It was dedicated to the Rt. Hon. George Dodington, Esq. In the Preface Theobald states that one of the copies in MS. is of above sixty years' standing. He goes on to say that there is a tradition that Shakspere wrote it—“in the time of his retirement from the stage.” The story is taken from a novel in Don Quixote, which appeared in 1611, five years before Shakspere's death. Theobald professes to allow that the colouring, diction, and characters come nearer to the style and manner of Fletcher.
Some writers[580] have supposed that Theobald in compiling [pg 205] this play used materials from a lost play by Massinger. The first thing we notice in it is that there are a good many prose scenes. This is unlike Massinger. In the second place, the metre is unlike Massinger's; it is simple and regular, and contains very few double endings or run-on lines. In Act II., 4, Leonora gives an important letter to her lover Julio, out of a window, to a “citizen” whom she does not know, by night. Is this improbable incident the sort of thing that Massinger would write?[581]
The whole play is an eighteenth-century effusion in the manner of Rowe. There is no trace of Fletcher or Massinger here.
Appendix XVI. Middleton's “A Trick To Catch The Old One”
A Trick to catch the Old One is a lively play, mainly written in prose, in which an air of plausibility is skilfully cast around a farcical plot. There can be no doubt that Massinger borrowed the idea of A New Way from Middleton, as well as a few expressions.[582] In both plays there are an uncle who has strained the law to deprive his nephew of his lands, a rich widow whose supposed affection for the nephew converts the uncle to make reparation, and creditors who have to be satisfied. The servants [pg 206] (A Trick, IV., 4) who are to discharge their duties in Hoard's new household may have suggested the group in Lady Allworth's house who supply a comic element. On the other hand, the two plays are constructed on very different lines. The central point of A Trick is the hatred of the two usurers, Lucre and Hoard, for one another, both being in the end cheated by the hero Witgood. In A New Way there is only one usurer, Sir Giles. A Trick, though well constructed, has a lame and hurried conclusion; and it is overloaded with minor characters, who help the action but little—in particular, the usurer Dampit seems to be introduced for no particular reason except to fill up the time with mediocre fun. The part played by the heroine, Joyce, is small and obscure. Then again, there can be no comparison between the slight figure of Hoard and the powerful creation of Sir Giles Overreach. Wellborn does nothing in the play that misbecomes a gentleman; the ingenuity with which he frames a plan to deceive his uncle leads us to believe that when he has repented his [pg 207] wild life he has the capacity to make good. His prototype, Witgood, on the other hand, is merely an amusing adventurer. Indeed, Middleton seems throughout to be pursuing with his vengeance the sharp practices of those who lend money to fast young men, and we certainly sympathize with his castigation of Lucre, Hoard, and Dampit. Massinger's widow is a lady of birth and title; Middleton's is a courtesan in disguise. When she marries Hoard, though we feel some satisfaction at the deception which has been practised on him, we cannot help asking ourselves as the characters retire to the conventional “wedding dinner” of an Elizabethan comedy, whether the solution would have worked in real life. The answer is, that while we have been much amused, we have been cheated by the author's great skill and vivacity into accepting an improbable plot. Massinger's play, on the other hand, contains little that might not have happened, and the conclusion is so arranged that there is every prospect of the characters living happily hereafter. While Middleton's play is a charming [pg 208] extravaganza, Massinger's has held the stage ever since. The one play can be acted now, the other cannot. This is not merely due to the fact that A New Way has more dignity and refinement than its predecessor, but it is because Massinger's characters behave like real beings.[583]
Appendix XVII
These two poems are copied from a folio MS. in the library of Trinity College, Dublin (G, 2, 21), containing compositions of Donne and other poets of the seventeenth century. They are to be found on pages 554-559. The handwriting is that of the seventeenth century. I have reproduced the original punctuation and spelling. Mr. Grosart published the poems in Englische Studien, No. xxvi. He says that the librarian of Trinity, Dr. T. K. Abbot, had grounds for supposing that the MS. had been in the possession of Trinity College for a century; he does not, however, state what the grounds are. As far as the dates go which are indicated in the volume, it might have passed into the library with other books from Archbishop Ussher's collection.
From the tone of line 16 of the first poem we may assume that it was addressed by Massinger when quite young to William, the third Earl of Pembroke.