Philip Massinger
By
A. H. Cruickshank
Sometime Scholar and Fellow of New College, Oxford
Canon of Durham, and Professor of Greek and Classical Literature, in the
University of Durham
Oxford
Basil Blackwell, Broad Street
1920
CONTENTS
Dedication
Preface
Philip Massinger
Appendix I. The Small Actor In Massinger’s Plays
Appendix II
Appendix III. The Collaborated Plays
Appendix IV. On The Influence Of Shakspere
Appendix V. Warburton’s List
Appendix VI. A Metrical Peculiarity In Massinger
Appendix VII. “Believe As You List”
Appendix VIII. Collation Of Ms. Of “Believe As You List”
Appendix IX. “The Parliament Of Love”
Appendix X. The Authorship Of “The Virgin Martyr”
Appendix XI. The Authorship Of “The Fatal Dowry”
Appendix XII. The Tragedy Of “Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt”
Appendix XIII. “The Second Maiden’s Tragedy”
Appendix XIV. “The Powerful Favorite”
Appendix XV. “Double Falsehood”
Appendix XVI. Middleton’s “A Trick To Catch The Old One”
Appendix XVII
Appendix XVIII. Alliteration In Massinger
Appendix XIX
Appendix XX. Bibliography
Index
Footnotes
DEDICATION
Inscribed To
Frederic G. Kenyon
In Memory Of A Friendship
Of Forty-Four Years
[Frontispiece: Philip Massinger]
PREFACE
In confessing that the war made me write a book I do not stand alone.
Sensible as I am of its defects, I trust it will help to spread the
knowledge of Massinger’s works, and will invite others to deal on similar
lines with the other dramatists of the great age. The design widened as it
went on, and was then contracted. In the end I thought it wiser to confine
myself to digesting the knowledge which I had of Massinger’s text.
The Clarendon Press undertook to publish this book, but as, owing to
war-work, they could fix no date, I asked them to release me. There would
be no occasion to mention this fact were it not that it was owing to the
original arrangement that I received much valuable help and advice from
Mr. Percy Simpson. Many other scholars and friends have kindly aided me in
various matters, among whom I should like to mention: Mr. J. C. Bailey,
Mr. P. James Bayfield (photographer to Dulwich College), Dr. A. C.
Bradley, Mr. Robert Bridges, Mr. A. H. Bullen, Mr. A. K. Cook, Professor
W. Macneile Dixon, Mr. H. H. E. Gaster, the Dean of Gloucester, Mr. E.
Gosse, Sir W. H. Hadow, Archdeacon Hobhouse, Sir Sidney Lee, Mr. C.
Leudesdorf, Dr. Falconer Madan, Mr. A. W. Pollard, Dr. P. G. Smyly, the
Master of University College, Durham, Sir A. Ward, and Sir George F.
Warner. Last, but not least, I thank my wife for her skilful and ready
help with the proofs.
A. H. Cruickshank.
PHILIP MASSINGER
It is interesting to revise the literary judgments of youth; it is
pleasant to find them confirmed by a more mature judgment. This train of
thought has led me to read Massinger once more; and as I read, the desire
arose to treat his works, to the best of my ability, with the attention to
detail which modern scholarship requires. A great amount of valuable work
has been done in the last fifty years on the writers of the Elizabethan
and Jacobean ages; but no one, perhaps with the exception of Boyle, has
applied to Massinger the care which Shakspere, Marlowe, and Ben Jonson, to
name no others, have secured. There is no reason why any of our great
dramatists should be treated with less respect than those of Greece and
Rome, of France and Germany.
The first thing to be done was to facilitate references by numbering the
lines of Massinger’s plays;(1) the next was to investigate once more the
facts of his life, and to correlate them with the period in which he
lived; the third was to read typical plays of the period, so as to arrive
at a just estimate of our author.
His life will not detain us long. We know far less of him than we do of
Shakspere. None of his sayings have been preserved to us; hardly any
incidents of his career. His father was house-steward to two of the Earls
of Pembroke, first to Henry Herbert, then to William Herbert,(2)
Shakspere’s friend. The elder Massinger was a Fellow of Merton College,
Oxford, and for several years a Member of Parliament. Philip Massinger,
the dramatist, was born at Salisbury in 1584. In 1602 he went up to St.
Alban’s Hall, Oxford, where his father had been an undergraduate. We are
told by A. à Wood that he went at Lord Pembroke’s expense, but that he did
not work hard at the University, and took no degree.(3) In or after the
year 1606 he seems to have gone to London, and to have speedily engaged in
the work of writing plays.(4) The wide reading which his plays presuppose
probably began at Oxford.
It was the custom in those days, as in the time of Plautus at Rome,(5) for
playwrights to revise old plays; and still more was it usual for them to
collaborate.(6) We find Massinger at work in this way with Field,(7)
Daborne,(8) Dekker, Tourneur, and above all, with Fletcher. With the
latter he worked from 1613 to 1623. In that year, for some unknown reason,
he seceded from the service of the leading company of actors of the day,
who went by the name of the King’s men, and wrote unaided three plays for
the Queen’s men, _The Parliament of Love_, _The Bondman_, and _The
Renegado_. After Fletcher’s death, in 1625, Massinger rejoined the King’s
men, and wrote for them until his death in 1640.
It has been surmised from the vivid colouring of _The Virgin Martyr_(9)
and the plot of _The Renegado_,(10) where a Jesuit plays a leading part
and is portrayed in a pleasing light, that Massinger turned Roman
Catholic. The evidence for this theory is quite inadequate. Indeed, we
might as well argue from Gazet’s language that the author followed the
Anglican _via media_.(11) Plots derived from French, Spanish, and Italian
sources would naturally contain Roman Catholic machinery. We might as well
infer that Shakspere was a Roman Catholic because Silvia goes to Friar
Patrick’s cell,(12) or because Friar Laurence is prominent in _Romeo and
Juliet_.(13)
We know that Massinger lived a life of comparative poverty; on one
occasion we find him, with two other dramatic authors, asking for a loan
of £5.(14)
The person who thus obliged the three writers was Philip Henslowe, a dyer,
theatrical lessee, and speculator, who acted as a kind of broker between
actors and authors, buying from the one and selling to the other; we still
possess his diary, containing information as to the prices which he gave
for plays.(15) The prologue of _The Guardian_ shows us that for two years
before 1633 Massinger had been under a cloud, and had abstained from
writing. Two of his plays had failed in 1631—_The Emperor of the East_(16)
and _Believe as You List_(17)—so he appears to have put forth his full
strength in _The Guardian_.
[Henslow document at Dulwich.]
The dedications of Massinger’s plays which have been preserved show that
he was often dependent for support on the leaders of what he once or twice
calls “the nobility.”(18)
The connexion of the poet with the family of which his father was the
loyal and trusted servant has been exaggerated by some;(19) in the
dedication of _The Bondman_, written in 1623, to Philip, Earl of
Montgomery,(20) the poet distinctly states that though the Earl had helped
the play at its first performance by his “liberal suffrages” yet he was
personally unknown to him.(21) Amongst others to whom we find dedications
is George Harding, Baron Berkeley, to whom Webster inscribed _The Duchess
of Malfi_. It is pleasant to read in the dedication of _The Picture_ “to
my honoured and selected friends of the Noble Society of the Inner Temple”
that Massinger received “frequent bounties” from them.
The plays give us no clear evidence that Massinger ever travelled
abroad,(22) though such a passage as _The Great __ Duke of Florence_, II.,
2, 5-21, rather suggests a visit to Italy. Nor have we any ground for
supposing that he was, like Shakspere, an actor, unless indeed an obscure
reference in the Dublin poem to the Earl of Pembroke be so
interpreted.(23) In London he lived on the Bankside, Southwark. The story
of his death is told us by our gossiping old friend Anthony à Wood, in his
_Athenae Oxonienses_.(24) Massinger went to bed one night well, and was
found dead the next morning. He was buried at St. Saviour’s on March 18th,
1639/40.(25) The funeral was “accompanied by comedians,” a phrase which
seems to show that his professional friends did him honour at the last; he
is described in the monthly accounts of St. Saviour’s as “a stranger”—that
is to say, a non-parishioner. His intimate friend Sir Aston Cokaine tells
us that he shared the grave of his friend John Fletcher;(26) and in 1896 a
window in the south aisle of the nave of Southwark Cathedral was unveiled
in his honour by Sir Walter Besant.(27)
What was the atmosphere in which Massinger lived? The days of James I. and
Charles I. were less heroic than those of Elizabeth. In foreign politics
England intervened once or twice in an ineffective way, and a good deal of
sympathy was shown, much of it in a practical fashion, for the cause of
the Protestant King of Bohemia. Gardiner(28) has pointed out that Charles
I. gave permission to the Marquis of Hamilton to carry over volunteers in
aid of Gustavus Adolphus just as James I. had allowed Vere to carry over
volunteers to the Palatinate. Hamilton sailed in July, 1631, and _The Maid
of Honour_ was printed in 1632. The whole plot of this play recalls the
relations of England to the Protestant cause on the Continent. Thus,
William. Lord Craven, to whom Ford’s _Broken Heart_ is dedicated, and who
was knighted at the age of seventeen, after his “valiant adventures” in
the Netherlands under Henry, Prince of Orange, went to the assistance of
Gustavus Adolphus in 1631, when only twenty-two years old.
Wars in the Low Countries are vaguely referred to in various passages, as,
_e.g._, in _The Fatal Dowry_:(29)
NOVALL JUN. Oh, fie upon him, how he wears his clothes!
As if he had come this Xmas. from S. Omer’s
To see his friends, and return’d after Twelfth-tide.
The date of the play is uncertain, but it must have been written some
considerable time before being printed in 1632.(30) In _The New Way to pay
Old Debts_ Lord Lovell “has purchas’d a fair name in the wars.”(31) In
_The Fatal Dowry_, _The Picture_, and _The Unnatural Combat_, we have the
familiar type of the brave soldier who is disregarded in time of peace,
and has come down to poverty and old clothes.
In the wider world of Europe the Turk and the Algerine pirate are still
grim realities enough to form an effective scenic background.(32) Indeed,
it was not so very long since the Battle of Lepanto. We find constant
references to galley-slaves,(33) to the slave market,(34) and to apostates
to Islam.(35) In the opening scene of _The Picture_ the soldier husband
parts from his wife on the frontier of Bohemia “not distant from the
Turkish camp above five leagues.” One of the objections urged against the
new custom of fighting duels is that thereby lives are lost which might
have done service against the Turk.(36) The age of chivalry has its faint
reflection in schemes to “redeem Christian slaves chain’d in the Turkish
servitude” by force of arms, and in the prowess of the Knights of
Malta.(37) The wealth and power of Turkey are taken for granted. When
Malefort senior vows vengeance on Montreville, he cries out:
The Turkish Empire offer’d for his ransom
Should not redeem his life.(38)
At home we find the vices of a prolonged peace lending opportunity for
some easy satire. On the whole, we may say that we do not learn very much
about our country from the poet which we could not find in the other
playwrights of the day. Let us rapidly put together some of his
references. There were two Englands at this time, drifting inevitably
apart, only to clash in fratricidal war under Charles I. The drama was
becoming less and less national, more and more an affair of aristocratic
patronage. Massinger does not often refer to the Puritans;(39) there is
nothing so amusing in his plays as the passage in Fletcher’s _Fair Maid of
the Inn_, where the Pedant solicits the advice of Forobosco the quack
about “erecting four new sects of religion at Amsterdam.”(40) The
fashionable love of astrology is satirized in _The City Madam_. The
England of Massinger’s plays is an England which loves expense,(41)
amusements, Greek wines,(42) masques,(43) new clothes,(44) and foreign
fashions.(45) London is a great port, with trade to the Indies and
aspirations after the “North passage.” The jealousy of the City and the
Court, the ostentations of the one and the refinement of the other, point
the moral of _The City Madam_.(46) The high-spirited ’prentices of the
City of London take the law into their own hands in days when there are no
police,(47) and their vices are satirized after the manner of Ben Jonson
in the same play. Horse-play, such as tossing in a blanket, is considered
a great joke.(48) The balladmonger so often referred to in Shakspere is
much in evidence,(49) though indeed it was an age in which everyone wrote
poetry.(50) In rural England we find the possibility of an unscrupulous
local tyrant, such as is depicted to us in Massinger’s masterpiece, Sir
Giles Overreach, aided by his jackal, Mr. Justice Greedy.(51) That our
poet had a keen eye for social evils, for the man who sells food at famine
prices, the encloser of commons, the usurer, the worker of iron, the
cheating tradesman, is clear from a passage in _The Guardian_.(52) The
beautiful description in the same play of the amusements of country life,
the hunting and the hawking, with which Durazzo seeks to console his
love-sick ward Caldoro,(53) probably takes one back to Massinger’s own
boyhood in Wiltshire. As we should expect, there is a good deal of riding
in the country scenes.(54) The characters of Sir John Frugal, the
successful merchant, and Mr. Plenty, the country gentleman,(55) show us
that the “John Bull” type of Englishman existed in those days.
The temptation to give a back-hand blow to one’s own country in the course
of a plot laid abroad is obvious and irresistible; where Shakspere had set
the example others were sure to follow,(56) and Massinger does not spare
the female sex of England. To judge by the passage in _The Renegado_,(57)
the women of his day loved expense and luxury, and were very independent
in their attitude to their husbands.(58) The humiliation of Lady Frugal
and her two daughters after their extravagant ambitions is the point of
_The City Madam_. The contrast between a uxorious husband and an imperious
wife is one of Massinger’s favourite effects.(59) Donusa’s speech in her
own defence in _The Renegado_ might have been written by a suffragette of
our own day.(60)
We do not get much direct evidence as to the characteristics of the
playwright’s audiences; Dr. Bradley has some good remarks on this
subject.(61) “Nor is it credible that an appreciation of the best things
was denied to the mob, which doubtless loved what we should despise; but
appears also to have admired what we admire, and to have tolerated more
poetry than most of us can stomach;” “the mass of the audience must have
liked excitement, the open exhibition of violent and bloody deeds, and the
intermixture of seriousness and mirth.” Dr. Bradley points out
elsewhere(62) that the Elizabethan actor probably spoke more rapidly than
our modern actors. This would make soliloquies less tedious.
To turn to the politics of the age; the rift between the dynasty and the
nation grew wider as the century advanced. Though Massinger died before
the days of the Long Parliament, we can imagine that he would have been
one of those who eventually fought under protest for the King. We find
evidence in his plays for supposing that he belonged to the Conservative
Opposition, like his patron Philip, the fourth Earl of Pembroke and
Montgomery. He was a lover of liberty, and there are one or two
indications that his plays offended the strict ideas of Charles I.’s
censorship.
Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, refused on January 11th,
1630/31, to license one of his plays(63) because “it did contain dangerous
matter, as the deposing of Sebastian King of Portugal by Philip II., and
there being a peace sworn ’twixt the Kings of England and Spain.”(64) The
same worthy records that King Charles I. himself read another of his
plays,(65) while staying at Newmarket, and wrote against one passage,
“This is too insolent, and to be changed.” The passage, which is put into
the mouth of a King of Spain, runs as follows:
Monies! we’ll raise supplies what way we please
And force you to subscribe to blanks, in which
We’ll mulct you, as we think fit. The Caesars
In Rome were wise, acknowledging no laws
But what their swords did ratify; the wives
And daughters of the senators bowing to
Their will as deities.(66)
These lines clearly reflect on the autocratic methods which prevailed in
England from 1629 to 1640.
There is much in Timoleon’s speeches in the senate(67) which seems to
contain covert references to the England of the day, and notably in lines
203-213, where the unprepared state of the army and navy is referred to.
It has been thought with much probability that the Duke of Buckingham is
satirized in the slight sketch of Gisco in _The Bondman_,(68) and in the
more fully drawn character of Fulgentio in _The Maid of Honour_:(69)
ADORNI. Pray you, sir, what is he?
ASTUTIO. A gentleman, yet no lord. He hath some drops
Of the king’s blood running in his reins, derived
Some ten degrees off. His revenue lies
In a narrow compass, the king’s ear; and yields him
Every hour a fruitful harvest. Men may talk
Of three crops in a year in the Fortunate Islands,
Or profit made by wool; but, while there are suitors,
His sheepshearing, nay, shaving to the quick
Is in every quarter of the moon, and constant.
In the time of trussing a point, he can undo
Or make a man; his play or recreation
Is to raise this up, or pull down that, and though
He never yet took orders, makes more bishops
In Sicily than the Pope himself.
The grumbling of the professional soldier against the royal favourite
inspires a passage in _The Duke of Milan_.(70) A similar freedom of speech
is found in _The Maid of Honour_; for instance, in the following passages:
GASPARO. When you know what ’tis,
You will think otherwise; no less will do it
Than fifty thousand crowns.
CAMIOLA. A pretty sum,
The price weighed with the purchase; fifty thousand!
To the king ’tis nothing. He that can spare more
To his minion for a masque, cannot but ransom
Such a brother at a million.(71)
CAMIOLA. With your leave, I must not kneel, sir,
While I reply to this, but thus rise up
In my defence, and tell you, as a man
(Since, when you are unjust, the deity,
Which you may challenge as a king, parts from you,)
’Twas never read in holy writ, or moral,
That subjects on their loyalty, were obliged
To love their sovereign’s vices; your grace, sir,
To such an undeserver is no virtue.(72)
There are also passages in _The Emperor of the East_ which seem to attack
the Government of the day and its agents.(73) I will quote the chief of
these as a specimen of honest indignation:
PULCHERIA. How I abuse
This precious time! Projector, I treat first
Of you and your disciples; you roar out,
All is the king’s, his will above his laws;
And that fit tributes are too gentle yokes
For his poor subjects; whispering in his ear,
If he would have their fear, no man should dare
To bring a salad from his country garden,
Without the paying gabel; kill a hen,
Without excise; and that if he desire
To have his children or his servants wear
Their heads upon their shoulders, you affirm
In policy ’tis fit the owner should
Pay for them by the poll(74); or, if the prince wants
A present sum he may command a city
Impossibilities, and for non-performance
Compel it to submit to any fine
His officers shall impose. Is this the way
To make our emperor happy? Can the groans
Of his subjects yield him music? Must his thoughts
Be wash’d with widows’ and wrong’d orphans’ tears,
Or his power grow contemptible?(75)
The Englishman’s love of liberty inspires a vigorous speech delivered by
the British slave in _The Virgin Martyr_.(76)
Further, the impatience which Englishmen felt from time to time at the
poor part played by their country in the Thirty Years’ War is reflected in
_The Maid of Honour_. Bertoldo there gets leave from the King of Sicily to
go to help the beleaguered Duke of Urbin. He is, however, disavowed by the
crafty, peace-loving king. In the debate Bertoldo describes Sicily in
language which might easily be applied to England, and then proceeds in an
eloquent passage to refer to England’s glorious naval tradition in the
past:
BERTOLDO. If examples
May move you more than arguments, look on England,
The empress of the European isles,
And unto whom alone ours yields precedence:
When did she flourish so, as when she was
The mistress of the ocean, her navies
Putting a girdle round about the world?
