Cf. also Induction to The Malcontent; Induction to The Staple of News; Induction to Cynthia's Revels; Fitzdottrel in The Devil is an Ass, I., 3; Induction to Knight of the Burning Pestle; Woman-Hater, I., 3; Prologue to All Fools; and Dekker's The Guls Horne-booke, Chapter VI.
N. S. S., xxvi. 584. The “run-on” line ends with a preposition or other word which syntactically requires the next line. Take as an example Fatal Dowry, V., 2, 255:
For the fact, as of
The former, I confess it; but with what
Base wrongs I was unwillingly drawn to it,
To my few words there are some other proofs
To witness this for truth.
The “double” or “feminine” ending is the outstanding feature of Fletcher's verse. Cf. Fatal Dowry, V., 2, 137:
Rochfort. You say you are sorry for him;
A grief in which I must not have a partner.
'Tis I alone am sorry, that when I raised
The building of my life, for seventy years,
Upon so sure a ground, that all the vices
Practised to ruin man, though brought against me,
Could never undermine, and no way left
To send these grey hairs to the grave with sorrow,
Virtue, that was my patroness, betrayed me.
(Gifford inserts “when” in that third line.)
Five instances in nine lines. Fleay (Shakespeare Manual, p. 171) points out that in Shakspere's part of Henry VIII the proportion of double endings to blank verse is 1 to 3; in Fletcher's, 1 to 1·7. The weak and sugary effect of double endings is very apparent in Rowe's Fair Penitent, the eighteenth-century play, based on The Fatal Dowry.
Boyle (E. S., v. 74) takes six of Massinger's plays: The Unnatural Combat, The Duke of Milan, The Bondman, The City Madam, The Bashful Lover, and The Guardian. These are his conclusions: “The plays show in general a high percentage of double endings, generally 40 per cent, or more. The percentage of run-on lines is a little lower, but seldom sinks for more than a scene below 30 per cent. The light and weak endings together make 5 to 7 per cent. The versification is exquisitely musical. There are very few rhymes.” The corresponding figures for Fletcher are: double endings, over 50 per cent.; run-on lines, under 20 per cent.; and light and weak endings almost negligible; rhyme, rare. Shakspere in his later manner (e.g., The Tempest) has 33 per cent. double endings. (E. S., vi. 71.)
Dr. Bradley (Oxford Lectures, pp. 373-4) minimizes the objections to this custom, without, however, dwelling on the moral problem. Cf. also Mr. Percy Simpson's remarks in Shakspere's England, ii., p. 246. Prynne deals with it (Histriomastix, ed. 1633, pp. 214-216). He allows, reluctantly, that “men actors in women's attire are not altogether so bad, so discommendable as women stage-players,” but goes on to say: “since both of them are evill, yea extremely vitious, neither of them necessary, both superfluous as all playes and players are; the superabundant sinfulnesse of the one, can neither justifie the lawfulnesse, nor extenuate the wickednesse of the other.... This should rather bee the conclusion, both of them are abominable, both intolerable, neither of them laudable or necessary; therefore both of them to bee abandoned, neither of them henceforth to be tollerated among Christians.”
Ford, in Love's Sacrifice (III., 2), refers to the novelty of women-antics—i.e., of women acting in masques. It is clear that Queen Henrietta Maria, with her passion for appearing on the stage in masques, however much she may have been before the times, must have caused great scandal to the Puritan party. The complications which sometimes arise from the use of men for female parts may be illustrated from Middleton's amusing play, The Widow, where Martia is disguised as a man, Ansaldo, and, to escape further complications, is subsequently disguised as a woman, being a boy all the time. We find the same thing in the second Luce in The Wise Woman of Hogsdon.