'Gamester.' Whether the examination be a pleasant business or not,
it is somewhat important; 'for,' says Mr. Dyce, 'the following
memorandum respecting it occurs in the office-book of the Master of
the Records:- "On Thursday night, 6th of February, 1633, 'The
Gamester' was acted at Court, made by Sherley out of a plot of the
king's, given him by mee, and well likte. The king sayd it was the
best play he had seen for seven years."'

This is indeed important. We shall now have an opportunity of fairly
testing at the same time the taste of the Royal Martyr and the
average merit, at least in the opinion of the Caroline court, of the
dramatists of that day.

The plot which Charles sent to Shirley as a fit subject for his muse
is taken from one of those collections of Italian novels of which we
have already had occasion to speak, and occurs in the second part of
the 'Ducento Novelle' of Celio Malespini; and what it is we shall see
forthwith.

The play opens with a scene between one Wilding and his ward
Penelope, in which he attempts to seduce the young lady, in language
which has certainly the merit of honesty. She refuses him, but
civilly enough; and on her departure Mrs. Wilding enters, who, it
seems, is the object of her husband's loathing, though young,
handsome, and in all respects charming enough. After a scene of
stupid and brutal insults, he actually asks her to bring Penelope to
him, at which she naturally goes out in anger; and Hazard, the
gamester, enters,--a personage without a character, in any sense of
the word. There is next some talk against duelling, sensible enough,
which arises out of a bye-plot,--one Delamere having been wounded in