When the Iberian quaked, her worthies named;
And the fair flower-de-luce grew pale, set by
The red rose and the white! Let not our armour
Hung up, or our unrigg’d Armada make us
Ridiculous to the late poor snakes, our neighbours,
Warm’d in our bosoms, and to whom again
We may be terrible.(77)
Here, at any rate, Massinger differs from Shakspere, who makes no
reference to the exploits of our sailors; indeed, it would seem that, like
Trafalgar, the defeat of the Armada had no significance for its own
generation.(78) But we must not forget that Massinger was the bosom friend
of Fletcher, in whose plays sailors occur again and again.(79)
The fact that Massinger was a Cavalier “Radical,” a free lance and
grumbler of the Opposition, may in part explain his struggles and his
poverty. His natural patrons may have looked askance at his independent
attitude, so alien to the passive obedience preached by Fletcher. But,
whatever were his politics, it is clear that he was no Puritan. Brought up
in close contact with a noble house, educated at Oxford, and well versed
in the classics,(80) as many allusions in his works testify, he shows
alike in his merits and his faults the Cavalier mind. To this extent he
may be judged “_felix opportunitate mortis_,” for of all sections of the
nation those whose hearts were with the King, and their reason with the
Opposition, had the hardest part to play after 1640.
In the department of literature the talent of the country had concentrated
itself more and more on play-writing. Among Massinger’s contemporaries we
note Jonson, Chapman, Fletcher, Beaumont, Webster, Middleton, Dekker,
Heywood, Rowley, Tourneur, Shirley—all keen and able dramatists.
Massinger, in his grasp of stagecraft, his flexible metre, his desire in
the sphere of ethics to exploit both vice and virtue, is typical of an age
which had much culture, but which, without being exactly corrupt, lacked
moral fibre.
His plays may be divided into three classes: first, those which have come
down to us under his name; secondly, those which he wrote with Fletcher or
other authors; and, thirdly, those which have disappeared. It is not easy
to draw the border-line between the first and second classes. In the last
forty years the students of English literature have devoted much attention
to verse and other tests, and there are those who profess themselves
competent to decide which parts of a composite play were written by the
various collaborators. It is clear that the use of these tests requires
caution. An author may sometimes experiment in the style of somebody else;
it has been held that Shakspere wrote _Henry VIII_ in the manner of
Fletcher, his younger rival; and Delius was of opinion that _The Two Noble
Kinsmen_ is due to two imitators, one of Shakspere and one of Fletcher.
Boyle speaks confidently as follows:(81) “Mr. Fleay used almost
exclusively versification to distinguish author from author. Nor is this
by any means so bold an undertaking as it seems. I have used other tests
apart from the versification, and have almost uniformly found the
impressions derived from the latter correct.” Our confidence in Boyle is
shaken when he attributes(82) the first two acts of _A New Way to pay Old
Debts_ to Fletcher on the evidence of the double endings. He points out
that the allusion to the taking of Breda on July 1st, 1625,(83) is just
possible, as Fletcher was buried on August 29th, 1625. This is clearly a
case where we must take other than metrical considerations into account.
Has the comedy the sparkle, the bustle, and the improbability of Fletcher?
Again, it is not too much to say that it is a waste of time to apply verse
tests to Tourneur; a great part of the _Atheist’s Tragedy_ is not poetry
at all, but prose measured off in lengths.
_The Virgin Martyr_ states on its title-page that Dekker was part author.
Similarly, _The Fatal Dowry_ was partly due to Field. Part of _A Very
Woman_(84) is held by many critics to be written by Fletcher; certainly
the style of the play is in places more tender and more racy than we
should expect from Massinger. _The Old Law_ is said to have been written
by Massinger, Middleton, and Rowley. It was a popular play, and often
revived; its first appearance was in 1599,(85) when our poet was but
fifteen years old. His share in it must therefore consist of additions or
modifications at a later date. Certainly there is little in the play which
reminds one of him; original as is its plot, and tender its pathos, both
its tragedy and comedy are in a simpler manner than his.(86)
On the other hand, Boyle arrives at some startling results when he
investigates the works of Fletcher.(87) He attributes to Massinger parts
of _Thierry and Theodoret_, _The Queen of Corinth_, _The Knight of Malta_,
_The Custom of the Country_, _The Little French Lawyer_, _The Fair Maid of
the Inn_, and of several other plays.(88)
It may appear strange that in order to estimate Massinger we should have
to read Fletcher as well; but to this the scientific study of English
brings us.(89) Boyle declares that “we ought in future to have no more
editions of Beaumont and Fletcher, but the plays of Beaumont, Fletcher,
and Massinger arranged in nine groups.”(90) The verdict of experts cannot
be disregarded in this matter; there is a real danger that Massinger’s
merits will be underrated if we do not attempt to estimate the share which
he took in writing the plays attributed to Fletcher. His friend Sir Aston
Cokaine might have done us a great service here, but, unfortunately, he
missed his opportunity. In a poem(91) relating to Shirley’s edition of
Beaumont and Fletcher’s works published in 1647,(92) he points out that
the title is inaccurate for two reasons: first, because many of the plays
were written after Beaumont’s death; secondly, because Massinger wrote
parts of some of them; it is a great pity that he did not tell us which
these plays were.
But worse still remains behind; if we are to believe Boyle, it is
practically certain that Massinger and Fletcher wrote _Henry VIII_(93) and
_The Two Noble __ Kinsmen_.(94) It must be pointed out that there are
still good critics who attribute a large part of _Henry VIII_ to
Shakspere, and a small part of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_. It would take us
too far from our subject to enter in detail on these two difficult
problems.
Then, in the third place, there are the plays that are lost. In the
eighteenth century there was a certain John Warburton, F.R.S. and F.S.A.,
Somerset herald, who collected no fewer than fifty-five genuine
unpublished dramas of the golden period, which he handed over to the care
of his cook until he could find someone to publish them. The cook
appropriated these plays leaf by leaf for coverings for her pastry, and a
certain number of Massinger’s—possibly as many as ten—perished among them.
Here are the names of some of them: _The Forced __ Lady_, a tragedy; _The
Noble Choice_, a comedy; _The Wandering Lovers_, a comedy; _Philenzo and
Hippolita_, a tragi-comedy.(95)
It may be a consolation when we grieve over this disaster(96) to reflect
that many of the fifty-five plays may not have been worth reading; eight
of them were early works of Massinger’s, and may have been immature or
even unsuccessful. There is a presumption in favour of this supposition,
for his more famous plays appeared separately in quarto, and most of them
can still be procured from dealers in that form; we must suppose that Mr.
Warburton had only what are called actors’—_i.e._, manuscript—copies. If a
play never attained the distinction of being printed there may have been
some defect which militated against its success.
Colonel Cunningham in his edition gives us the names of thirty-seven plays
in all from Massinger’s pen; if the many be added to this total in which
he joined with other writers, we have a considerable literary output for a
life of fifty-five years.
Massinger, like Shakspere, fell into disfavour after the Restoration, when
Beaumont and Fletcher carried everything before them. We learn from
Malone’s Preface(97) that _The Bondman_ was acted in 1661 and _The Virgin
Martyr_ on January 10th, 1662; _The Renegado_ on June 6th in the same
year. Pepys saw _The Virgin Martyr_, and liked it,(98) more, however, for
the music than the words. Dryden and Jeremy Collier never mention
Massinger. Selections from _The Guardian_ appeared in prose form, with
insertions from _A Very Woman_, in 1680, under the title _Love Lost in the
Dark, or the Drunken Couple_. Adorio and the other names are the same, but
the Guardian’s part disappears, and his remarks are put in Adorio’s mouth.
A servant, Calandrino, is brought in, whose name is borrowed from _The
Great Duke of Florence_, and Muggulla, a nurse, is added to be
Calandrino’s bride. The contents are worthy of the title. Monck Mason
deplores the fact that Johnson’s dictionary does not once quote Massinger
or Beaumont and Fletcher. “They are more correct,” he says, “and
grammatical than Shakspere, and appear to have had a more competent
knowledge of other languages, which gave them a more accurate idea of
their own.” There was a great reaction in the eighteenth century in favour
of Massinger. Brander Matthews points out that _The New Way_ is the only
Elizabethan or Jacobean play, except Shakspere’s, which held the stage
until the first quarter of the nineteenth century,(99) and gives a good
history of its illustrious career on the English and American stages.
The critics have differed much about Massinger. Gifford(100) and Hallam
were enthusiastic in their support; Charles Lamb and Hazlitt(101) were
against him, perhaps because they disliked his able Tory editor. The
eighteenth-century writers regarded him as the champion of female virtue;
and in our own time Sir A. Ward has defended his manly and sane morality
in unhesitating language.(102) On the other hand, Boyle deems his heroines
to be corrupt and his heroes “the victims of one devouring passion, often
in a state of incipient madness, alternately raging and melancholy.”(103)
Like Euripides, Ovid, and Juvenal, Massinger is a writer whose faults are
patent; all the more important, therefore, is it to make his merits quite
clear. We cannot convince the world if we adopt the famous line of
Goethe’s heroine:
I cannot reason, I can only feel.(104)
I do not indeed claim to discover much that is new about Massinger, nor to
reverse the judgment of time. He is, and he remains, in the second rank of
English writers. But it would be a misfortune if undue obscurity were to
befall an author who was at once so manly and so skilful. I take up the
cudgels for him, partly because the balance of critical judgment has of
late gone too far against him; and yet in a sense he has only come into
his own in the last thirty years, by reason of the unanimity with which so
much good strong work in Fletcher’s plays is now deemed to be due to him.
He has received much praise and much blame; I should like by careful
analysis of the problem to arrive at a juster judgment. But in the main, I
must confess, I plead for Massinger because I love him.
What, then, are the chief merits of our author? They are three: his
stagecraft, his style, and his metre. And, first, his command of
stagecraft has been universally conceded.(105) This is an important point;
it is as much as to say that the plays are readable and would act
well;(106) when you begin one of them you wish to know what is going to
happen. The first act has usually a great breadth and swing; it is
admirably proportioned and dignified. The chief characters are introduced,
and the train is well laid, without stiffness or delay. Good examples of
this fact are to be found in _The Bondman_ and _The Emperor of the East_.
In _The Renegado_ the first scene at once reveals the object of the plot,
the rescue of Paulina. In _The Bondman_ Marullo enters at line 38, and our
attention is called to him by Leosthenes. As the play progresses you feel
that it is what the French call _bien charpenté_—well constructed. If, as
is often the case, there is a mystery or a secret, it is sufficiently well
kept to excite the curiosity. The author does not depend very much on
soliloquies or disguises; he does not, as a rule, complicate matters by
underplots and cross-interests. The stage is not overcrowded; you do not
feel the need of constantly referring to the list of _dramatis personae_.
A curious instance of this economy is _The Maid of Honour_, where there is
no Queen of Sicily. Minor characters when they reappear are recognized and
provided for, as, for example, Calypso in _The Guardian_ (IV., 3). The
conscientious author forgets no detail in order to round off his plot;
thus in the same play the blow struck at the beginning is apologized for
in V., 3, 250. Nor is there a reckless change of scene. Moreover, a
lifelike effect is given by the fact that speeches generally end in the
middle of a line. As so often in Euripides, the people say the sort of
things that under the circumstances you would expect them to say in real
life.(107) A comparison of Massinger with Ben Jonson will make this ease
of construction clear at once. Köppel has noted the skill with which the
narratives of Suetonius and Dion Cassius are combined in _The Roman
Actor_. It may sound obvious to add that the titles of the plays
correspond to the chief subject-matter, were it not that in so many of the
Elizabethan plays this is not the case. Take as examples Middleton’s
_Changeling_ and _Mayor of Queenborough_.
Yet it would be too much to say that all Massinger’s plays are equally
successful in this respect. The plot of _The Guardian_, for example, is
unusually intricate. Like Shakspere, he occasionally crowds too much into
the fifth act—for instance, in _The Unnatural Combat_. The device of the
apple which produces so much jealousy and trouble in _The Emperor of the
East_ is rather trivial for a tragi-comedy.(108) The promise of Cleora to
wear a scarf over her eyes until her jealous lover returns from the war is
exasperating.(109) Again, Camiola in _The Maid of Honour_ (III., 3, 200)
forgets that Bertoldo is “bound to a single life,” as she had herself
pointed out to him (I., 2, 148). Nor does Bertoldo (IV., 3, 100) in his
acceptance of her offer say anything about the necessary dispensation. On
the other hand, Massinger avoids those scenes on board ship of which
Fletcher is so fond, and which on the Jacobean stage must have been
ineffective to the spectators, and indeed, are so on any stage.(110)
Similarly, it is clear that torture on the stage can hardly be made
effective.(111)
One of Massinger’s favourite devices is to combine subordinates. He has
learnt from _Hamlet_ the lesson of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. He has
studied the method of such scenes as _Henry V._, I., 2, 97-135; II., 2;
III., 5; III., 7. If something has to be done, two or three people express
their eagerness to do it. If someone has to be persuaded, two or three of
the characters press home the various arguments. This all works for
lucidity and ease, and presents a lifelike combination on the stage.(112)
Instances of the device abound; let us take one from _The Picture_.(113)
The great soldier Ferdinand, on his return from the wars, is received
courteously by the old Counsellor Eubulus, but the fashionable young men,
Ubaldo and Ricardo, think they can do the thing better; the passage runs
thus:
RICARDO. This was pretty;
But second me now; I cannot stoop too low
To do your excellence that due observance
Your fortune claims.
EUBULUS. He ne’er thinks on his virtues!
RICARDO. For, being as you are, the soul of soldiers,
And bulwark of Bellona——
UBALDO. The protection
Both of the court and king——
RICARDO. And the sole minion
Of mighty Mars——
UBALDO. One that with justice may
Increase the number of the worthies——
EUBULUS. Heyday!
RICARDO. It being impossible in my arms to circle
Such giant worth——
UBALDO. At distance we presume
To kiss your honour’d gauntlet.
EUBULUS. What reply now
Can he make to this foppery?
FERDINAND. You have said,
Gallants, so much and hitherto done so little,
That till I learn to speak and you to do,
I must take time to thank you.
EUBULUS. As I live,
Answer’d as I could wish, how the fops gape now!
RICARDO. This was harsh and scurvy.
UBALDO. We will be revenged,
When he comes to court the ladies, and laugh at him.
Another of Massinger’s effective devices is to sustain the interest of the
spectators by concealing characters and facts; thus, in _The Duke of
Milan_ we do not fathom for some time the villainy of Francisco; in _The
City Madam_ we ponder from the beginning over the obscure character of
Luke. The best instances of this expedient are to be found in _The
Unnatural Combat_ and _The Bondman_. The air of gloom which overhangs the
former tragedy is as great in its way as anything which our author has
attained; and though the play is what we may call Elizabethan rather than
for all time, yet it is in some sense the best specimen of his serious
work. The desire of Malefort is that of the father in Shelley’s _Cenci_;
and perhaps the only way to prevent the theme from being intolerable was
to veil it as long as possible, and to raise the spectators’ sympathy at
first for a man who had fought well for the State, and who to all
appearance was badly treated by his pirate son.(114) In _The Bondman_,
Marullo and Timandra, the brother and sister, are concealed till the very
end, when they reveal themselves to be Pisander and Statilia—thereby
bringing to an unexpected conclusion a plot which seemed to offer no
solution.(115)
In _The City Madam_ the method is varied a little: here we have one of
Massinger’s greatest creations, the fawning hypocrite, Luke. Indications
of his future development are skilfully given from time to time, so that
when this alarming person at length shows himself in his true colours we
shiver without being surprised. The same idea shows itself in _The
Renegado_,(116) in the skill with which Donusa leads up to her proposal
that Vitelli should turn Mahometan; and in _The Virgin Martyr_,(117) where
Artemia prepares the way for the offer of her hand to Antoninus.
Massinger is never so happy as when he has an opportunity in his
well-proportioned scenes for displays of rhetoric, such as we find in
Euripides, where character argues against character.(118) These scenes are
often thrown into the form of a trial at law or a debate in the
Senate.(119)
The plays end well and effectively; our author excels in the tragi-comedy,
a type much affected by Fletcher. Like all his contemporaries, he felt
that the intermixture of a lighter element in a play which ended happily
was justifiable.(120) The haste which Shakspere sometimes shows in his
fifth act is, as a rule, not apparent in Massinger. For example, in _The
Virgin Martyr_, the death of the heroine occurs at the end of the fourth
act. To all appearance there is bound to be an anticlimax in the fifth
act. But there is not; on the contrary, the appearance of the heavenly
messenger, bearing the fruits of Paradise to the cruel persecutor
Theophilus, elevates the mind into a state of surprise and admiration. It
has often been pointed out that the appearance of a deity to cut the knot
at the end of a play of Euripides, which sometimes irritates the thinker
in his study, and provokes him to write essays on the bad art and theology
of the poet, is dazzlingly beautiful on the stage, and raises associations
of sublimity and awe; it may in the same way be imagined how effective
must have been the procession at the end of _The Virgin Martyr_. The stage
directions run as follows: “Enter Dorothea in a white robe, crownes upon
her head, led in by Angels, Antoninus, Caliste, and Christeta following,
all in white, but lesse glorious, the Angell with a Crowne for him”
(_i.e._, Theophilus). At the sight of the glorious vision the persecutor
dies, converted to the Christian faith, and the evil spirit, which has
prompted his cruel acts, sinks to his own place with thunder and
lightning, while Diocletian and his court look on in amazement. Similarly,
in _The Roman Actor_ there is no anticlimax; though Paris dies in the
fourth act,(121) we feel that the tragedy is incomplete until it is
rounded off by the punishment of the Emperor Domitian, which we
breathlessly await.
Secondly, Massinger has a beautiful style. This point again is conceded by
all the critics. The elegance of his dedications shows that had he wished
he could have written excellent prose.(122) One who depreciates him allows
that his style is “pure and free from violent metaphors and harsh
constructions.”(123) It has the grace and balance which one would expect
from a well-bred and educated man, owing little to ornament or epithets or
images. It serves its purpose, which is to tell a story rapidly, and to
unfold character rather than to display the author’s command of language
or subtlety of thought and expression. Seldom trivial, it is never
prosaic, and yet it is constantly on the border-line of prose. Massinger
thought in blank verse because he was a dramatist rather than because he
was a poet. Hence his enemies might say that his lines are prose in
lengths; yet that would be an unjust accusation. The poetical “colour” is
here, the ideal dignity, the atmosphere, although they obtrude themselves
less on the reader than in most poets. Like Ovid, Massinger is one whose
amazing facility carries us along like a flood—a writer who should be read
in large quantities at a time,
“Whose easy Pegasus will amble o’er
Some three-score miles of fancy in an hour.”(124)
It needs little argument to show that a poet of this order can easily
secure the effect of verisimilitude to life, and will owe much of his
success to that fact. Style naturally appeals differently to different
people; there are those who are captivated by the glamour of Shelley and
Swinburne, or the pomp of Jeremy Taylor; there are also those who enjoy
the severity of _Paradise Regained_, and the simplicity of Newman’s
_Sermons_. In an age like the present, when many of our poets, like our
musicians, whatever else they are, either will not or cannot be simple, it
is refreshing to turn to an author who is always lucid, and who is content
to tell a story to the best of his ability.
