Recent opinion holds that the Jonson wrote the play in the era when it premiered, the early 1630s, and that its apparently archaic aspects are deliberate artistic choices on the author's part.
[1] For modern critics and scholars, a primary focus of interest in the play is Jonson's ridicule of Inigo Jones as "In-and-In Medlay".
The plot, which unfolds on St. Valentine's Day, concerns the inept attempts of a variety of suitors to win the hand of Audrey Turfe, the daughter of a Middlesex constable.
To break Audrey's engagement to John Clay the tilemaker, Squire Tub, a romantic rival, has the man falsely accused of theft.
As Constable Turfe pursues the innocent man, yet another suitor, Justice Preamble, plays a comparable ruse against Squire Tub.