Some tower unvanquished, would they all vail;
’Gainst me swoln rumour hoisted every sail.
She crown’d with reverend praises, pass’d by them;
I, though with face mask’d, could not ‘scape the hem;
For, as if heav’n had set strange marks on whores,
Because they should be pointing-stocks to man,
Drest up in civilest shape, a courtesan,
Let her walk saint-like, noteless, and unknown,
Yet she’s betray’d by some trick of her own.’
Perhaps this sort of appeal to matter of fact and popular opinion, is more convincing than the scholastic subtleties of the Lady in Comus. The manner too, in which Infelice, the wife of Hippolito, is made acquainted with her husband’s infidelity, is finely dramatic; and in the scene where she convicts him of his injustice by taxing herself with incontinence first, and then turning his most galling reproaches to her into upbraidings against his own conduct, she acquits herself with infinite spirit and address. The contrivance, by which, in the first part, after being supposed dead, she is restored to life, and married to Hippolito, though perhaps a little far-fetched, is affecting and romantic. There is uncommon beauty in the Duke her father’s description of her sudden illness. In reply to Infelice’s declaration on reviving, ‘I’m well,’ he says,