two men almost go to law over the issue (allowing for some satire on lawyers in the process), before Justice Woodroff, in a sort of mock-trial in a tavern, rules that the baby does not belong to either of the men, but to Urse, his mother. Compass and Urse renew their vows in the final scene, to make a new start as a family. The easy amorality of the subplot distressed Victorian critics such as Swinburne and Gosse. Modern readers may tend to take the opposite approach, and judge the main plot's ethic of chastity, honour, and duelling far less humane and palatable than Compass's live-and-let-live ethos. References External links A Cure for a Cuckold – Online version of the text, ed. F. L. Lucas (1927), University of Oxford Text Archive. English Renaissance plays 1620s plays Plays by John Webster Plays by William Rowley