Haz. If I'm infectious, 'tis alone with Love; And then no wonder, if like those who bear To infect you with the same Disease! Mrs. Man. I bear thy spots already in my Fame : Dryden, surely, at once in cast of thought, in turn of phrase, in ring and swing of metre. And so long, all conclude you may be cur'd. I can bring Cordials to restore your honour, But you shun your Physitian. Mrs. Man. No, my Condition's desperate; 'tis past help. I am undone for ever. Haz. How many Women whose names stand white in the Records of Fame, have acted willingly what you were wrought by fraud to suffer; only they keep it from the publique knowledge, and therefore they are innocent. How many Fair ones, were this your story acted in a Play, would come to see it sitting by their Husbands, and secretly accuse themselves of more. So full of spots and brakes is humane life, but only we see all things by false lights, which hide defects, and gloss 'ore what's amiss.-Grant me your Love once more, and I will yet restore your Honour: You shall appear as vertuous and innocent, as you are fair and charming. Mrs. Man. How dar'st thou move so impudent a Suit, Haz. Or hope the least success in't! Can I think I grant I am a Thief, and who so proper To give [? back] Wealth, as he who robb'd you of it? And does not that deserve some recompence. Love me, and let me get a new possession From knowledge of that good your Error gave me, Mrs. Man. Never, name it no more; no prayers shall ever win me. Ilaz. No Sophistry seduce, or Tortures force me To one dishonest act, now known dishonest! it; Qu, for it read yet? Haz. Mrs. Man. Haz. Shall reach no farther than my self; expect And I'le forgive you what is past: and sometimes And is this all that I must ever hope? This is too much! Have pitty on me, and demand no more: Leave me some Love for him who should have all: And more undone me in this short visionary joy Mrs. Man. Then Farewel! Farewel the mutual ruine of each other: And scarce forbear to strike a second time. (Exeunt severally.) Act IV., Scene V. Here assuredly, as a critic of the period could hardly have let pass the occasion to remark with a dignified complacency, "vocem comœdia tollit." The compound of coarseness with sincerity, the default of depth, intensity, or pathos in the passion of this scene, the strenuous simplicity of style, its downright straightforwardness and sturdy fervour of plain speech and frank feeling, mark it in my mind as neither unlikely nor unworthy to be the work of its possible author. Almost I am persuaded to say Mine eye hath well examined its parts, And finds them perfect Dryden. A reader must be very imperfectly imbued with the spirit or skilled in the manner of his work, who imagines that the sole representative and distinctive qualities of his tragic or serious dramatic verse are to be sought or found in the resonant reverberations of amoebaan rant which roll and peal in prolonged and portentous echoes of fulminant epigram through the still dilating dialogue of his yet not undelightful heroic plays. It was not till sixteen years after its publication that Dryden found it necessary, not to disown his partnership in this comedy, but to disclaim the imputation of its single authorship, by the issue of "the following Advertisement," (according to Malone, Life of Dryden, 1800, p. 56) prefixed to King Arthur, 4to, 1691: “Finding that several of my friends in buying my plays, &c. bound together, have been imposed on by the booksellers foisting in a play which is not mine, [THE MISTAKEN HUSBAND,] I have here, to prevent this for the future, set down a catalogue of my plays and poems in quarto, putting the plays in the order I wrote them. "JOHN DRYDEN." The absence from this advertisement of any contradiction to the statement put forward by the original publisher seems to afford some additional grain of evidence that (in the famous phrase of Heywood) he had, if not a hand, at least a finger in the play. I do not flatter myself that the little windfall I have here picked up will be taken as an especially thankworthy godsend by any student of our incomparable and inexhaustible dramatic literature. What I have done has been done simply out of that respect for a great man's memory which informs almost anything that relates to him with more or less interest for us all: Ad Majorem D[ryd]e[n]i Gloriam: to the glory of Glorious John. A. C. SWINBURNE, 424 THE SCIENCE OF LIKENESSES IN AND ITS MEANINGS. N a former article1 it was shown, incidentally to the subject of limbs and their nature, that science makes it a duty of the highest importance to discover and trace the resemblances which frequently exist between apparently diverse and unlike structures. Such likenesses were illustrated by a reference to the similarity which could readily be found to exist between such outwardly unlike organs as the arm of man, the wing of the bird, the foreleg of the horse, the paddle of the whale or dolphin, and the wing of the bat. In a minor degree also, but still provable from the same standpoint, the paired fins of fishes could be shown to agree with the limbs of other animals to which they present no obvious affinities. Beneath the diverse appearances of limbs, one and the same type thus appears to exist. An examination of the hard parts, or skeletons, of these appendages, readily reveals the likeness which adaptation to diverse conditions of life has produced. In connection with the limblikenesses discussed on the occasion referred to, certain important considerations connected with the meaning of such similarities were briefly noted. How, or why, a common type or plan should be discernible beneath well-nigh endless variety of outward form and function, was a question which naturally obtruded itself upon the notice of the scientific observer. Such a query, it was remarked, presented, like so many other matters of scientific interest, but two methods of solution. In the one case the reply might take the form of the unquestioning and tacit assumption that such things were so formed from the beginning according to some ideal plan, or type-for the construction of which type, however, no reason can be assigned. "Conformity to a type" is an expression which merely restates what everybody admits, and what the examination of the limbs, on any hypothesis, plainly shows. To say that things "were created so" presents a complete parallel to the famous "woman's reason" in the See article "Tails, Limbs, and Lungs," Gentleman's Magazine for March 1880. "Two Gentlemen of Verona ;" or to Tom Brown's equally renowned explanation of the dislike to Dr. Fell-a parody, by the way, on Martial Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare; Turning to the other side of the question, all that is mysterious and inexplicable on the special-creation hypothesis, becomes clear enough on that of "development" and "modification." By the idea of development is implied the derivation of the similar forms, or parts, from some common type, through natural laws of heritage and descent. By "modification," or "adaptation," we mean to indicate the secondary power which, seizing the common type, moulds the structure-limb or body-to the special way of life in which the being is destined or directed to walk. If the latter idea be correct or feasible, we can readily assign a reason why limbs, or any other series of structures in a given set of animals, should present such a close likeness. "Conformity to type" is no meaningless expression when used by the evolutionist. By his theory he views this conformity as a proof of the bloodrelationship-far or near, as .the case may be of the animals which exhibit the likeness in question. Such similarity is a proof of affinity, which can only be accounted for, in all its bearings, on the supposition that the beings exhibiting it are really kith and kin, but of varying degrees of relationship. It can readily be understood how important in the eyes of the modern naturalist this study of likenesses has become, since the facts it reveals largely assist him in constructing the true pedigree of the living world. There are many other considerations which serve to show the important nature of such a branch of inquiry-an importance equalled only by the interest which its pursuit is certain to evoke. When, for instance, it can be found that two organs so utterly unlike as the air-bladder of a fish and the lungs of a man are in reality closely connected in their nature, the information which the study of likenesses places at our disposal is seen to be of a kind which tends very materially to extend the knowledge that Bacon declared tended to "the relief of man's estate." And the task of seeking and finding resemblances has had its due effect in solving not a few of the puzzles of biology. Only from the considerations it brings to view, and through the influence of the new way in which it compels us to regard forms and organs, has the mystery of such a subject as that of "rudimentary organs" been dispelled. The splint bones of a horse, when examined by the light of this study, guide us to the history of |