A prince there newly crowned, aptly inclined
To any bendings: lest his youthful brows
Reach at stars only, weigh down his loftiest boughs
With leaden plummets, poison his best thoughts with taste
Of things most sensual: if the heart once waste,
The body feels consumption: good or bad kings
Breed subjects like them: clear streams flow from clear springs.
Turn therefore Naples to a puddle: with a civil
Much promising face, and well oiled, play the court devil.

The vigorous melody of these "masculine numbers" is not more remarkable
for its virile force and honied fluency than is the lighter dialogue of
the play for such brilliant wit or lambent humor as flashes out in
pleasantries like this:

_King_. What are you, and whence come you?

_Rufman_. From Helvetia.

_Spendola_. What hell says he?

_Jovinelli_. Peace; you shall know hot hell [_sic_] time enough.

"I hope here be proofs" that my strictures on the worst work of a poet
whose best work I treasure so heartily, and whose best qualities I rate
so highly, are rather too sparing than too severe.]

This supernatural and "superlunatical" attempt at serious farce or
farcical morality marks the nadir of Dekker's ability as a dramatist.
The diabolic part of the tragicomic business is distinctly inferior to