There are times when the style of Massinger rises into solemn eloquence,
especially when he indulges in the moralizing vein. Unlike some of his
literary contemporaries, Massinger wishes to show Virtue triumphant and
Vice beaten. Vice is never glorified in his pages, or condoned. Honest
indignation is perhaps the emotion which he handles best. The
uncontrollable anger which meanness and unworthiness provoke expresses
itself in lofty language. Forcible and plain-spoken rebukes are found,
which show that Massinger could be curt when he pleased. The plays are
full of high-spirited passages, affording admirable opportunities for a
master of elocution.
Let me give a specimen of just anger in the speech of Marullo. Marullo is
the leader of the revolt of the slaves at Syracuse, and he is addressing
their former lords and masters:
Briefly thus then,
Since I must speak for all,—your tyranny
Drew us from our obedience. Happy those times
When lords were styled fathers of families,
And not imperious masters! when they number’d
Their servants almost equal with their sons,
Or one degree beneath them! when their labours
Were cherish’d and rewarded, and a period
Set to their sufferings; when they did not press
Their duties or their wills, beyond the power
And strength of their performance! all things order’d
With such decorum, as wise lawmakers
From each well-govern’d private house deriv’d
The perfect model of a Commonwealth.
Humanity then lodged in the hearts of men,
And thankful masters carefully provided
For creatures wanting reason. The noble horse
That, in his fiery youth, from his wide nostrils
Neigh’d courage to his rider, and brake through
Groves of opposed pikes, bearing his lord
Safe to triumphant victory, old or wounded,
Was set at liberty and freed from service.
The Athenian mules that from the quarry drew
Marble, hew’d for the temples of the gods,
The great work ended, were dismiss’d and fed
At the public cost; nay, faithful dogs have found
Their sepulchres; but man to man more cruel,
Appoints no end to the sufferings of his slave;
Since pride stepp’d in and riot, and o’erturned
This goodly frame of concord, teaching masters
To glory in the abuse of such as are
Brought under their command; who grown unuseful,
Are less esteem’d than beasts. This you have practis’d,
Practis’d on us with rigour; this hath forced us
To shake our heavy yokes off; and, if redress
Of these just grievances be not granted us,
We’ll right ourselves, and by strong hand defend
What we are now possess’d of.(125)
In a lower key of manly dignity is the speech of Charalois before the
Judges in _The Fatal Dowry_. It begins thus:
Thus low my duty
Answers your lordships’ counsel. I will use,
In the few words with which I am to trouble
Your lordships’ ears the temper that you wish me;
Not that I fear to speak my thoughts as loud,
And with a liberty beyond Romont;
But that I know, for me that am made up
Of all that’s wretched, so to haste my end,
Would seem to most rather a willingness
To quit the burden of a hopeless life
Than scorn of death or duty to the dead.(126)
As an example of a high-spirited passage, a speech may be given from _The
Bondman_. Cleora, the heroine, comes forward in a meeting of the Senate to
urge patriotic effort on her fellow-countrymen. Timoleon, the general, is
in the chair, and she addresses him first:
CLEORA. If a virgin,
Whose speech was ever yet ushered with fear;
One knowing modesty and humble silence
To be the choicest ornaments of our sex
In the presence of so many reverend men,
Struck dumb with terror and astonishment,
Presume to clothe her thought in vocal sounds,
Let her find pardon. First to you, great sir,
A bashful maid’s thanks, and her zealous prayers,
Wing’d with pure innocence, bearing them to heaven,
For all prosperity that the gods can give
To one whose piety must exact their care,
Thus low I offer.
TIMOLEON. ’Tis a happy omen.
Rise, blest one, and speak boldly. On my virtue
I am thy warrant, from so clear a spring
Sweet rivers ever flow.
CLEORA. Then thus to you,
My noble father, and these lords, to whom
I next owe duty; no respect forgotten
To you my brother, and these bold young men
(Such I would have them) that are, or should be,
The city’s sword and target of defence,
To all of you I speak; and if a blush
Steal on my cheeks, it is shown to reprove
Your paleness, willingly I would not say,
Your cowardice or fear; think you all treasure
Hid in the bowels of the earth, or shipwreck’d
In Neptune’s wat’ry kingdom, can hold weight,
When liberty and honour fill one scale,
Triumphant Justice sitting on the beam?
Or dare you but imagine that your gold is
Too dear a salary for such as hazard
Their blood and lives in your defence? For me,
An ignorant girl, bear witness! heaven, so far
I prize a soldier, that to give him pay,
With such devotion as our flamens offer
Their sacrifices at the holy altar,
I do lay down these jewels, will make sale
Of my superfluous wardrobe, to supply
The meanest of their wants.(127)
This passage is printed in a broadside (headed “Countrymen”) relating to
the expected invasion of England by Bonaparte, to be found at the British
Museum. A short statement of the plot of _The Bondman_ is followed by a
quotation of Act I., 3, 213-368, with one or two slight omissions.
Possibly Gifford inspired its publication.
Perhaps the most eloquent passage in Massinger is the speech of Paris, the
Roman actor, before the Senate, in defence of his profession:
ARETINUS. Are you on the stage,
You talk so boldly?
PARIS. The whole world being one,
This place is not exempted; and I am
So confident in the justice of our cause,
That I would wish Cæsar, in whose great name
All kings are comprehended, sate as judge
To hear our plea, and then determine of us.
If to express a man sold to his lusts,
Wasting the treasure of his time and fortunes
In wanton dalliance, and to what sad end
A wretch that’s so given over does arrive at;
Deterring careless youth by his example,
From such licentious courses; laying open
The snares of bawds, and the consuming arts
Of prodigal strumpets, can deserve reproof;
Why are not all your golden principles
Writ down by grave philosophers to instruct us,
To choose fair virtue for our guide, not pleasure,
Condemn’d unto the fire?
SURA. There’s spirit in this.
PARIS. Or if desire of honour was the base
On which the building of the Roman empire
Was raised up to this height; if, to inflame
The noble youth with an ambitious heat
T’endure the frosts of danger, nay, of death,
To be thought worthy the triumphal wreath,
By glorious undertakings, may deserve
Reward, or favour from the commonwealth;
Actors may put in for as large a share
As all the sects of the philosophers;
They with cold precepts (perhaps seldom read)
Deliver, what an honourable thing
The active virtue is; but does that fire
The blood, or swell the veins with emulation,
To be both good and great, equal to that
Which is presented in our theatres?
Let a good actor, in a lofty scene,
Show great Alcides honour’d in the sweat
Of his twelve labours; or a bold Camillus
Forbidding Rome to be redeem’d with gold
From the insulting Gauls; or Scipio,
After his victories, imposing tribute
On conquer’d Carthage; if done to the life,
As if they saw their dangers, and their glories,
And did partake with them in their rewards,
All that have any spark of Roman in them,
The slothful arts laid by, contend to be
Like those they see presented.
RUSTICUS. He has put
The consuls to their whisper.
PARIS. But, ’tis urged
That we corrupt youth and traduce superiors.
When do we bring a vice upon the stage,
That does go off unpunish’d? Do we teach,
By the success of wicked undertakings,
Others to tread in their forbidden steps?
We shew no arts of Lydian panderism,
Corinthian poisons, Persian flatteries,
But mulcted so in the conclusion, that
Even those spectators that were so inclined,
Go home changed men. And for traducing such
That are above us, publishing to the world
Their secret crimes, we are as innocent
As such as are born dumb. When we present
An heir, that does conspire against the life
Of his dear parent, numbering every hour
He lives, as tedious to him; if there be,
Among the auditors, one whose conscience tells him
He is of the same mould, we cannot help it.
Or, bringing on the stage a loose adulteress,
That does maintain the riotous expense
Of him that feeds her greedy lust, yet suffers
The lawful pledges of a former bed
To starve the while for hunger; if a matron
However great in fortune, birth, or titles,
Guilty of such a foul, unnatural sin,
Cry out ’tis writ for me, we cannot help it.
Or when a covetous man’s express’d, whose wealth
Arithmetic cannot number, and whose lordships
A falcon in one day cannot fly over;
Yet he so sordid in his mind, so griping,
As not to afford himself the necessaries
To maintain life; if a patrician
(Though honour’d with a consulship) find himself
Touch’d to the quick in this, we cannot help it.
Or, when we shew a judge that is corrupt,
And will give up his sentence, as he favours
The person, not the cause; saving the guilty,
If of his faction, and as oft condemning
The innocent, out of particular spleen;
If any in this reverend assembly,
Nay, even yourself, my lord, that are the image
Of absent Cæsar, feel something in your bosom
That puts you in remembrance of things past,
Or things intended, ’tis not in us to help it.
I have said, my lord; and now as you find cause,
Or censure us, or free us with applause.(128)
I will quote three more passages: one to show how lifelike in description
Massinger can be; the second, to show how he can ennoble the expression of
love; the third, to show how tender he is at his best.
The first is from _The Maid of Honour_. A soldier comes in with news for
the besieged general, who is standing on the walls of Siena, looking for
aid from his friends:
_Enter_ a Soldier.
FERDINAND. What news with thee?
SOLDIER. From the turret of the fort,
By the rising clouds of dust, through which, like lightning
The splendour of bright arms sometimes brake through,
I did descry some forces making towards us;
And from the camp, as emulous of their glory,
The general, for I know him by his horse,
And bravely seconded, encounter’d them.
Their greetings were too rough for friends; their swords,
And not their tongues, exchanging courtesies.
By this the main battalias are join’d;
And if you please to be spectators of
The horrid issue, I will bring you where,
As in a theatre, you may see their fates
In purple gore presented.(129)
The second is from _The Duke of Milan_, where Marcelia expresses her love
for her lord, Sforza, the Duke of Milan.
MARCELIA. My worthiest lord!
The only object I behold with pleasure,
My pride, my glory, in a word, my all!
Bear witness, heaven, that I esteem myself
In nothing worthy of the meanest praise
You can bestow, unless it be in this,
That in my heart, I love and honour you.
And, but that it would smell of arrogance
To speak my strong desire and zeal to serve you,
I then could say, these eyes yet never saw
The rising sun, but that my vows and prayers
Were sent to heaven for the prosperity
And safety of my lord, nor have I ever
Had other study, but how to appear
Worthy your favour; and that my embraces
Might yield a fruitful harvest of content
For all your noble travail, in the purchase
Of her that’s still your servant; by these lips,
Which pardon me that I presume to kiss——
SFORZA. O swear, for ever swear!
MARCELIA. I ne’er will seek
Delight but in your pleasure; and desire,
When you are sated(130) with all earthly glories,
And age and honours make you fit for heaven,
That one grave may receive us.
The third is from _A Very Woman_; the disguised John Antonio is telling
his story at Almira’s request:
Not far from where my father lives, a lady,
A neighbour by, blest with as great a beauty
As nature durst bestow without undoing,
Dwelt, and most happily, as I thought then,
And bless’d the house a thousand times she dwelt in.
This beauty, in the blossom of my youth,
When my first fire felt no adulterate incense,
Nor I no way to flatter, but my fondness;
In all the bravery my friends could show me,
In all the faith my innocence could give me,
In the best language my true tongue could tell me,
And all the broken sighs my sick heart lend me,
I sued and serv’d; long did I love this lady,
Long was my travail, long my trade to win her;
With all the duty of my soul I serv’d her.(131)
At times the poet rises to what is not far removed from inspiration; and
such lines as the following from _The Parliament of Love_ make good the
claim of English to be the imperial language of the world. King Charles
seeks to justify the honours which he, the “most Christian king,” gives to
the statue of Cupid; he then continues thus:
CHARLES. ’Tis rather to instruct deceived mankind,
How much pure love that has his birth in heaven,
And scorns to be received a guest, but in
A noble heart prepared to entertain him,
Is by the gross misprision of weak men,
Abused and injured. That celestial fire,
Which hieroglyphically is described
In this his bow, his quiver, and his torch,
First warm’d their bloods, and after gave a name
To the old heroic spirits; such as Orpheus,
That drew men, differing little then from beasts,
To civil government; or famed Alcides
The tyrant-queller, that refused the plain
And easy path leading to vicious pleasures,
And ending in a precipice deep as hell,
To scale the rugged cliffs on whose firm top
Virtue and Honour, crown’d with wreaths of stars,
Did sit triumphant.(132)
But there is another characteristic of Massinger’s style and that perhaps
more obvious still; it is full of courtliness and grace. A perusal of _The
City Madam_, where the subject is the absurdity of the ladies of the
Mansion House who ape the manners of the West End, suggests the question
whether Massinger was ever attached to the Court. We do not know. He must,
at any rate, have moved amongst refined and educated people. Napoléon said
that Corneille’s plays ought to be performed to an audience of ambassadors
and ministers of state;(133) in the same way, in reading Massinger, we
feel that we are moving freely in the palaces of the great. There is
comparatively little here of dialect(134) or low life; we are at once
taken up into high life with all its virtues and its faults. The kings and
courtiers behave and express themselves as we should expect them to do;
the politeness and the compliments which we hear on every side have the
merit of being entirely natural. And if there is little to remind us of
Dickens, there is still less to recall Thackeray. There is no air of
snobbishness; such is the dexterity of our author that we do not feel like
Jeames Yellowplush, that we are awkward menials watching the doings of the
titled and the great. Not only do the characters move with an inborn grace
which is free from self-analysis and self-contempt, but they take the
audience up into their company; and as the gallants of that era used
sometimes to sit upon the stage, close among the actors,(135) so in
reading Massinger we feel that we are unconsciously present at the scenes
he portrays.
This is as much as to say that the stage of those days responded to a real
and living need in the minds of the audience; there was nothing exotic or
artificial about it, as there seems to have been about our plays ever
since the Puritans turned things upside down. It will be said that this
enchanted atmosphere belongs to all the greater playwrights of the age
alike. And this is true; it is one of the secrets of their abiding charm.
Brander Matthews, in dealing with the unreality of Massinger’s atmosphere,
says that “some of Shakspere’s most delightful plays, _The Merchant of
Venice_ for one, and _Much Ado_ for another, are charming to us now only
because we are quite willing to make believe with the poet” (_op. cit._,
p. 311). And so, when Leslie Stephen asks if we are “invigorated” by the
perusal of Massinger’s plays,(136) I reply to that apostle of common sense
that I am not only charmed and delighted, but invigorated. And why?
Because I am admitted to a world of heroism and romance.
But may we not put the matter more broadly still? When we read the
Cavalier lyrics of Suckling, Herrick, and Lovelace, when we think of
Falkland, when we stand before the portraits of Vandyck, do we not feel
that modern England was in danger until lately of losing something? There
is an aroma there of chivalry which had almost faded from our ken. And yet
there is an element in our shy and dumb English nature to which this
atmosphere is congenial, however overgrown with money-making our minds had
seemed to be. Nor, as the student of history knows well, had the Puritans
in the Civil War the monopoly of religion and duty. Indeed, the Civil War
was a true tragedy, because both sides had right, both fought and bled for
what they believed to be the truth. To-day, in spite of our many domestic
discords, no party spirit discounts the gallant deeds of which we have
read daily, and of which of necessity only a fraction has been publicly
rewarded. Perhaps the flame of romance will breathe once more in our
midst, now the War is over, purified by suffering, and quickened by the
memory of those serene yet manly spirits whom we have lost on the
battlefield, whose departure in the dayspring of life seems, as it were,
to have extinguished so many stars in the vault of heaven. They put aside
the calls of culture and pleasure, and the natural ambition to do
something in the world before they were abolished by death. They have
willingly given for their country all that they had; they have given
themselves. If we remember their devotion with gratitude it may purify us
from the commonplace, the vulgar, and the selfish. They, at any rate, can
address the power of evil, which for the moment seemed to triumph, in the
words of Dorothea:
What is this life to me? Not worth, a thought:
Or, if it be esteem’d, ’tis that I lose it
To win a better; even thy malice serves
To me but as a ladder to mount up
To such a height of happiness, where I shall
Look down with scorn on thee and on the world;
Where, circled with true pleasures, placed above
The reach of death or time, ’twill be my glory
To think at what an easy price I bought it.
There’s a perpetual spring, perpetual youth;
No joint-benumbing cold, or scorching heat,
Famine, nor age, have any being there.
Forget for shame your Tempe; bury in
Oblivion your feign’d Hesperian orchards;
The golden fruit, kept by the watchful dragon,
Which did require a Hercules to get it,
Compared with what grows in all plenty there,
Deserves not to be named. The Power I serve
Laughs at your happy Araby, or the
Elysian shades; for He hath made His bowers
Better in deed than you can fancy yours.(137)
As an instance of Massinger’s courtliness I will quote a short passage
from _The Great Duke of Florence_: Contarino has come from the court of
the Duke to fetch his nephew Giovanni, who has been brought up by a tutor,
Charomonte by name, in the country. As the prince comes in, Charomonte
addresses Contarino:
CHAROMONTE. Make your approaches boldly; you will find
A courteous entertainment. (CONTARINO _kneels_.)
GIOVANNI. Pray you, forbear
My hand, good signior; ’tis a ceremony
Not due to me. ’Tis fit we should embrace
With mutual arms.
CONTARINO. It is a favour, sir,
I grieve to be denied.
GIOVANNI. You shall o’ercome;
But ’tis your pleasure, not my pride, that grants it.
Nay, pray you, guardian and good sir, put on;
How ill it shews to have that reverend head
Uncover’d to a boy!
CHAROMONTE. Your excellence
Must give me liberty, to observe the distance
And duty that I owe you.(138)
Take another instance, from _The Duke of Milan_:
SFORZA. Excuse me, good Pescara.
Ere long I will wait on you.
PESCARA. You speak, sir,
The language I should use.(139)
And this, from The Bashful Lover:
FARNESE. Madam, I am bold
To trench so far upon your privacy
As to desire my friend (let not that wrong him,
For he’s a worthy one) may have the honour
To kiss your hand.
MATILDA. His own worth challenges
A greater favour.
