The plays of Middleton still to be mentioned may be divided into romantic and realistic comedies of London Life. Dekker had as wide a knowledge of city manners, but he was more sympathetic in treatment, readier to idealize his subject. Two New Playes. Viz.: More Dissemblers besides Women. Women beware W omen, of which the former was licensed before 1622, appeared in 1657. The plot of W omen beware W omen is a double intrigue from a contemporary novel, Hyppolito and Isabella, and the genuine his tory of Bianca Capello and Francesco de Medici. This play, which ends with a massacre appalling even in Elizabethan drama, may be taken as giving the measure—no mean one—of Middle ton's unaided power in tragedy.
The remaining plays of Middleton are: Blurt. Master-Constable, Or the Spaniards Night-walke (1601-02) ; Michaelmas Terme (16o6?), described by A. C. Swinburne as an excellent Hogarthian comedy ; The Phoenix (1607), a version of the Haroun-al-Raschid trick; A Trick to catch the Old One (1606-07) ; The Famelie of Love (played between 1604 and 1607: pr., 1608) ; A Mad World, my Masters (C. 1606; pr., 1608) ; Your five Gallants (1607 ?, pr. 1608) ; A Chast Mayde in Cheapside (1612 ? pr., 1630), notable for the picture of Tim, the Cambridge student, on his return home ; Anything for a Quiet Life (c. 1617, printed 1662) ; No Wit, No Help like a Woman's (c. 1613, printed 1657) ; The Widdow (printed 1652), on the title-page of which appear also the names of Ben Jonson and John Fletcher, though their collaboration may be doubted ; Bullen puts the date of its per formance in 1608-09. Eleven of his masques are extant. A tedious
poem, The Wisdom of Solomon paraphrased, by Thomas Middleton, was printed in 1597, and Microcynicon. Six Snarling Satires by T. M. Gent, in 1599. Two prose pamphlets, dealing with London life, Father Hubbard's Tale and The Black Book, appeared in 5604 under his initials. Thus non-dramatic work, even if genuine, has little value.