieties of romantic plays. In the prologue to the Northern Lass he says that he is capable of serious work, and in the prologue to the Sparagus Garden, actually promises something to take graver judgment.' This, I suppose, he attempted to fulfill in the three tragi-comedies. These Fletcherian imitations have been moderately praised by Ward, Schelling, and Rev. Ronald Bayne. The earliest, the Lovesick Court, is a mediocre piece of work, but the other two, the Queen's Exchange and the Queen and the Concubine, are really interesting, in spite of the fact that Brome's poetry has no distinction. All three plays show the skill in plotting that I have commented on in speaking of the comedies of manners.

Of the three romantic comedies of intrigue, the Novella is the least interesting. There is no Jonsonian influence discernible, but the plot has the intricacy almost always characteristic of Brome. In the English Moor, a well constructed main plot, of very good comedy of its type, is combined with a highly romantic underplot suitable for a tragi-comedy. The combination is not happy, but the plots separated might make two good plays. The piece is particularly interesting as an experiment. Brome,

1 This, again, may be purely an artificial invention. Shirley, who has anticipated Brome here in his Love-Tricks, or the Academy of Compliments (1625), may have developed the idea from Cynthia's Revels.

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