FARN. Your acknowledgment
Confirms it, madam.(140)
I have used the word “lucid” of Massinger’s style; perhaps a more
appropriate word would be dexterous; not that he is obscure like Chapman,
or like Shakspere in his later manner, far less turgid, but he is not
afraid of somewhat long sentences. What he is really afraid of, unlike
Fletcher, is a full-stop at the end of the verse. There are two devices
which the reader will notice, often in combination; in the first place,
Massinger is very fond of the “absolute” construction, and loves to
multiply parentheses. The following passages from _A New Way_ will serve
as illustrations:
FURNACE. She keeps her chamber, dines with a panada,
Or water gruel, my sweat never thought on.(141)
WOMAN. And the first command she gave, after she rose,
Was, her devotions done, to give her notice
When you approach’d here.(142)
Or again, from _The Emperor of the East_:
Astraea once more lives upon the earth,
Pulcheria’s breast her temple.(143)
Or from _The Bondman_:
And, to those that stay,
A competence of land freely allotted
To each man’s proper use, no lord acknowledged.(144)
We find the “absolute” construction occasionally in Shakspere, as in _The
Merchant of Venice_:
So are those crisped snaky golden locks
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,
Upon supposed fairness, often known
To be the dowry of a second head,
The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.(145)
Or in _Hamlet_:
Folded the writ up in form of the other,
Subscribed it, gav’t th’ impression, placed it safely,
The changeling never known.(146)
A passage from _The Fatal Dowry_ will show an elaborate use of
parenthesis:
What though my father
Writ man before he was so, and confirm’d it,
By numbering that day no part of his life
In which he did not service to his country;
Was he to be free therefore from the laws
And ceremonious form in your decrees?
Or else because he did as much as man,
In those three memorable overthrows,
At Granson, Morat, Nancy, where his master,
The warlike Charalois, with whose misfortunes
I bear his name, lost treasure, men, and life,
To be excused from payment of those sums
Which (his own patrimony spent) his zeal
To serve his country forced him to take up!(147)
Compare also these lines from _The Guardian_:
And if you shew not
An appetite, and a strong one, I’ll not say
To eat it, but devour it, without grace too,
For it will not stay a preface, I am shamed,
And all my past provocatives will be jeer’d at.(148)
From _The Picture_:
HONORIA. That you please, sir,
With such assurances of love and favour,
To grace your handmaid, but in being yours, sir,
A matchless queen, and one that knows herself so,
Binds me in retribution to deserve
The grace conferr’d upon me.(149)
From _A Very Woman_:
PAULO. This friend was plighted to a beauteous woman,
(Nature proud of her workmanship) mutual love
Possessed them both, her heart in his heart lodged
And his in hers.(150)
From _The Bashful Lover_:
ALONZO. By me, his nephew,
He does salute you fairly, and entreats
(A word not suitable to his power and greatness)
You would consent to tender that, which he
Unwillingly must force, if contradicted.(151)
From _The Parliament of Love_:
What coy she, then,
Though great in birth, not to be parallel’d
For nature’s liberal bounties, (both set off
With fortune’s trappings, wealth); but, with delight,
Gladly acknowledged such a man her servant?(152)
It has been pointed out by Zielinski that “the perfection of language in
regard to the formation of periods depends upon the presence and
prevalence of abbreviated by-sentences,”(153) by which expression he
describes “absolute” constructions.
Secondly, he delights in an expedient which the poems of Robert Browning
have made familiar to this generation, the frequent omission of the
relative pronoun.(154) And so his sentences meander with a seemingly
negligent grace to an unexpected conclusion. It is clear that such a style
both requires and repays a careful study of the rhetorical art.
I give as an instance of this combination the words of Paulinus in _The
Emperor of the East_. He is talking of the Emperor’s sister and Prime
Minister Pulcheria:
She indeed is
A perfect phœnix, and disdains a rival.
Her infant years, as you know, promised much,
But grown to ripeness she transcends, and makes
Credulity her debtor. I will tell you
In my blunt way, to entertain the time
Until you have the happiness to see her,
How in your absence she hath borne herself,
And with all possible brevity; though the subject
Is such a spacious field, as would require
An abstract of the purest eloquence
(Deriv’d from the most famous orators
The nurse of learning, Athens, shew’d the world)
In that man that should undertake to be
Her true historian.(155)
The style of Massinger is not only lucid and dexterous; it is strong,
partly because of its ease, and more mature and modern than that of many
of his contemporaries. Milton’s prose would have gained much in directness
if he had studied Massinger. This strength does not show itself so much in
isolated fine lines, for, as we have already seen, epigram was foreign to
his nature, though from time to time we get such lines, as, for example,
in _The Duke of Milan_:
One smile of hers would make a savage tame;
One accent of that tongue would calm the seas,
_Though all the winds at once strove there for empire_.(156)
Or, again, in the same play:
How coldly you receive it! I expected
The mere relation of so great a blessing,
_Borne proudly on the wings of sweet revenge_,
Would have call’d on a sacrifice of thanks.(157)
Or, again, in _A New Way_:
OVERREACH. The garments of her widowhood laid by,
_She now appears as glorious as the spring_.(158)
Or in _The Roman Actor_:
Could I imp feathers to the wings of time,
Or with as little ease command the sun
_To scourge his coursers up heaven’s eastern hill_.(159)
We may remark in passing that Massinger’s best single lines are usually
decasyllabic.
It has been remarked by Mr. Swinburne, whose discerning judgment of the
Jacobean dramatists has lavished just praise on Massinger’s art and style,
that in the second act of _Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt_, “the student
will say, ‘This tune goes manly,’ ” and it is remarkable that our poet had
formed in 1619 the style which marked him to the end of his life.(160)
An instance of this simple strength may be given from _The City Madam_,
where Luke debates whether he shall agree to the proposition of the
pretended Indians:
LUKE. Give me leave—(_walks aside_)
I would not lose this purchase. A grave matron!
And two pure virgins! Umph, I think my sister,
Though proud, was ever honest, and my nieces
Untainted yet. Why should not they be shipp’d
For this employment? They are burthensome to me,
_And eat too much_.(161)
When rudeness is necessary it is uttered with some vigour, as in _The
Fatal Dowry_, where this is what Romont gets for his well-meant pains:
ROCHFORT. Sir, if you please
To bear yourself as fits a gentleman,
The house is at your service; but if not,
Though you seek company elsewhere, your absence
Will not be much lamented.(162)
The rejected lover in such a scene as the following has no illusions left
him:
MUSTAPHA. All happiness—
DONUSA. Be sudden.
’Twas saucy rudeness in you, sir, to press
On my retirements; but ridiculous folly
To waste the time that might be better spent,
In complimental wishes.
CORISCA. There’s a cooling
For his hot encounter! (_aside_)
DONUSA. Come you here to stare?
If you have lost your tongue and use of speech,
Resign your government; there’s a mute’s place void
In my uncle’s court, I hear; and you may want me
To write for your preferment.(163)
Two minor features of Massinger’s style may be mentioned here:
1. The catalogue line, so familiar to the student of Lucretius—_e.g._:
_Believe as You List_, I., 2, 85. The sapphire, ruby, jacinth,
amber, coral.
_Believe as You List_ II, 2, 312. All circumstances,
Answers, despatches, doubts, and difficulties.
_Picture_, V., I, 59. The comfortable names of breakfasts,
dinners,
Collations, supper, beverage.
_Emperor of East_, 2 Prol., 8. With his best of fancy, judgment,
language, art.
I., 2, 194. To his merchant, mercer, draper,
His linen-man, and tailor.
V., 2, 88. As sacred, glorious, high, invincible.
_City Madam_, II., 1, 72. Tissue, gold, silver, velvets, satins,
taffetas.
IV., 3, 69. Entreaties, curses, prayers, or imprecations.
_Unnatural Combat_, II., 1, 128. All respect,
Love, fear, and reverence cast
off.
_Great Duke of Florence_, II., 1, 7. We of necessity must be
chaste, wise, fair.
2. A more marked feature is the repetition of words or short phrases in
various parts of the line.(164) The following instances may be given from
(_a_) _The Great Duke of Florence_:
I., 1, 154. It is the duke!
The duke.
I., 2, 41. Our duchess; such a duchess.
I., 2, 95. See, signiors, see our care.
I., 2, 131. Take up, take up.
II., 1, 71. Fie! fie! the princess.
III., 1, 102. Tells
His son, this is the prince, the hopeful prince.
(_b_) _The City Madam_:
II., 1, 58. I blush for you,
Blush at your poverty of spirit.
III., 1, 11. I am starv’d,
Starv’d in my pleasures.
V., 1, 12. Far, far above your hopes.
V., 1, 81. The height
Of honour, principal honour.
V., 2, 67. A manor pawn’d,
Pawn’d, my good lord.
And, thirdly, the versification of Massinger is musical and melodious.
Boyle says that Milton’s blank verse owes much to the study of it. “In the
indefinable touches which make up the music of a verse, in the artistic
distribution of pauses, and in the unerring choice and grouping of just
those words which strike the ear as the perfection of harmony, there are,
if we leave Cyril Tourneur’s _Atheist’s Tragedy_ out of the question, only
two masters in the drama, Shakspere in his latest period and
Massinger.”(165) Coleridge says that it is “an excellent metre, a better
model for dramatists in general to imitate than Shakspere’s. Read
Massinger aright, and measure by time, not syllables, and no lines can be
more legitimate, none in which the substitution of equipollent feet, and
the modifications by emphasis, are managed with such exquisite
judgment.”(166) Be it noted that this praise comes from a master of his
art, for no one who has once appreciated Coleridge’s command of
vowel-syzygy and the velvet-like texture of his blank verse can refuse him
that title.
Massinger’s blank verse is equal to all the emotions which the author can
express and kindle. It never fails him, nor, on the other hand, does it
obtrude itself unduly on the sense conveyed. Only after reading a
considerable passage of our poet do we understand how much the
versification contributes to his lifelike and dignified atmosphere.
Moreover, the metre of Massinger is admirably suited to his style. There
seems a hidden but real harmony between them. Some might call his metre at
times slipshod and undignified, from the fact that, except in elevated
passages, the characters speak in rhythmical sentences which approximate
to prose. Boyle, who declares that “Marlowe and Massinger are the two
extremes of the metrical movement in the dramatists,”(167) has pointed out
that “Massinger’s blank verse shows a larger proportion of run-on lines
and double endings in harmonious union than any of his
contemporaries.(168) Cartwright and Tourneur have more run-on lines, but
not so many double endings. Fletcher has more double endings, but very few
run-on lines. Shakspere and Beaumont alone exhibit a somewhat similar
metrical style.”(169) This is interesting, because we shall see later on
that Massinger was a devoted admirer and imitator of Shakspere in thought,
device, and expression. It is not strange, therefore, that he should also
copy his metre, or rather, develop his own on the same lines. To show how
flexible and dexterous the metre of Massinger is, I will give two
instances from _The Bashful Lover_. In the first Uberti encourages Gonzaga
to persevere with the contest:
UBERTI. Sir, these tears
Do well become a father, and my eyes
Would keep you company as a forlorn lover,
But that the burning fire of my revenge
Dries up those drops of sorrow. We, once more,
Our broken forces rallied up, and with
Full numbers strengthen’d, stand prepared t’ endure
A second trial; nor let it dismay us
That we are once again t’ affront the fury
Of a victorious army; their abuse
Of conquest hath disarm’d them, and call’d down
The Powers above to aid us. I have read
Some piece of story, yet ne’er found but that
The general, that gave way to cruelty,
The profanation of things sacred, rapes
Of virgins, butchery of infants, and
The massacre in cold blood of reverend age,
Against the discipline and law of arms,
Did feel the hand of heaven lie heavy on him
When most secure.(170)
In the second Gonzaga refuses the hand of his daughter Matilda to Lorenzo:
GONZAGA. Two main reasons
(Seconding those you have already heard)
Give us encouragement; the duty that
I owe my mother country, and the love
Descending to my daughter. For the first,
Should I betray her liberty, I deserv’d
To have my name with infamy razed from
The catalogue of good princes; and I should
Unnaturally forget I am a father,
If, like a Tartar, or for fear or profit,
I should consign her, as a bondwoman,
To be disposed of at another’s pleasure;
Her own consent or favour never sued for,
And mine by force exacted. No, Alonzo,
She is my only child, my heir; and if
A father’s eyes deceive me not, the hand
Of prodigal nature hath given so much to her,
As, in the former ages, kings would rise up
In her defence and make her cause their quarrel;
Nor can she, if that any spark remain
To kindle a desire to be possess’d
Of such a beauty, in our time, want swords
To guard it safe from violence.(171)
Anyone who compares the metre of Massinger with that of Fletcher will find
that our author observes far stricter laws than his friend. The plays of
Massinger abound in lines divided between two speakers, or even three,
which, nevertheless, observe the strict rule of the metre.(172)
The way in which Massinger’s style and metre suit one another can best be
illustrated by a passage or two from _The Parliament of Love_; the first
is where Bellisant speaks about the decay of chivalry.
BELLISANT. Ere they durst
Presume to offer service to a lady,
In person they perform’d some gallant acts
The fame of which prepar’d them gracious hearing,
Ere they made their approaches; what coy she, then,(173)
Though great in birth, not to be parallel’d
For nature’s liberal beauties (both set off
With fortune’s trappings, wealth); but with delight,
Gladly acknowledg’d such a man her servant,
To whose heroic courage and deep wisdom,
The flourishing commonwealth, and thankful king,
Confess’d themselves for debtors? Whereas, now,
If you have travelled Italy, and brought home
Some remnants of the language, and can set
Your faces in some strange and ne’er-seen posture,
Dance a la volta, and be rude and saucy,
Protest and swear and damn (for these are acts
That most think grace them), and then view yourselves
In the deceiving mirror of self-love,
You do conclude there hardly is a woman
That can be worthy of you.(174)
The second is a speech of Leonora exposing Cleremond’s baseness:
I, burning then with a most virtuous anger,
Razed from my heart the memory of his name,
Railed and spit at him; and knew ’twas justice
That I should take those deities he scorn’d,
Hymen and Cupid, into my protection,
And be the instrument of their revenge;
And so I cast him off, scorn’d his submission,
His poor and childish winnings, will’d my servants
To shut my gates against him; but, when neither
Disdain, hate, or contempt could free me from
His loathsome importunities, and fired too
To wreak mine injur’d honour, I took gladly
Advantage of his execrable oaths,
To undergo what penance I enjoin’d him;
Then, to the terror of all future ribalds,
That make no difference between love and lust,
Imposed this task upon him. I have said, too;
Now, when you please, a censure.(175)
The critics may differ in their estimate of Massinger’s style and metre;
but it is simple truth to say that they are unique in our literature, in
their correctness, dignity, ease, and classical frugality.
Let us now turn to the poet’s faults. It is said that his range of thought
is limited, and this may be at once conceded. It might also be said that
Greek tragedy is limited, and the statement is true of all our Elizabethan
playwrights; yet we return to them again and again, for they have
something to give us which we cannot do without. It is idle to depreciate
one period of our literature at the expense of another. Are not the old
madrigal writers limited, and Farrant and Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and Blow?
and yet we enjoy them; nay, to take even Purcell himself, when we confess
that the pleasure he gives us is due to the fact that he is more daring,
less shackled than his generation, “so modern” as we say, are we not in
the end forced to confess that he too is unmistakably limited, “bewrayed”
by his quaint and stately rhythms to be one of the seventeenth century?
Our age has a wider and subtler range of psychology; to revert from “The
Georgian Poets” of 1911 to Massinger is like going back from the films of
a cinema palace to a tondo of Luca Signorelli. Both films and tondo have
their uses. We may take a single illustration of this point from _The
Brothers Karamazov_. The great Russian novelist, among other problems,
deals in that book with the case of the young man who is in love with two
women at once. That is the sort of complicated interest which we do not
expect our Elizabethan writers to cope with, in as great detail as a
modern writer uses. The problem occurs in _The Bondman_, where the
heroine, Cleora, is distracted between her plighted love to Leosthenes and
her warm sense of obligation to Marullo;(176) it is interesting and
instructive to see how simply the whole thing is touched upon, and how
soon the doubt is solved by the discovery of Leosthenes’ former intrigue
with Statilia. May we not say, with Aristophanes, in comparing Massinger
and Dostoevsky:
Τὸν μὲν γὰρ ἡγοῦμαι σοφόν, τῷ δ ἥδομαι.(177)
Then it is said that Massinger’s work is not free from coarseness. The
answer to this accusation may be made in more ways than one. I might with
confidence reply to such critics: If you wish for real vulgarity of
diction, read Marston; if you wish for real vulgarity of mind, read
Middleton; if you wish for poisoned morals, read Ford and Tourneur; and
then revise your judgment of Massinger. It is notorious that all the stage
writers of the Elizabethan age are tarred with the same brush; there is
much in Shakspere himself that we wish he had not written; still more is
this true of Ben Jonson. In _The Virgin Martyr_, where we have the odious
servants, Hircius and Spungius, it is generally believed that the parts of
the play in which they appear are due to Dekker, not to Massinger, whose
other works present nothing so disgusting. There are, at any rate, no
lapses of taste in Massinger like those which we find in Fletcher; nothing
like the fate of Rutilio in _The Custom of the Country_, or of Merione in
_The Queen of Corinth_, or of the Father in _The Captain_. It must be
confessed that Massinger’s conception of love is apt to be earthly,
physical, sensuous; there is but little in his plays about the marriage of
true minds,(178) too much about “Hymen’s taper” and “virgin forts.”
Captivated by the charms of female beauty, his intellect is too concrete
in its ideals to rise above mere morality to the mysteries of the diviner
love. So far it must be allowed that his art interests and stimulates the
passions of his audience without elevating them. But if at times we feel a
monotonous limitation in his outlook in these matters, if we miss the
healthy breezes of bracing commonsense and cheerful self-restraint, we are
never pained by the triumph of what is low, corrupt, or morbid.
When it is said that his women are impure it is necessary to enter a clear
protest.(179) There are offensive and heartless women in Massinger, such
as Domitia in _The Roman Actor_, and Beaumelle in _The Fatal Dowry_;(180)
there are odious old women, like Borachia and Corisca. There are pert and
vulgar ladies’ maids; but you have only to read _The Bondman_, _The
Bashful Lover_, _A Very Woman_, _The Maid of Honour_, _The Great Duke of
Florence_, _The Emperor of the East_, _The Picture_, to see that his world
includes some charming female characters—not, indeed, so lovely as those
of Shakspere, but still, types which show that he had not lost his faith
in human nature, as, when we read Fielding, we feel regretfully almost
obliged to allow, in spite of Sophia Western and Amelia, is the case with
our great novelist.
