her, only to be fooled in the end. Fernando and Francisco, the brothers of the title, are in love with Felisarda and Jacinta, the niece and daughter of Don Carlos. But the Don will not favor Francisco, a second son with no patrimony, for his daughter; and so, to fool the old man, the brothers pretend to love the other brother's love. Don Carlos's son Luys comes home from the university with a friend named Alberto, a potential suitor for Jacinta's hand; and the Don favors the young student. The brothers' father Don Ramyres, ignorant of his sons' affections, suggests his elder son Fernando as a match for Jacinta, and Don Carlos prefers him over Alberto because he's richer; but then Fernando is displaced in Don Carlos's good graces by Don Pedro, an even wealthier candidate. Fernando tells his father of his love for the penniless Felisarda, and Don Ramyres pretends to disinherit him. Their romance revealed, Felisarda is sent away from her uncle's house to stay with Don Ramyres's household. Don Ramyres pretends to die, leaving Francisco as his heir and Fernando with only a meagre pension. Jacinta is to by married to the rich Don Pedro, a fool and braggart—but she disguises Don Pedro's cast-off love Estefania in her clothes and sends Estefania off to the church in her place. Jacinta then elopes with Francisco. At Luys's instigation, Alberto abducts the woman he thinks is Jacinta (actually Estefania) on her way to the marriage ceremony. Finding that he's been fooled and that Jacinta has eloped, the flexible Alberto marries Estefania (he's a more attractive match for her than Don Pedro). Don Carlos, confronted with the fact of a new son-in-law, takes rueful comfort in the idea that at least Francisco is an heir; Francisco, however, offers his patrimony to his older brother—who refuses it. The supposedly dead Don Ramyres suddenly re-appears, to announce that he's merely been testing his sons; and he blesses the marriages of both young men. As is usually the case with Caroline era plays, The Brothers shows links and commonalities with various earlier works; Forsythe cites Webster's The Devil's Law Case, Jonson's The Staple of News, the Beaumont/Fletcher play The Maid's Tragedy, and The London Prodigal, among others. Notes References Forsythe, Robert Stanley. The Relations of Shirley's Plays to the Elizabethan Drama. New York, Columbia University Press, 1914. Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S.