It then enjoyed?

Shakespeare: Not poppy, nor mandragora,

Nor all the drowsy syrops of the world

Shall ever medecine thee to that sweet sleep

Which thou owedst yesterday.

Massinger’s is a general rhetorical question, the language just and pure, but colourless. Shakespeare’s has particular significance; and the adjective “drowsy” and the verb “medecine” infuse a precise vigour. This is, on Massinger’s part, an echo rather than an imitation or a plagiarism—the basest, because least conscious form of borrowing. “Drowsy syrop” is a condensation of meaning frequent in Shakespeare, but rare in Massinger.

Massinger: Thou didst not borrow of Vice her indirect,

Crooked, and abject means.

Shakespeare: God knows, my son,

By what by-paths and indirect crook’d ways