It is true that there are ladies in Massinger’s plays who offer their
hands in marriage to the men they love, and very charmingly the thing is
done, though there is nothing equal to the scene between the Duchess and
Antonio in Webster’s masterpiece; as, for example, Artemia in _The Virgin
Martyr_, the Duchess of Urbin in _The Great Duke_, Calista in _The
Guardian_.(181) This feature is not confined to Massinger among the
writers of his age; to mention no other instances, what about Arethusa in
_Philaster_, Bianca in _The Fair Maid of the Inn_, Beliza and the Queen in
_The Queen of Corinth_,(182) Frank in _The Captain_, Clara in _Love’s
Cure_ (IV., 2), Martia in _The Double Marriage_ (II., 3), Lamira in _The
Honest Man’s Fortune_ (V., 3), Erota in _The Laws of Candy_? Or, what
about Desdemona in _Othello_,(183) or Olivia in _Twelfth Night_?(184) What
about the plot of _All’s Well that Ends Well_? To the vulgar mind all
things are vulgar. _Honi soit qui mal y pense._(185) It may certainly be
conceded that in some of Massinger’s plays, as, for instance, _The
Unnatural Combat_ and _Believe as You List_, the feminine interest is
comparatively slight. Brander Matthews tells us that Massinger’s women
“are all painted from the outside only”;(186) “they are not convincing;
they lack essential womanliness.” This may be due to the fault which the
same critic points out in our author, that “he is heavy-handed and
coarse-fibred ethically as well as æsthetically.” One may reply that if
the theatre be the mirror of life Massinger had an undoubted right to
bring bad women on the stage; there are good and noble women also among
his characters, and if they are not “convincing,” perhaps we may quote
Coleridge’s remark about Shakspere, that “he saw it was the perfection of
women to be characterless.” However far our author may fall short of his
great model in grace, charm, and delicacy, he at any rate deserves credit
for having imagined female characters who are full of passions and made of
“flesh and blood.”(187)
Massinger resembles other dramatists of his age; at times we feel that
they talk like the little boys on the links in Stevenson’s
_Lantern-Bearers_. But Massinger is a robuster mind than Fletcher, for
example; if he brings vice upon the stage, and if he speaks too freely
about things which we prefer not to have mentioned, if “like Hogarth, he
enjoys his own portrayal of degrading vice and its appalling
consequences,”(188) we must, to do him justice, take his work as a whole.
Indeed, most of the critics have singled out as one of his special claims
to praise his sturdy morality,(189) and the general effect on any fair
mind of a perusal of his plays is a conviction that he loved virtue.
Vitelli(190) may make the best of both worlds, but he converts Donusa, and
faces death and torture with fortitude. Goodness emerges from Massinger’s
plays, sometimes compromised for the moment, but always triumphant in the
end. There is considerable outspokenness, but not much lubricity, and no
perverted morality. Passages which offend can nearly always, as in
Shakspere, be omitted without damaging the course of the plot. Moreover,
as has often been pointed out, the works of Massinger are almost wholly
free from blasphemy and profanity, and attacks on the clergy, such as
moved the wrath of Jeremy Collier in later times.
It may be a fanciful suggestion, but it is possible that the drama of that
day suffered from the fact that boys took the female parts.(191) No one
would deny the artistic loss thereby involved, but there was a moral loss
as well. It made it possible for things to be said that would not have
been said by men to women, still less by women to men. It unconsciously
invested the love-scenes with an air of unreality and grossness. It
prevented the relation of the sexes from being depicted with that union of
passion and purity which, though difficult, is possible.
It has been said that Massinger is hard and metallic, and devoid of
pathos. This charge, again, is largely true. You will not find in him
scenes which clutch the heart like those of _Dr. Faustus_, or _The Duchess
of Malfi_, or _The Broken Heart_, or _The Maid’s Tragedy_, or _The Wife
for a Month_; you will not find the sublimity of Ordella’s self-sacrifice
in _Thierry and Theodoret_, or the chivalry of _A Fair Quarrel_; still
less will you find anything so appalling as the end of _King Lear_, or
_Othello_, or _Romeo and Juliet_. There is plenty of passion in Massinger;
like the legendary lion, he lashes with his tail, and you can almost see
him in the act; but his rhetoric does not entirely carry you away. Let me
recall the fine passage which was quoted just now from _The Roman
Actor_.(192) I hope everyone will allow its eloquence; but the repetition
of the commonplace phrase, “we cannot help it,”(193) natural and forcible
as it is, falls short of the ideal grandeur at which the passage aims. We
feel that Fletcher could have made a finer thing of the prison-scene in
The _Emperor of the East_.
It is significant that the most tender passage in Massinger,(194) where
Leonora bids Almira take consolation, has been assigned by some to
Fletcher. In other words, Massinger is not in the front rank of genius,
but no one would claim for him such a place.
Again, one might urge that his plays are not stores of worldly wisdom,
like Shakspere’s; his aphorisms are not deep; they do not bite.(195)
Consequently he does not lend himself to quotation. Yet this does not of
necessity detract from his greatness. No one would question the excellence
of the _Waverley Novels_, but Leslie Stephen has pointed out that we only
make one quotation from Scott’s novels.(196) Aristotle has told us that
“excessive brilliance of diction obscures characters and sentiments.”(197)
There are few passages of high poetical emotion in Massinger; there is
little magic in the rhythm of individual lines. Like most of his
contemporaries he shows at times a strange insensibility to smooth rhythm
in the heroic couplet. He has an anapæstic lilt in various parts of the
line, inherited from Shakspere, and found in Milton’s early poems, which
is not ineffective in its way, and which seems to have aimed at varying
the monotony of the ten-syllable line.(198) He has not much power of
rhyme,(199) nor are his plays studded with such lyrics as Shakspere and
Fletcher could write upon occasion.(200)
Again, the comic element in Massinger is at times dull, forced, and
ordinary; it does not take us very far to label a foolish Florentine
gentleman with the name of “Sylli”;(201) the hungry soldier is rather a
time-worn type,(202) nor can Greedy compare with Lazarillo. Though the
situations are humorous, we do not split with laughter over Massinger, as
we do in reading Aristophanes, or Shakspere, or Molière.(203) We do not
find in him the mercurial lightness of _A Trick to Catch the Old One_, or
the invincible absurdity of “The Roarers” in _The Fair Quarrel_. But it is
necessary to remember that the comic business is of the kind which gains
by acting, or indeed requires it, and to allow that towards the end of his
life Massinger came forward as a grave and powerful satirist of
contemporary men, reminding us of Ben Jonson, but, to my mind, excelling
him; for he shows less asperity with greater lucidity and ease.(204) He is
not unduly morose or bitter, yet he wins conviction with an admirable
sanity and sobriety. The plays will repay good acting, and, after all,
plays are meant to be acted; it is significant that the last of
Massinger’s plays to hold the stage was his comedy, _The New Way to pay
Old Debts_, and it is very much to be wished that it should be revived in
England.(205)
Some critics have accused Massinger of redundancy in style, a
characteristic which clearly will strike different people in different
ways. Thus, Hallam regards this feature as on the whole meritorious,
giving “fulness, or what the painters would call impasto, to his style,
and if it might not always conduce to effect on the stage, suitable on the
whole to the character of his composition.” Mr. Bullen,(206) after an
eloquent tribute to “Massinger’s admirable ease and dignity,” and to “his
rare command of an excellent work-a-day dramatic style, clear, vigorous,
and free from conceit and affectation,” proceeds to allow that “he is apt
to grow didactic and tax the reader’s patience; and there is often a want
of coherence in his sentences, which amble down the page in a series of
loosely linked clauses.” I do not myself feel that this charge comes to
very much.
The real fault of Massinger lies in an imperfect presentation of
character. This point has been felt by many writers, and put in various
ways. Coleridge bluntly says: “Massinger’s characters have no
character.”(207) Brander Matthews puts it in another way when he observes
that “the plots are not the result of the characters, but the work of the
playwright,”(208) a criticism we may remark in passing eminently
applicable to Fletcher. It has been said that the characters are
conventional, like those in the Italian or Spanish sources from which they
are derived; the violent tyrant and the arrogant queen are the most
familiar of these types. I do not think this statement arrives at the root
of the matter. Characters may be conventional and yet interesting and
lifelike. A great many of the personages in Massinger’s plays, important
and unimportant alike, act reasonably; he takes great pains to
discriminate them, and the effect is successful and consistent. Let us
recall the great characters in Massinger; they are Paris, Luke, Sir Giles
Overreach, Durazzo, Marullo, Malefort, Charalois, Antiochus, Camiola,
Dorothea, Donusa, Almira. In the second rank we may put Timoleon, Romont,
Bertoldo, John Antonio, Mathias, Wellborn, Athenais, Marcelia, Sophia,
Cleora. Of these persons, the two that I think most men would like to have
known best are Paris and Camiola. Notice, by the way, that there is seldom
more than one great character in a play. Now, in _Henry VIII_ there are
three, the King, Catherine, and Wolsey. The question arises whether
Massinger, even with Fletcher’s help, could have worked on this scale. If
Massinger wrote _Henry VIII_ it is certainly, with all its faults, his
most remarkable achievement.
The point which I wish to emphasize is that there are many characters in
Massinger drawn with care and ability. Think, for example, of the skilful
contrast between Pulcheria and Athenais in _The Emperor of the East_,
showing how easy it is for two good women to quarrel. Further, it is clear
that the attempt to produce composite and developing characters is
praiseworthy, even if it be not always successful, because it is more true
to life than Ben Jonson’s brilliant but illusory delineation of “humours.”
Human beings are too complex to be labelled in this slapdash way, however
amusing it may be on the stage.
And yet we must allow that a certain number of the more important
characters act outrageously; the explanation being that the faults which
Massinger loves to portray and censure are such as show themselves in
outrageous ways—such as anger, pride, impotence in the Latin sense,
uxoriousness, and above all jealousy.(209) Take the case of Theophilus in
_The Virgin Martyr_, who kills his daughters because they have been
reconverted to Christianity; or of Domitian in _The Roman Actor_, who goes
through life killing people as he would kill flies. It is not enough to
say that there are such people in the world; the point is, that in
Massinger they shock us without appalling us. Sforza behaves to Marcelia
much as Othello behaves to Desdemona; we feel at once a difference of
power in the two plays.(210) Massinger has many villains, but Shakspere
manages better with Richard III and Iago. Think again of the uxoriousness
of Ladislas, Theodosius, Domitian, which some have held to be a covert
satire on Charles I. We despise these weak and servile husbands.
Now, is there anything we can urge in Massinger’s justification? I think
there is. We read his plays nowadays, we do not see them acted. We are
therefore apt to forget how impressive and vigorous good acting is. The
display of passion on the stage with gesture, attitude, frown, and scorn,
would render more tolerable some of these scenes which offend us in the
study by their crudeness. Such a part, for instance, as Leosthenes in _The
Bondman_, the jealous and yet guilty lover, has great opportunities for
the actor. It might even be urged that Massinger wrote thus because he
knew the capabilities of the actors who were going to perform his plays.
The same consideration applies to a feature in Massinger which will strike
every reader. He sets himself at times to represent growth, or, at any
rate, change, of character. Even Shakspere seldom tries to do this,(211)
and it was too hard a task for his pupil. His most ambitious venture in
this direction is in _The Picture_. In that play Mathias has a magic
portrait, which shows him whether his wife is faithful to him or not in
his absence; and the alternations of the mind in husband and wife alike
are drawn with considerable power. Luke in _The City Madam_ is perhaps the
most skilfully drawn example of a development of character. The hypocrite
is quite carried away by the riches to which he unexpectedly
succeeds.(212) Another successful conversion is that of Theophilus at the
end of _The Virgin Martyr_. It is due partly to his eating the heavenly
fruit, for which he had asked Dorothea at her death, partly to the effect
which the grace and beauty of Angelo produce on his mind. The gradual
growth of his new belief, in spite of all that Harpax can do, is managed
with much skill, and it is in itself true to nature that the man who had
been violent in one direction should ultimately be violent in another.
Moreover, we are bound to remember that when people are soon persuaded,
the play gets on. Indeed, I think we have in this consideration the clue
to the whole matter; “the Stage Poet” had a practical mind.
Change of mood and vacillation of purpose, under the stress of temptation,
or due to the conflict of contrary impulses, are features of some of
Massinger’s best scenes. The wavering of the love-sick Caldoro while
Durazzo is abusing him is very true to life.(213) The skill with which the
“melancholy” Vitelli’s changes of mood are depicted in _The Renegado_(214)
suggests the theory that Massinger is drawing his own portrait. The
alternation of pride and humility in Honoria in _The Picture_(215) is
forcibly shown. The just anger of Sophia at the end of the same play
yields skilfully to a combined intercession.
As a rule, however, the changes are too rapid. Thus, in _The Maid of
Honour_, Aurelia, when she hears that Camiola has ransomed Bertoldo and
bound him with a promise to marry her, suddenly changes her mind; she has
been on the point of marrying the faithless soldier, but, as she says:
On the sudden
I feel all fires of love quench’d in the water
Of my compassion.(216)
Though the change is natural, it is inartistically effected; it comes too
suddenly. Think, however, what an opportunity this would be for a great
actress. If we were in the audience, we should see the gradual development
reflected in her expression and bearing long before she utters the words
which embody her thought.
Other instances of the same thing are to be found in Donusa’s conversion
to Christianity in _The Renegado_,(217) in the change of faith effected in
Calista and Christeta by Dorothea’s story of the King of Egypt and Osiris’
image,(218) and in the indecision of Lorenzo about matrimony in _The
Bashful Lover_.(219)
Change of mind is an ungrateful and inartistic experience. It has landed
many honest politicians in bitter and undeserved reproaches. From
Aristotle’s time onwards Euripides has been blamed for his Iphigenia at
Aulis, who first feared to die, and then offered herself for her
country.(220) We certainly feel that in Massinger there are occasionally
instances of cheap repentance which do not seem real. Take the case of
Corisca in _The Bondman_; a bad woman repents, but though convinced we are
not pleased at the spectacle.(221) If Massinger had ever read the
_Poetics_ of Aristotle, he forgot or ignored the precept that a character
should be ὁμαλόν, or “consistent.”(222) If this is not the case there is a
danger that the effect will be μιαρόν, or “odious,” to use a word of which
Aristotle is fond. I think, then, that this charge is proven. Massinger
saw how effective on the stage a sudden change of character might be, but
lacked the necessary art to make it convincing. Hence some of his
characters are not even ὁμαλῶς ἀνώμαλοι.(223) Perhaps the explanation is
this, that, being a master of language, he overvalued the persuasiveness
of rhetoric.(224) It is not enough to portray the varying emotions which
sway the mind at a particular moment; to produce a satisfactory whole they
have to be fused together. The reader should not feel that the characters
are at the mercy of the situations in which they are placed, or they will
appear to be lay-figures or puppets, rather than live flesh and blood.
Yet even here a defence of some sort can be set up for our poet. I will
endeavour to make my meaning clear by an analogy from music. It may have
occurred to someone to ask what the music of Mozart would have been like
if he had lived after Beethoven. Would it have been more serious and
sublime than it is? The question is worth asking, even if the only answer
to it be this, that without Mozart Beethoven would never have existed. I
think it is fair to argue that Massinger, in his constant effort after the
representation of change of character, was before his time; he was seeking
after a complex but possible effect, which the novelist can undertake but
which the limitations of the stage render almost impossible.(225)
Is it fanciful to say that if he had lived in the eighteenth century, if
he had had before his eyes the work of Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett,
he would have been a good novelist, less cynical than Fielding, more
concise than Richardson, more ideal than Smollett? There are authors like
Euripides and Virgil whose very failures by a strange paradox seem part of
their greatness; and we may perhaps say that Massinger, by pointing the
way somewhat tentatively and blindly to subtle psychological studies, has
helped to build up the noble fabric of the English novel.
Let us now turn to some miscellaneous points of interest in Massinger; and
first, let us note his imitation of Shakspere. It is tempting to suppose
that as he was at one time a dependent of a family which was intimate with
Shakspere he may have come across the man himself;(226) it is, at any
rate, simpler to remember that as he was thirty-two years of age when
Shakspere died, he can hardly have failed to meet him in his professional
relations. But we have no evidence of the fact. All we can say is that his
plays, like those of Fletcher, Webster, Tourneur, and others,(227) show a
constant study of Shakspere.(228)
First let me give a few examples of the imitation of incidents. In _The
Roman Actor_,(229) Paris refers to a tragedy “in which a murder was acted
to the life,” which forced a guilty hearer to make discovery of his
secret; this recalls the play scene in Hamlet.(230) In _A Very Woman_(231)
Almira makes Antonio tell her his history. The hint of this is taken from
_Othello_.(232) In _The Fatal Dowry_(233) Beaumelle and her maid arrange
to be overheard, like Hero and Ursula in _Much Ado about Nothing_.(234)
The device by which Beaupré recovers her husband in _The Parliament of
Love_ is imitated from _All’s Well that Ends Well_ and _Measure for
Measure_. The banditti in _The Guardian_(235) respect the poor like the
outlaws in _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_.(236) The forest scenes in the
same play recall _As You Like It_ and _Midsummer-Night’s Dream_.(237) In
_The Bashful Lover_(238) the pretty tale of a sister which Ascanio tells
is a reminiscence of _Twelfth Night_.(239) The incident in the same play
of Hortensio with Ascanio in his arms(240) is modelled on _As You Like
It_.(241) Malefort’s behaviour to the tailor(242) is imitated from
Petruchio’s in _The Taming of the Shrew_.(243) The gibberish of the
pretended Indians in _The City Madam_(244) reminds us of Parolles’
adventure in _All’s Well_.(245) The scene in _The Emperor of the
East_(246) where Eudocia professes to have eaten the apple is modelled on
_Othello_(247), where Desdemona asserts that the handkerchief is not lost.
In _The Bondman_(248) Zanthia overhears Corisca’s confession of love in
her sleep, as Iago does Cassio’s.(249) In _A New Way to pay Old
Debts_(250) Sir Giles Overreach, is carried off for treatment to a dark
room like Malvolio in _Twelfth Night_.(251) Almira in _A Very Woman_(252)
reminds us of the sleep-walking scene in _Macbeth_. The ghosts in _The
Unnatural Combat_(253) and _The Roman Actor_(254) are used like those in
the finale of _Richard III_.
Parallels in thought and diction are also numerous. Take _The Roman
Actor_(255):
ARETINUS. Are you on the stage,
You talk so boldly?
PARIS. The whole world being one,
This place is not exempted.
