('the man looks as if he thought so and so,') expressed in the language of the satirist, and not in that of the man himself:
Sylli. You may, madam,
Perhaps, believe that I in this use art
To make you dote upon me, by exposing
My more than most rare features to your view;
But I, as I have ever done, deal simply,
A mark of sweet simplicity, ever noted
In the family of the Syllis. Therefore, lady,
Look not with too much contemplation on me;
If you do, you are in the suds.
Maid of Honour, act i. sc. 2.
The author mixes his own feelings and judgments concerning the presumed fool; but the man himself, till mad, fights up against them, and betrays, by his attempts to modify them, that he is no fool at all, but one gifted with activity and copiousness of thought, image and expression, which belong not to a fool, but to a man of wit making himself merry with his own character.
5.
There is an utter want of preparation in the decisive acts of Massinger's characters, as in Camiola and Aurelia in the
Maid of Honour
. Why? Because the
dramatis personae
were all planned each by itself. Whereas in Shakspeare, the play is
syngenesia;