This goes back to Jaques in _As You Like It_.(256) In _The Maid of
Honour_(257) Jacomo talks of “trailing the puissant pike;” the phrase of
Pistol in _Henry V_.(258) In _The Emperor of the East_(259) Athenais makes
use of the phrase “prophetic soul,” which we remember in _Hamlet_.(260)
Leosthenes uses the same phrase in _The Bondman_(261) when the mutinous
slave Cimbrio boasts of the excesses of his friends. The pun which Hircius
makes on the cobbler’s awl(262) occurs in the first scene of _Julius
Cæsar_. The madness of the English slave in _A Very Woman_(263) comes from
the grave-diggers’ scene in _Hamlet_.(264) The “many-headed monster,
multitude” of Theodosius in _The Emperor of the East_(265) takes us back
to Coriolanus’ “beast with many heads”;(266) while the reference in the
same play(267) to the “stomach” reminds us of the fable of Menenius.(268)
In _The Bashful Lover_(269) Uberti discourses thus:
I look on your dimensions, and find not
Mine own of lesser size; the blood that fills
My veins, as hot as yours, my sword as sharp,
My nerves of equal strength, my heart as good.
This reminds us of Shylock in _The Merchant of Venice_(270) and the King
in _Henry V_.(271) Clarindore’s language in _The Parliament of Love_(272)
is modelled on Malvolio in _Twelfth Night_.(273) The same is true of Sir
Giles Overreach in _A New Way_.(274) Shakspere’s dislike of spaniels
reappears in the same play.(275)
No doubt we must make deductions for the common idioms of the day,(276)
but the cumulative evidence of these parallels with the elder dramatist is
overwhelming.(277)
Massinger is very fond of introducing doctors in his plays; so no doubt
are the other dramatists of this period. It is interesting to compare
Paulo in _A Very Woman_ with Corax in _The Lover’s Melancholy_ of Ford,
who deals successfully with two cases of mental derangement. Ford is more
subtle, Massinger more dignified. Thus we find in _The Virgin Martyr_(278)
a consultation about Antoninus’ health. Sapritius, the afflicted father,
hails the doctors thus:
O you that are half gods, lengthen that life
Their deities lend us; turn o’er all the volumes
Of your mysterious Æsculapian science
T’ increase the number of this young man’s days.(279)
Compare with this another passage in _The Duke of Milan_:
SFORZA. O you earthly gods,
You second natures, that from your great master,
Who join’d the limbs of torn Hippolytus,
And drew upon himself the Thunderer’s envy,
Are taught those hidden secrets that restore
To life death-wounded men!(280)
In _A Very Woman_(281) Paulo, on entering with two surgeons, is thus
addressed:
DUKE. My hand! You rather
Deserve my knee, and it shall bend as to
A second father, if your saving aids
Restore my son.
VICEROY. Rise, thou bright star of knowledge,
Thou honour of thy art, thou help of nature.
Thou glory of our academies!
The old saying, “Ubi tres medici ibi duo athei,” referred to by Sir T.
Browne in _Religio Medici_ is recalled to us by these lines:
VICEROY. Observe his piety; I have heard, how true
I know not, most physicians, as they grow
Greater in skill, grow less in their religion;
Attributing so much to natural causes,
That they have little faith in that they cannot
Deliver reason for; this doctor steers
Another course.(282)
We find them again in _The Emperor of the East_,(283) where a surgeon is
contrasted with an empiric who vends his wares and talks much Latin, like
the quack in Ben Jonson’s _Alchemist_, while Paulinus complains of the
many medical impostors who prey upon the rich. The crisis of _The Duke of
Milan_(284) owes much to the action of doctors. The plot of _A Very Woman_
hinges largely on the skill of the doctor Paulo, to whom we have referred
above. In this play we have two victims of melancholy, Almira and
Cardenes; the former is cured by falling in love with the disguised John
Antonio; the latter is Paulo’s patient. The recovery of the avaricious
father in _The Roman Actor_(285) is due to Paris acting in the part of a
doctor. The physician Dinant in _The Parliament of Love_ gives the
gallants a good lesson (IV., 5). And in _The Picture_(286) we find an
elaborate simile, in which soldiers are said to be the surgeons of the
State. In the same play Hilario,(287) when on starvation fare, is accosted
by a surgeon, who invites him to sell himself for “a living anatomy to be
set up in the surgeons’ hall.” Such passages,(288) and the zest with which
Massinger refers to potatoes, eringos, and the like,(289) together with
the rather wearisome allusions which he makes to “caudles” and
“cullises,”(290) lead us to wonder whether at one time of his life he may
have seriously studied medicine. There is a significant passage in _The
Parliament of Love_,(291) where Chamont says to the doctor Dinant,
Good master doctor, when your leisure serves,
Visit my house; when we least need their art,
Physicians look most lovely.
And close intercourse with doctors may have suggested the lines
immediately below:
NOVALL. The knave is jealous.
PERIGOT. ’Tis a disease few doctors cure themselves of.
At the same time, let us not forget the passages where he shows a
knowledge of the law;(292) nor the fact that books have been written to
prove that Shakspere must have had a training in this or that
profession.(293) The really interesting point about the doctors in
Massinger is that they are so often praised as the healers of the mind;
the dramatist who delights in drawing gloomy, passionate characters seems
to have a high opinion for the profession which undertook to cure
“melancholy.”(294) In _A Very Woman_ he takes care to praise and reward
the doctor more highly than the surgeons. On the other hand, like most of
his contemporaries, he naturally makes the physician a part of the
machinery rather than an individual character. Even the doctor in _A Fair
Quarrel_, who takes an unusually large part in the plot, can hardly be
said to be more than a carefully drawn lay figure. The same remark applies
to the friars of Shakspere.
The chief question about Massinger which interests the student of English
is the authorship of _Henry VIII_. Did he take part in writing that play
with Fletcher? There is a great mass of literature on this subject. As one
who has read the undoubted plays of Massinger many times, I am bound to
say that while there is much in the play which reminds one of Shakspere
and Fletcher, I find little trace of Massinger’s style. I do not deny that
there are one or two slight reminiscences; thus the word “file”(295) is a
favourite one with Massinger. We find blushing in the play once or
twice,(296) but then we find it elsewhere in Shakspere. Anne’s remark to
the old lady, “Come, you are pleasant,”(297) is in Massinger’s manner, but
he may have taken the turn from Shakspere. The strict metre of such a line
as this is like Massinger;(298) the same remark applies again:
SURREY. Has the King this?
SUFFOLK. Believe it.
SURREY. Will this work?
The fourth scene of the second act is a great law-court Scene, and
Massinger has several such, in which he may be copying Shakspere. The
combination of courtiers in dialogue which we get in various parts of
_Henry VIII_ is like Massinger;(299) but, to my mind, the scenes are more
clumsy than their parallels in Massinger. Sudden changes of mind are found
in _Henry VIII_;(300) and this is probably the strongest bit of evidence
in favour of Massinger’s authorship. The characters are not harmoniously
rounded off: Buckingham’s prayers for the King(301) do not please us; the
King’s scruples of conscience are not convincing;(302) Wolsey’s
meekness(303) and piety(304) do not ring true, though they anticipate the
picture of his last year which we get in Cavendish’s Life—but all these
blemishes may be due to hasty work or dual authorship. Failure in
representing vacillation and complexity of character is, as we have seen
above, a note of Massinger, but the failures of this kind in _Henry VIII_
are marked by a sentimentality which reminds us of Fletcher.
Let us see now what there is in the play unlike Massinger. To begin with,
there are many passages in Shakspere’s difficult later style,(305) and
there is a complete absence of Massinger’s sinuous sentences and frequent
parentheses, as also of his peculiar vocabulary; there are many flights of
high and tender poetry which are beyond his compass; there are brilliant
γνῶμαι, such as—
GRIFFITH. Noble madam,
Men’s evil manners live in brass, their virtues
We write in water,(306)
or,
CHANCELLOR. But we are all men,
In our own natures frail, and capable
Of our flesh; few are angels,(307)
which are quite out of his range of power.
Again, there is a curious series of links in the play, by which characters
who are to come on later are introduced; it seems to be an attempt to give
unity to a disconnected work. Thus, the King’s belief in Cranmer is early
indicated;(308) Cromwell’s future success is foreshadowed by Wolsey;(309)
Gardiner’s dislike of Cranmer is brought before us.(310) This is a method
of which I can recall no instance in Massinger’s undoubted plays.
In spite of his roughness and ferocity, Henry is more of a man than any of
Massinger’s tyrants; there is no parallel in Massinger to Anne Boleyn,
slight as her portrait is; while Katherine and Wolsey are alike far
superior to anything of his. Lastly, the pageantry and processions of the
play do not appear in Massinger’s simple designs.
The authors of _Henry VIII_ were essaying an impossible task. They were
trying to construct an historical play out of materials which were too
various to make artistic unity feasible, and they had to make an
unattractive character the centre of the piece. Consequently, they decided
to end the play at the christening of Elizabeth, and to cover their
retreat with gorgeous rhetoric about the Virgin Queen(311) and her Stuart
successor. It would have been quite impossible to introduce the death of
Anne Boleyn, or any further incident of the reign, without harrowing the
feelings of the spectator and losing all sense of proportion. But they do
make a desperate effort to centre our attention on the King as a
commanding figure; he comes before us as “the first gentleman in Europe,”
and as the anxious lover of his people; he is represented as torn by
conflicting emotions about the divorce, and as badly treated by Rome; all
we can say is, these facts are true, however unskilfully the play brings
them before us. Whatever the King does, we are meant to like him. His
victims all conspire to invoke the blessings of Heaven on his head;
Buckingham,(312) Wolsey,(313) Katherine,(314) all agree in this, reminding
us of John Stubbs the Puritan, who, when his right hand was cut off for
writing a book against Elizabeth’s proposed marriage, put off his hat with
his left, and said with a loud voice, “God save the Queen.” The
christening scene in Act V. is skilfully constructed so as to concentrate
our interest on Henry; we feel that he is a royal and heroic figure, whose
faults may in the last resort be palliated by the consideration that he is
the father of Elizabeth.
I agree with the critics who regard the play as a failure from the
artistic point of view; it lacks unity, and it moves awkwardly. It might
even be called a spectacular experiment. But I rate it higher than they
seem to do; its faults are largely due to the subject; it has much of
Shakspere in it, as for example, the conscientious way in which the
historical details are introduced.(315) It is full of superb and moving
passages, and it uses the eleven-syllable line with skill and tenderness.
If some of its defects remind us faintly of Massinger, its excellences are
altogether beyond his abilities. Doubtless, it is natural to wish that
each play of Shakspere should excel its predecessor, and to be unwilling
to confess that he ended his career with something that was not supremely
excellent. In the same way we may be sorry that one of Mozart’s last
works, _Titus_, was a failure. But it is better to take things as we find
them than to seek to twist them into something else on inadequate grounds.
Boyle’s attribution of _Henry VIII_ to Fletcher and Massinger(316) was
coldly received by the New Shakspere Society.(317) Let us look at his
arguments. I trust that condensation will do them no injustice.
1. There is a change in the conception of the character of Buckingham.
Such changes constantly occur in the plays which Fletcher and Massinger
wrote together, notably in the character of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt.
Therefore Massinger wrote part of _Henry VIII_. This line of argument,
even if valid, would only prove collaboration by Fletcher with someone
else.
2. The Shakspere play _All is True_ may have perished in the “Globe” fire
of 1613. _Henry VIII_ was written to take its place, but not produced
before 1616. The evidence quoted for the date 1616-17 is very weak, and
does nothing to prove Massinger’s co-operation.
3. If it be urged that the reputed authors of the play were alive in 1623,
when it was published as Shakspere’s work in the Folio, Boyle
replies,(318) “that, with the exception perhaps of Ben Jonson, it would
never have occurred to a dramatist of that age to claim as his property
what was published under another’s name.” This is a bold statement. Can an
instance of such indifference be quoted? Or are we merely bidden to
remember that Massinger was poor?
4. Boyle then works through the scenes which he ascribes to Massinger.
I., 1.—The opening is like _The Emperor of the East_, III., 1. “An
untimely ague” corresponds to “a sudden fever.” The resemblance of the
scenes is undoubted, and the parallel phrases are remarkable. Note,
however, that the writer says the same thing twice (lines 4 and 13), while
lines 9-12 are not like Massinger.
I., 4.—Lines 1-18, and 60 to the end. I find no trace of Massinger’s style
in these passages. He never wrote lines 75-6:
The fairest hand I ever touch’d! O beauty,
Till now I never knew thee!
or such a phrase as “let the music knock it” _ad finem_.
II., 1.—Lines 1-54, and 136 to the end. I find no trace of Massinger’s
style in these passages. Boyle has to allow that Fletcher altered several
lines in 1-54; this is precarious and subjective reasoning.
II., 3.—Lines 1-11 are in the parenthetic manner, but quite unlike
Massinger’s. “Soft cheveril conscience” in line 31, and “you’d venture an
emballing” in line 47, are instances of the strong vocabulary which marks
the play.(319) Picturesque phrases of this kind are not characteristic of
Massinger’s style.
Nor did Massinger ever sink so low as line 64:
A thousand pound a year, annual support.(320)
II., 4.—No doubt Massinger loves a forensic scene, but this one leads to
nothing and leaves the mind in confusion. Now, Massinger was too good an
artist to do that. The things the people say in this scene must have
passed through their minds in real life, but they are combined in such a
way as to be true to history rather than to dramatic propriety. The author
aims at telling what happened, and what happened does not always make a
good play. It might even be urged from what we know of Massinger that he
was too good a “stage-poet” to undertake an English historical play with
its necessary limitations.
III., 2, 1-203.—The scene, like so much else in the play, lacks the
refinement and courtliness which Massinger always has at his command. It
may be noted that the bluff, coarse atmosphere of the “Shaksperian” scenes
is very suitable to the central figure of the play.(321) Henry VIII
infects his surroundings with himself, and this might be quoted as an
indication of Shaksperian skill.
IV., 1.—The prosaic details of this scene are unlike anything in
Massinger.(322)
V., 1.—The point of this scene is to concentrate our attention on
Elizabeth’s birth. The scene “sprawls” sadly, to use Boyle’s description
of Fletcher’s method. First we have Gardiner and Lovell, then Henry and
Suffolk, then Henry and Cranmer, then Henry and the old lady. Massinger
constructed better than this.
V., 3, 1-113.—Such a speech as Cranmer makes (lines 58-69) is too short
for Massinger’s ample method, and its terse, broken style is singularly
unlike his.
5. The few parallels of diction which Boyle brings forward are either from
plays which are not certainly by Massinger, or may be explained as due to
reminiscence or common phraseology.
6. Boyle has much of value to say in his criticisms of the characters. But
again and again he seems to forget that the author is hampered by the
story. He could not treat Henry VIII as Schiller treated Mary Stuart; to
idealize the events would have been an act of _lèse-majesté_.
It is true that Anne Boleyn is not a creation of the same order as
Shakspere’s later heroines—Imogen, Miranda, Marina, Perdita. Though
beautiful and charming, she is shallow and commonplace. Is not this,
however, the Anne Boleyn of real life?
“Katherine is inferior to Hermione in _The Winter’s Tale_.” But why should
not her portrait be drawn on different lines? Is she not a proud Spanish
princess? She is certainly one of the great figures of English Tragedy.
Wolsey is meant to be great but is really vulgar, while “his utter
collapse after disgrace is unnatural.” The reply is that Wolsey is a mixed
character, and none the worse dramatically for that; very able, very
unscrupulous in his use of the courtier’s tricks, very fond of power; but
not wholly bad. His repentance is true at once to human nature and to
history.
“The king is unintelligible.” The fact is, it was impossible to make a
hero of Henry VIII; it does not, therefore, follow that Massinger helped
to write the play! Boyle is correct when he says that it is with Henry as
it is with Wolsey: “we receive our impressions of the characters from the
opinions formed of them by others.” In other words, the characterization
of the play is faulty. Some critics have supposed that this fact is due to
loss of mental power by Shakspere; it is simpler to hold the collaboration
with Fletcher as responsible for the jolts and jars which the play gives
the reader. If anyone still holds that Shakspere wrote the whole play, he
might plausibly take the line that Shakspere was experimenting in the new
style and metre of his popular young rival Fletcher. If, however,
Shakspere in his retreat at Stratford, in days when posts were infrequent
and locomotion slow, forwarded scenes and suggestions for Fletcher to work
up at his own sweet will, something like what we have would be the result.
Fletcher was evidently on his mettle on this occasion. I cannot prove that
Fletcher did not invite Massinger to help him in such an enterprise, and I
know how fond Massinger was of studying Shakspere. The latter argument,
however, cuts both ways. Again, Massinger may have had an earlier
Shaksperian style, very unlike his mature style; but this is pure
hypothesis. The evidence which we have does not justify us in saying more
than this, that he knew the play of _Henry VIII_ well.(323)
It would take me too far from my purpose to discuss the authorship of _The
Two Noble Kinsmen_ in detail, interesting as the problem is, but as many
critics have assigned the “un-Fletcherian” parts of the play to Massinger,
I have, as in duty bound, read the play carefully several times. There is
very little trace of his style, or method, or metre. The only passage
which reads to me like Massinger is assigned by Boyle to Fletcher.(324)
Mr. Dugdale Sykes, in an acute article,(325) has produced some parallels
between Massinger and _The Two Noble Kinsmen_; but though one or two of
them are striking, they do not prove his case when they are looked at in
connexion with the context.
Take, for example:
3RD QUEEN. He that will all the treasure know o’ th’ earth
Must know the centre too.(326)
Mr. Sykes compares these lines in _The Parliament of Love_:
CLEREMOND. And I should gild my misery with false comforts,
If I compared it with an Indian slave’s,
That with incessant labour to search out
Some unknown mine, dives almost to the centre.(327)
On this passage I make two remarks: first, such similarity of thought as
is found here may be due to imitation or unconscious reminiscence of _The
Two Noble Kinsmen_. A man who constantly repeats himself is surely the
sort of person who would delight to borrow thoughts and phrases from other
writers, and to imitate whole scenes and incidents. Are we to suppose that
Massinger confined his studies to Shakspere?
Secondly, let us judge the passage as a whole; it runs thus:
He that will all the treasure know o’ th’ earth
Must know the centre too; he that will fish
For my least minnow, let him lead his line
To catch one at my heart.
Anything more unlike Massinger than this fishing for minnows cannot be
imagined.
Take again the parallel,(328) “which alone should be conclusive of
Massinger’s authorship”:
PIRITHOUS. Though I know
His ocean needs not my poor drops, yet they
Must yield their tribute there. My precious maid,
Those best affections, that the heavens infuse
In their best temper’d pieces, keep enthroned
In your dear heart.(329)
In _Believe as You List_ we have:
Though I know
The ocean of your apprehensions needs not
The rivulet of my poor cautions, yet,
Bold from my long experience, I presume, etc.(330)
Though the similarity of thought and expression in the first three lines
is manifest, the archaic simplicity of the first passage differs greatly
from the mature flow of the second.
What is Mr. Sykes’ theory? “If we admit Massinger’s collaboration in this
play, at the very outset of his literary career, before his style was
definitely formed, and when the influence of the foremost dramatist of the
age was strongest upon him, the apparently ‘Shaksperian’ quality of its
verse can readily be explained.” On this proposition I make two remarks;
first, that as we have none of Massinger’s early works, I cannot prove
that he never wrote in the style of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_; I can only
assert with absolute certainty that none of his extant works has the least
resemblance to it. Secondly, as to the supposed “Shaksperian” colour of
the play, this is a point on which one’s judgment varies each time one
reads it. There is a great deal in the “un-Fletcherian” parts which
reminds one of Shakspere; some of it is so like his later style that it is
not surprising to find that many great critics have assigned it to him;
many other passages, however, seem just not to ring true; they are obscure
because they have little meaning. For let not the fact be disguised, in
spite of one great lyric, several splendid scenes, and some fine speeches,
there is much poor stuff in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.
The simplest explanation of the double ascription in the quarto of 1634 is
to suppose that Shakspere helped Fletcher in some way. He may even have
written the un-Fletcherian parts,(331) though, personally, I find traces
of Fletcher in them also; he may have left material which Fletcher worked
up; he may have merely suggested the construction of the plot, a
department in which Fletcher is weak.
If, however, the “Shaksperian” parts be deemed unworthy of Shakspere, why
assign them to Massinger, whose work they do not resemble? Could no one
else have imitated Shakspere except Massinger? Why should not Fletcher
himself for once have caught the Shaksperian manner? Why should he not
have confided the execution of a part to someone else who was soaked in
Shakspere’s style? Why should not Beaumont have helped him here as
elsewhere,(332) or possibly Heywood?
The archaic flavour of the play is to me the outstanding fact about it; we
know that plays on this subject were acted in 1566 and 1594. The archaic
flavour may be due to the influence of Chaucer on the writers; it is more
likely to be due to an earlier play having been taken and altered. It
might also be due to the collaboration of someone like Heywood, who,
though late in time, is surprisingly simple and early in style. The rustic
scenes are an instance of this very early manner.(333) If Shakspere and
Fletcher took an old play, and the former contributed a few turns to the
revised edition, then everything would be accounted for.(334) It will be
said that there are scenes which remind us of Lady Macbeth and Ophelia;
why should not an already existing play have suggested to Shakspere
something which he worked up in those two characters into a far finer
result? We know for a fact that much of his best work is based on older
plays. This random hypothesis is quite as probable as the supposition that
Massinger had anything to do with _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.
Let us next consider Mr. Tucker Brooke’s position.(335) After a searching
and masterly analysis of the merits and defects of the play, he ends with
a guarded tendency towards assigning the “un-Fletcherian” parts to
Massinger on the following grounds: “The metrical tests give him an even
better title than his master [_i.e._, Shakspere] to the doubtful parts of
our play.” To this I reply that style is a more important test than metre.
There are, secondly, “the structural and psychological imperfections of
the work”; thirdly, “the tendency to unnecessary coarseness of language”;
fourthly, “the feeble imitation of Shakspere”; fifthly, “the frequent
similarity to Massinger’s acknowledged writings.” The only serious
argument against the assumption is that there is nothing in Massinger to
compare with “the magnificent poetry of the un-Fletcherian part.”
Let us briefly look at these arguments. The work is “structurally and
psychologically imperfect.” True, and this point might be quoted to
support the theory that the play is based on an old and immature tragedy.
As far as concerns structure, Massinger’s plays are always strong; so that
part of the argument falls to the ground. No doubt his psychology is his
weak point, but its weakness is of a different kind from that which we
find in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_. There are no violent emotions of the sort
in which he rejoices in it. There are no characters in Massinger
resembling Palamon and Arcite. Mr. Brooke refers to their “spinelessness,”
and it is true that they are not much differentiated. I suppose, however,
that he would allow that they start by being a romantic pair of friends,
that their quarrel when they first see Emilia is lifelike, and that their
subsequent behaviour is chivalrous. When he refers to “the really
revolting wishy-washiness and ingrained sensuality of Emilia” he uses
exaggerated language. The fact is, that Emilia is in a very difficult
position, and if her character is ambiguous it is the fault of the story
rather than of the author.
“The tendency to unnecessary coarseness of language.” This is based in the
main on Hippolyta’s language,(336) with which Mr. Sykes compares a passage
in _The Unnatural Combat_.(337) I have discussed the supposed coarseness
of Massinger’s heroines elsewhere. In spite of everything that Boyle can
say, with his catalogue of twenty-two passages, I wonder who is right
about Massinger’s women, Boyle or Courthope, who says that “his portraits
of women show more delicacy of feeling and imagination than those of any
English dramatist with the exception of Shakspere.”(338) I, at any rate,
feel that Courthope is nearer the truth than Boyle and his followers.
“Feeble imitation of Shakspere.” That there is imitation of Shakspere in
Massinger we all know; but I deny that it is feeble, and we know that
others of the same age, like Fletcher, Webster, and Tourneur, have
delighted to imitate him.
“The frequent similarity to Massinger’s writings.” In the first place, I
do not feel that the similarity is frequent; and secondly, as has already
been pointed out, what similarity there is may be due to imitation of _The
Two Noble Kinsmen_ by Massinger. Are we to suppose that the only author he
imitated or borrowed from was Shakspere?
The final reservation raises mixed feelings. I am tired of those writers
who grudgingly attribute to Massinger the leavings of other playwrights,
making him the whipping boy of his age, and who proceed to qualify their
theories by doubts as to his ability to attain to the excellences which
they perforce discover in them. I will be so far generous to Mr. Brooke as
to allow that “the magnificent poetry of the un-Fletcherian parts” is
unlike Massinger, because there is no reason for supposing that he wrote
any of these parts. Massinger’s fame can stand on its own merits without
these churlishly conceded ascriptions of doubtful work.
And now let us pass to Boyle’s notable article on this subject.(339) Much
as I admire his learning and zeal, I am amazed at the perversity of his
judgment and the thinness of his arguments. Let us take them in order.
“There is a want of development in the dramatic character”(340) of _The
Two Noble Kinsmen_. This Boyle ascribes to the fact that, as elsewhere,
Massinger’s conceptions were blurred by Fletcher’s co-operation in other
parts of the play. As this argument begs the question it has no weight.
“Allusions to Shakspere are characteristic both of Massinger and _The Two
Noble Kinsmen_.”(341) Are we to suppose that no one imitated Shakspere
except Massinger? “The metrical structure of the play corresponds closely
with Massinger’s general style.”(342) Here, however, Boyle has to allow
that the percentages for double endings are not what you would expect. And
I look with suspicion on a writer who professes to be so certain of these
tests that he can assign I., 1-40, and V., 1-19, to Fletcher. “Massinger
is fond of classical allusions, as is the author of _The Two Noble
Kinsmen_.”(343) This argument deserves no consideration when we remember
that the fact is true of other Elizabethan writers. For example, we find
“the helmeted Bellona,”(344) and Massinger is fond of the sonorous
word.(345) Yes, but Bellona is not unknown in Shakspere. M. Arnold has
pointed out that she occurs in a weak passage of Macbeth.(346) “Medical
and surgical similes occur in both.”(347) When we come to investigate
these we find that the remarks in question are of a commonplace kind. “The
characters of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ resemble those of Massinger.”(348)
Theseus, for example, resembles Lorenzo in _The Bashful Lover_. I see no
resemblance. “Palamon and Arcite may be met with in many of Massinger’s
plays.”(349) I fail to find them anywhere. “The three ladies are grossly
sensual in their remarks.”(350) I have dealt with this point before, and
it really amounts to a mischievous obsession in Boyle’s mind. Let us take
the passages seriatim; Emilia is talking privately to Hippolyta(351) about
a dead girl friend to whom she was devoted when young. In the course of
this beautiful passage she says:
The flower that I would pluck
And put between my breasts, then but beginning
To swell about the blossom, oh! she would long
Till she had such another, and commit it
To the like innocent cradle, where phœnix-like
They died in perfume.
I am ashamed to waste words in vindicating this passage, which Boyle sets
by the language of Iachimo in Cymbeline in describing the mole on Imogen’s
breast(352) to a company of gentlemen.
The next one is “decisive of the question of the authorship of our play.”
1ST QUEEN. When her arms,
Able to lock Jove from a synod, shall
By warranting moonlight corslet thee, O when
Her twinning cherries shall their sweetness fall(353)
Upon thy tasteful lips, what wilt thou think
Of rotten kings and blubbered queens? What care
For what thou feel’st not, what thou feel’st being able
To make Mars spurn his drum? O, if thou covet
But one night with her, every hour in’t will
Take hostage of thee for a hundred, and
Thou shalt remember nothing more than what
That banquet bids thee to.(354)
Though there are passages in Massinger of which the thought is similar to
that presented here, I do not judge it or them as severely as Boyle. The
point, however, which I wish to make is this: these lines are typical of
what I have called the archaic flavour of the play. Where in Massinger’s
works will you find “warranting moonlight,” “tasteful lips,” “twinning
cherries,” “rotten kings and blubbered queens,” or “Mars’ drum”? The idea
that Massinger wrote this passage is quite preposterous; the only thing in
it which reminds one of him is the “and” at the end of line 204.
Lastly, we have Hippolyta’s words in the same scene:
Yet I think
Did I not by the abstaining of my joy,
Which breeds a deeper longing, cure their surfeit
That craves a present medicine, I should pluck
All ladies’ scandal on me.(355)
Hippolyta agrees in these lines to postpone her wedding in order that the
Queens should be avenged on Creon. No doubt the lines are crude, but Boyle
goes too far with his “cloven hoof,” his “effluvia of social corruption,”
his “thick miasma.”
“There is a close parallel between _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ and _A Very
Woman_ in the treatment of madness.”(356) I do not see much similarity
between the prose of the one play and the poetry of the other, but so far
as any exists it is due to the common ideas of the age as to the way in
which to treat the mad. “The reflections in the dialogue of Palamon and
Arcite,(357) on the corruptions of Thebes, the neglect of soldiers, the
extravagance of fashion, are allusions such as Massinger makes to
contemporary English life.”(358) The allusions are such as any moralist
might make, and if the rough and immature style in which they are
expressed is not like Massinger’s the argument falls to the ground.
“There are a good many expressions in common between _The Two Noble
Kinsmen_ and Massinger.”(359) This is the really serious argument; but let
me repeat that similarity of thought and expression in isolated phrases
does not prove unity of authorship. Let us, however, look at some of these
parallels.
Reference is twice made in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ to “the wheaten
garland” of brides.(360) Massinger refers to “the garland” of a bridegroom
in three passages.(361) I fail to see the connexion. Notice also that
Massinger does not use the epithet “wheaten” in these passages.
Theseus says, “Troubled I am,” and turns away.(362) It was quite natural
that he should think twice before postponing his wedding. Boyle compares a
passage where Ladislas is in uncertainty(363):
I am much troubled,
And do begin to stagger.
People in Massinger’s plays are often perplexed, and so they are in real
life. Note that Theseus ends his remark with these words at the beginning
of a line. When Massinger’s characters are in perplexity their way of
expressing themselves is quite different; it is more full and rounded off.
Theseus says: “Forward to the temple,”(364) being anxious to be married.
“Similar words in similar situations occur in Massinger.”(365) In neither
case, however, is it a bridegroom who speaks.
_The Two Noble Kinsmen_, I., 165, 166:
1ST QUEEN. And that work presents itself to th’ doing;
Now ’twill take form, the heats are gone to-morrow.
Boyle says this is obscure, but can be explained by _Empress of the East_:
That resolution which grows cold to-day
Will freeze to-morrow.(366)
The thought is a familiar one; and can anyone suppose that Massinger wrote
line 165?
The expression “our undertaker”(367) recalls a word used by
Shakspere.(368) Massinger also has it twice;(369) the parallel is
interesting, but the word was a cant political term of Jacobean times.
The fact that apes imitate is referred to in these lines:(370)
’Tis in our own power—
Unless we fear that apes can tutor’s—to
Be masters of our manners.
In _The Emperor of the East_ we find:
You are master of the manners and the habit,
Rather the scorn of such as would live men,
And not, like apes, with servile imitation
Study prodigious fashions.(371)
Surely there is no need to assume common authorship here. The imitative
ape has been common property for a long time.
A peculiarity of a sick man is referred to, thus:
I must no more believe thee in this point
Than I will trust a sickly appetite,
That loathes even as it longs.(372)
Massinger in _A Very Woman_ has:
No more of Love, good father,
It was my surfeit, and I loathe it now,
As men in fevers meat they fall sick on.(373)
The simile is a part of ordinary experience and literary convention. You
might as well argue that Massinger wrote _Euphues_.
The jailer’s daughter leaves the scene with this remark:
It is a holiday to look on them; Lord, the difference of men.(374)
Lidia, in _The Great Duke of Florence_, when Sanazarro seems to be
treating her rudely, exclaims:
Oh, the difference of natures!(375)
But she does not leave the stage.
We might say: Oh, the difference of styles! In the one case we have a
rustic maiden of low birth; in the other, a lady justly offended.
I do not deny that some of the parallels are remarkable, but they may be
due to imitation or reminiscence. Take the words:
Thou, O jewel,
O’ th’ wood, o’ th’ world, hast likewise blest a place
With thy sole presence.(376)
In _The Great Duke of Florence_ we find:
And what place
Does he now bless with his presence?(377)
The phrase is one which Massinger’s courtly mind would treasure and
delight to use.
Theseus, addressing Artesius, says:
Forth and levy
Our worthiest instruments, whilst we despatch
This grand act of our life, this daring deed
Of fate in wedlock.(378)
Phrases like this are found in Massinger; thus in _The Maid of Honour_,
Roberto says of the wedding of Bertoldo and Aurelia:
And rest assur’d that, this great work despatch’d,
You shall have audience.(379)
They may be due to reminiscence, though it is simpler to regard them as
the current English of the day.
The strongest evidence for Boyle’s theory is contained in Palamon’s
invocation to Venus:(380)
I never practised
Upon man’s wife, nor would the libels read
Of liberal wits; I never at great feasts
Sought to betray a beauty.
These words certainly remind us of Leosthenes in _The Bondman_, both in
thought and style:
Nor endeavour’d
To make your blood run high at solemn feasts,
With viands that provoke; the speeding philtres;
I worked no bawds to tempt you; never practised
The cunning and corrupting arts they study
That wander in the wild maze of desire.(381)
I think, however, that reminiscence will suffice to account for the
parallel. The man who could write the last line of this passage has no
need to buttress up his fame with _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, though it is of
course conceivable that he edited it for publication in 1634.
Lastly, the method of Massinger calls for a few words. It has been noticed
by all the critics that he often repeats himself. As is the case with
Plautus the same metaphors, thoughts, and words recur from time to time in
similar situations. It is clear that this characteristic might help us to
trace those parts of Fletcher’s plays in which Massinger collaborated.
One or two simple instances of this fact may be quoted: the characters in
Massinger are very fond of blushing;(382) references to the talkativeness
of women are frequent;(383) metaphors from the sea and sailing are very
common;(384) people are fond of saying that they mean to do something but
they do not know what;(385) the exact courtier kneels and kisses the robe
of a lady or her foot, and is sometimes rebuked for doing so.(386)
As a good moralist, Massinger dislikes suicide(387) and duelling.(388) The
latter practice is referred to in his plays as a new-fangled importation
from abroad.
Let us now quote some of his favourite words: references need not be given
for “honour”; wherever we find “atheist” for a bad man,(389) or
“magnificent” for munificent,(390) or the Latin phrase “nil ultra,”(391)
or the Greek words “apostata”(392) and “embryon”;(393) wherever we find
“frontless”(394) impudence and “sail-stretched” wings(395) and
“libidinous”(396) Caesars; wherever the moisture of the lips is compared
to nectar,(397) wherever we read of “the centre”(398) or of “horror,”(399)
or of washing an Ethiop,(400) there we are on familiar ground. Again, it
is a characteristic of Massinger, which offends some of his readers more
than others, that he is always ready with the obvious remark. Thus, when
Marrall, after a career of tergiversation is finally kicked off the stage,
he says:
This is the haven
False servants still arrive at.(401)
In _The Emperor of the East_, when the complications about Paulinus’ apple
are getting rather serious, the Princess Flaccilla makes the remark, which
is certainly in the mind of the reader:
All this pother for an apple!(402)
When Leosthenes allows himself to be intolerably coarse in his language to
Cleora, we read these words:
CLEORA. You are foul-mouth’d.
ARCHEDAMUS. Ill-manner’d, too.(403)
When Hilario seeks to amuse his mistress with an absurd message from the
front, and she observes, “This is ridiculous,”(404) we feel inclined to
say, “Not only ridiculous, but not worth writing.” When Cardenes, after
lying as dead for some time, gives signs of life, the Viceroy very justly
observes:
This care of his recovery, timely practis’d,
Would have expressed more of a father in you,
Than your impetuous clamours for revenge.(405)
It will be remembered that Shakspere had used this device in his day.
Compare _Richard II_: “Can sick men play so nicely with their names?”(406)
_Midsummer-Night’s Dream_: “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”(407) _1
Henry VI_: “Here is a silly stately style indeed!”(408)
What impression do we get of Massinger from his writings? He was the
intimate friend and associate of Fletcher; how far was he a man of the
same stamp? Both as a poet and a stylist Fletcher is his superior; he is
more tender and more varied; in isolated scenes he attains a high degree
of pathos. From time to time the bursts of lovely poetry which illustrate
his plays make us bow the head as though in the presence of an enchanter.
The fifty plays which are currently associated with his name, with all
their faults, are a veritable fairyland. Again, there is a terse piquancy
about him, which expresses itself in clear-cut, vigorous lines, such as we
find rarely in our poet. And he has a real vein of humour, which makes one
laugh heartily.(409) Nor is his direct and lucid prose style to be
despised. On the other hand, he was not a great artist; his plots, though
usually bustling, are often improbable; his character-drawing is
constantly fickle and inconsequent. Thus, according to Boyle,(410) in _The
Honest Man’s Fortune_, Tourneur and Massinger make Montague a gentleman;
in Act V. Fletcher destroys all that was good in Massinger, but makes good
sport for the groundlings. He maintains that the same thing happens to
Buckingham in _Henry VIII_ and to Barnavelt. Though there are many
life-like characters in his works, to whom we feel attracted, such as Leon
in _Rule a Wife and have a Wife_ and Valerio in _The Wife for a Month_,
they are too often made to do improbable things. Again, as a moralist
Fletcher falls far behind Massinger. He shows from time to time a
high-flown and tainted sentimentality which is far removed from real life.
Indeed, the bad use to which he puts his great talent is often enough to
make angels weep. He more than anyone is responsible for the Puritan
reaction; he more than anyone is responsible for most of what was bad in
the Restoration drama, and he has had his reward. Except by the student,
his work is forgotten. It can hardly be doubted that the death of Fletcher
was a gain to Massinger in emancipating him from the co-operation of a
fascinating but unsafe guide.(411) In standing alone he learnt to perfect
all that was best in his own gifts.
It is difficult to form a clear judgment of Beaumont. The more I read what
scholars attribute to him, the more I feel disposed to agree with Sir A.
Ward that Beaumont and Fletcher were men of the same mind and tastes. It
is plain that the author of _Philaster_, _The Maid’s Tragedy_, and _A King
and No King_ had a range of passion and pathos beyond Massinger.
_Philaster_ is incomparable, and as we read the other two plays we hurry
on from scene to scene; when we put the book down we are perturbed. They
have carried us away in spite of their grave faults. The glorious nonsense
of _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_ is equally beyond Massinger. On the
other hand, such disagreeable plays as _The Coxcomb_ and _Cupid’s Revenge_
do not invite a second perusal. I do not feel that Beaumont was cleaner in
mind than Fletcher, or more balanced in judgment. When we come to the
department of metre we seem to be on surer ground; the metre of Beaumont
has high qualities, and his decasyllabic verse reminds me of the cold
purity of a waterfall. In style his lines constantly have a marked
simplicity and directness which anticipate Wordsworth. He can write a line
in which the words run in the order which they would have in prose, and
hence his great strength. On the other hand, he is often careless about
the length of his lines, possibly from a love of variety. He is fond of
rhyme, and introduces prose freely into his scenes. His models appear to
have been Marlowe for metre and Ben Jonson for treatment. He has a liking
for burlesque, as witness _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, _The
Woman-Hater_, and Arbaces in _A King and No King_.(412) All this is very
unlike Massinger.
It may be asked, how does Massinger compare with Webster? This question
naturally rises in the mind at a moment when a gifted writer, snatched
from us before his time, has left us an interesting and scholarly study of
Webster. Mr. Rupert Brooke makes no secret of his contempt for Fletcher,
and “the second-rate magic” of Massinger; he regards Webster as the last
of the strong school of Elizabethan dramatists.
Are we to compare _Westward Ho!_, _Northward Ho!_, and _The Cure for a
Cuckold_ with _A New Way to pay Old Debts_ and _The City Madam_? They are
less refined, less skilfully constructed. The stage is more crowded, and
the characters are worse drawn. The same considerations apply to the
_Malcontent_(413) and _The Devil’s Law-case_. Mr. Brooke practically
allows that he means by Webster, _The White Devil_ and _The Duchess of
Malfi_, and these plays alone. Let it be said at once that it is an
ungrateful task to magnify one poet at the expense of another. We allow
that in these two plays Webster comes nearer to Shakspere than any of his
compeers. He has a great, a subtle, a well-stored mind; he produces
isolated tragic effects of the most poignant kind; he is a master of
atmosphere; he plays with the feelings of his auditors; he can dazzle them
by “his miraculous touches of poetic beauty.”
On the other hand, he is not a clear thinker, nor are his plays skilfully
planned. I should imagine that they read better than they act. For
instance, the scene in _The Duchess of Malfi_, where Ferdinand gives the
heroine the dead hand, fills us with horror. I doubt if it would be
effective on the stage. Webster’s rhymes are poor, and his prose worse
than Massinger’s. Sir Sidney Lee(414) says his blank verse is “vigorous
and musical”; to me it seems too often ragged and halting. But the chief
objection to Webster is that he lives in “a world of repulsive themes and
fantastic crimes.” He revels in the sinister suggestions aroused by
skulls, dead hands, ghosts, echoes, and madmen. His mind was morbid, and
his successes are like lightning flashes of splendid power piercing a
gloomy and sullen background.
The fact that he was not a productive writer may weigh less with some
critics than with others; more important is it to remember that
Massinger’s plays held the stage much longer than Webster’s. This fact may
fairly be taken to prove the appeal which the former has successfully made
to the human heart. Webster, in short, compared with Shakspere, reminds us
somewhat of the contrast between Mantegna and Raphael.
In one or two respects Webster has affinities with Massinger. Both
frequently imitate Shakspere; and both repeat themselves continually,
though in different ways. Whereas Massinger used the same vocabulary and
terms of thought again and again, Webster quotes whole sentences from one
of his plays in another, as if he felt, like some of the Greek writers of
antiquity, that when he had said a thing as it should be said, he had the
right to use it again.(415)
It is difficult to compare Massinger with Ben Jonson: both wrote Roman
plays and domestic comedies; but Ben Jonson has at once a greater mind and
a wider range of experiment. He was a learned man, a great figure in
society, the dictator of a circle of wits, the centre of many friendships
and enmities. He would probably regard Massinger as a pale-featured,
gentle hack. We know more about his full-blooded personality than about
any other writer of the period, and while there is much in him to offend,
there is more to inspire our respect.
Our immediate object is to compare the two writers as dramatists. It is at
once clear that they work on different lines. Massinger is a follower of
Shakspere and Fletcher, though we can trace in some of his tragedies the
influence of Webster and Tourneur. In his comedies, we see some
approximation to Ben Jonson; it is instructive to compare _Eastward Ho!_
with _The City Madam_. A fundamental difference of method is at once seen;
Massinger deliberately eschews the use of prose. It must at once be
conceded that he has left nothing on so colossal a scale as _Every Man in
his Humour_, _Volpone_, _Epicoene_, _The Alchemist_, and _Bartholomew
Fair_. Here we find skilful plot, masterly characterization, and ludicrous
combinations. How heartily we laugh over the Plautine scene before Cob’s
house in _Every Man in his Humour_,(416) or at the intrusion of unbidden
guests at Morose’s wedding, or at the deception practised on the two
knights in the gallery.(417) How dazzled we are with the kaleidoscopic
“vapours” of the great Fair. On the other hand, in what Dryden calls the
“dotages,” we find a great falling off. Ben Jonson can be very dull. Still
even in _The Devil is an Ass_ and _The Staple of News_ there is a vein of
original fancy, which reminds us that we are dealing with no imitator, but
with an original and poetical mind. Nor must we forget the splendid series
of Masques, into which Ben Jonson put some of his best work; to this
Massinger has but little to oppose. And then, as we all know, Ben Jonson
bursts out from time to time with a great lyric, whereas Massinger’s songs
are commonplace. Lastly, in _The Case is Altered_, we have a plot in the
manner of Fletcher which is so successful as to make us regret that Jonson
did not try this type of play again. Though it has not the atmosphere of
Massinger, it has something of the mellow graciousness at which he, like
Fletcher, aimed.
It would be silly to deny Jonson’s superiority of intellect, and of
attainment when at his best. His faults are, however, very serious. Though
he can draw a man of good breeding, his women are very ordinary. He is too
fond of incorporating long passages from the classical authors whom he
knew so well; he would have been more attractive if he had used
Aristophanes and Plautus, Ovid and Libanius, as inspirations rather than
as materials. The notes on Sejanus are a liberal education, but after all,
“the play’s the thing.” The use of “humour” and “vapours,” though at first
brilliant and captivating, even becomes artificial and tedious; no one is
the embodiment of one passion or weakness. Let us be thankful that human
nature is not so simple or consistent, for in that case it would cease to
interest. More serious still, Jonson has no sense of proportion; we read
Knowell’s soliloquy in _Every Man in his Humour_,(418) and we say, “Fine!
but too long”; and we say this again and again as we read his works. The
great length of the fifth act of Sejanus is a good instance of this fault.
Indeed, it is impossible that the play was acted in the form which we now
have—it would have emptied the house, like Burke’s speeches. When Jonson
gets on to some subject of which he knows the technical terms, such as
“fucuses”(419) or “alchemy,” he is almost as tedious as Kipling’s
Macandrew. His plots are at times too skilful; thus, even Brainworm in
time gets on our nerves. His coarseness is that of a common soldier, and
his puns are bad.
Are there any points of contact between the two authors? I do not wish to
suggest that Massinger owed nothing to the older writer, though parallels
of diction may mean little but the simultaneous use of the idioms of the
day. Thus in _The Staple of News_ we find, “I do write man,”(420)
“blacks,”(421) “kiss close,”(422) “nectar,”(423) “magnificent”(424);
tossing in a blanket is referred to,(425) and the saints(426) at
Amsterdam, while the cook’s fortifications(427) remind us of a passage in
_A New Way to pay Old Debts_. In Sejanus we find “passive fortitude”
commended.(428) “He puts them to their whisper,”(429) reminds us of _The
Roman Actor_. Sejanus’ change of temper to his satellites(430) when he
fancies danger is past resembles that of Domitian in the same play. _The
City Madam_ has touches of plot and style which recall Volpone.
There is, however, little contact between Ben Jonson and Massinger. Their
births were separated by only ten years, but a much longer period than
that seems to divide them. Friend of the great as he was, Ben Jonson was
yet an Aristophanic, nay, a Rabelaisian democrat; Massinger is a gentleman
and a courtier. The one has the vigour and immaturity of the Elizabethan
age, and in him we feel in contact with the obsolete Mystery and Morality
plays;(431) the other has the refinement and romance of the Caroline era.
The one is a powerful satirist and a pugnacious fighter; the other lives
in an ideal world. On the one side is _vis consili expers_; on the other,
a more limited intellect with a surer artistic sense. If I may venture to
say so, they differ from one another as an apple from a pear. I do not
deny that Ben Jonson was the greater man, but I find him more archaic and
more difficult to read than Massinger. Much of the interest of his plays
is dead for us, his local colour and topical allusions, which require so
many notes, are more tedious; his personal likes and dislikes, his
egotism, his vanity, are wearisome; and though his blank verse is strong
and manly, it is not so melodious as Massinger’s. The older man stands
foursquare and solitary; the younger man reaches forward to posterity, and
we feel him to be linked by his art and grace to ourselves. Though Dryden
never mentions Massinger, there is a dignified capacity which is common to
the two authors.
Massinger’s chief rival in the latter part of his life was Shirley.
Shirley’s plays are full of interest; his graceful style rises
occasionally into poetry, at which the author himself seems to smile; his
plots are full of ingenious turns; his female characters are more
confidently developed than Massinger’s, nor is he unable to draw a
lifelike man, as we see from Lorenzo in _The Traitor_ and Columbo in _The
Cardinal_. He excels in the battledore and shuttlecock of love-making; he
tells us far more of the manner of well-bred contemporary society than
Massinger. Indeed, it is probable that he had a greater success in his day
than his rival, and was more in touch with Court circles, though even the
loyal Shirley discreetly satirizes from time to time the government of
Charles I. He is not devoid of humour and epigram; his dialogue is light
and sprightly. He reaches back to Fletcher and forward to Dryden; we seem,
as we read his plays, to be a long way removed from the labour of Jonson,
the pomp of Chapman, the vernal simplicity of Heywood. On the other hand,
we miss in him the breadth and strength, the dignity, the nobility, and
the fire of Massinger. He is more of a photographer than a painter. Though
his style has eloquence, the thought is often far from clear, and the long
sentences are clumsy. There is something slight and unsubstantial about
the whole thing, while the metre is continually careless and lame.
In assigning Massinger’s place in the drama of his age, we have to
remember that the period falls into two well-defined parts. He has very
little in common with Marlowe, Greene, and Peele, and still less with the
charming Dresden china of Lyly. Marlowe’s generation breathes the
freshness and vehemence of the spring, while Massinger reflects the silver
lights of September. So rapid was the development of fifty years, that to
pass from the one to the other is like going from the lancet windows of
Salisbury Cathedral to the tracery of William of Wykeham. While we miss
the purity and simplicity of Early English, it would be foolish to ignore
the strength of design and proportion that maturity and experience
brought. The towers and battlements, the lierne vaulting, the large
windows, and generous clerestories of Perpendicular do much to atone for
the spiritless detail and mechanical wall-panelling. A similar
consideration applies to the Jacobean dramatists when compared with their
Elizabethan predecessors.
Shall I be thought presumptuous in setting Massinger against Shakspere?
The attempt may, at any rate, help to elicit a true estimate; the
suggestion has often been made before. Shakspere seems to have been from
his writings a man of great receptivity, unerring knowledge of human
nature, profound wisdom, and infinite sweetness, the master of all the
arts which we associate with a good poet. Massinger reminds us of Ben
Jonson, though he is less consciously clever, less cumbered with learning,
less combative.(432) He is modest,(433) manly, lucid, sane, and sensible,
capable of just indignation, one who respects himself, a faithful
friend,(434) and a wide reader; he knows a gentleman when he sees him; he
can pay compliments with good breeding; he has had his ups and downs in
life;(435) he is one who understood men better than women, and who, like
Sir Thomas Browne, “loved a soldier”;(436) a vigorous and business-like
artist, he is never worsted by his theme, but makes it lifelike and
interesting, with an unerring instinct for what is effective on the stage,
his very faults being largely due to this useful knowledge. That there was
a strain of noble melancholy in his mind can hardly be denied.(437) The
character which seems to me to embody Massinger himself is Charalois in
_The Fatal __ Dowry_. Whether he was musical I should doubt after the
perfunctory reference to the art in _The Fatal Dowry_.(438) We find
nothing in his plays like the famous idyllic description in Ford’s
_Lover’s Melancholy_.(439) On the other hand, he knew that vocal and
instrumental music were effective in a play; we need go no farther than
the end of Act IV. in _The Virgin Martyr_ for proof of this.(440) And
Cario uses the terms of music with great precision in _The Guardian_.(441)
On the whole we get the impression that he was an example of a rare
combination, modesty with independence of mind, a fact which, considering
what the circumstances of the literary life then were, is quite enough to
explain the hard struggle he seems to have undergone.
It may be said that I am comparing a mighty genius with a second-rate
intellect. Are there any points in which Massinger can hold his own
against Shakspere? Granted that he falls short in passion,
imagination,(442) wit, diction, rhythm, lyric rapture, where does he
shine?
It may at first hearing sound snobbish to point out that he was a
University man, but a good deal of truth lies hidden in that simple
phrase. Shakspere’s plays are marked by many faults of construction,
taste, and detail; he who never blotted a line should certainly, as Ben
Jonson remarked, have blotted a good many. It always seems to me that this
is a line of thought which is too much ignored by those who believe that
Shakspere wrote his own plays, and that Bacon had nothing to do with them.
The Baco-Shaksperians point, and very justly, to the surprising knowledge
and culture shown in the plays; they refuse to believe that all this can
have come from the brain of a Warwickshire rustic, forgetting the faults
which are so glaring, faults which are precisely those which a learned and
accurate scholar like Bacon would have avoided.
Now Massinger is a correct and artistic writer. The little tricks of style
which were so dear to his mighty predecessor, the pun, the
alliteration,(443) the conceit, the verbal quibble,(444) are far less
obtrusive; he is free from that affectation and precious obscurity which
are so marked in Shakspere’s later style. And one small point may be
noticed in passing here, as an indication of good breeding: the characters
in Massinger very seldom address one another by name. It is significant
that Greedy and Overreach both offend in this way.(445)
Though it is true that these faults were common to the age, they are so
marked in Shakspere that it is impossible to ignore them in any estimate
of the man. In the details of style, then, Massinger can claim credit for
being more correct. In a word, what he lacks in genius and poetry he
supplies to a certain extent by good taste and education. He shares this
advantage with his age, which was learning to correct the errors of the
past; the English language was advancing rapidly to more maturity and
balance than it had in the previous generation.
I have already pointed out the careful study of Shakspere which we find in
Massinger, and the copious use of his imperial vocabulary. When we take
into account all the elements of the problem, when we make allowance for
quantity of work done, as well as for quality, would it be too much to say
that Massinger is as the pupil to the master, and that, though separated
by “a long interval,” he comes second?(446) This may seem a hard saying,
unless it is explained. I allow that Ben Jonson had a greater intellect;
that Beaumont and Fletcher had more genius, more pathos, more humour; that
Marlowe, Webster, and Ford, each in his own way, were greater poets. I put
Massinger next to Shakspere as a dramatist pure and simple, because his
best work is well-constructed and interesting, his style and metre
entrancing, his atmosphere charming and easy, yet ideal, his morality
mature and sane. And in praising his morality, I do not lay stress on the
benefits to be derived from the use of his plays as a school-book, though
that consideration is not to be despised but rather maintain that in
avoiding abnormal, tainted, and morbid themes he is in advance of his age;
consequently he is easier for us to read and understand than other writers
whose gifts were greater than his; he makes a successful and enduring
appeal to the _communis sensus_ of mankind.
I now proceed to a short critical estimate of Massinger’s plays. The most
famous are _The Virgin Martyr_ in tragedy, and _A New Way to pay Old
Debts_ in comedy. Opinions have differed strangely about _The Virgin
Martyr_. It went through four editions in quarto in the seventeenth
century, a fact which testifies to its immediate popularity. Davies(447)
considered it far inferior to any of his other productions, and Mason was
equally severe. Even Hallam confessed that parts of it were far from
pleasing. There can be no doubt that these parts of the play, which the
critics now unanimously ascribe to Dekker, are responsible for giving
Massinger a bad name for coarseness. It is hard to carry supernatural
machinery through, as Fletcher’s _Prophetess_ shows, and we have here an
Angel, and a Devil, but they are on the whole managed successfully. The
first act is admirably proportioned; the fourth and fifth also are
masterly. There are a thrill and a glamour in the style of this play
unlike anything else in Massinger, due perhaps to the religious problem
dealt with.(448) The only fault of Dorothea is that, like other good
people, she is a bad judge of character. It gives us a shock to find
Spungius and Hircius members of her household, and at least we feel she
should not have put her charities in their hands, but should have attended
to the poor herself.(449) The Princess Artemia is a type common in
Massinger.(450)
In _A New Way to pay Old Debts_ we have an ingenious plot which never
flags, adequate comedy, and characters which are appropriately, if not
very carefully, drawn. The style is strong and natural; it is not far from
this play to Goldsmith, and indeed the eighteenth century must have owed
much to it. In its atmosphere of ease and propriety there are no harsh
lights or discordant tints.
The central idea of the plot was probably borrowed from a play of
admirable vivacity and dexterity, Middleton’s _Trick to catch the Old
One_, which appeared in 1607. What has Massinger added to Middleton? He
has made the plot more probable, refining the characters, and raising the
whole thing from prose to poetry. We laugh less, but we admire more, for
we feel that we are seeing something transacted which might have happened.
Sir Giles Overreach is Massinger’s masterpiece, a superman of colossal
wickedness, with no belief in the honour or virtue of men or women.(451)
Though fond of money, he is not a miser, but loves to lavish his gains;
power is rather his foible; repeated success has made him reckless; his
aim is to increase his estates by bullying his poorer neighbours, and by
employing the sharp practices of the law. But he has yet one other
ambition, to see his only daughter married to a lord and to hear her
styled “Right Honourable.” His unscrupulousness is expressed in
often-quoted passages of great power; his frantic anger in the fifth act
is depicted with a skill which leaves no sympathy in our minds for a
father whose only daughter has treated him badly. Here Massinger is more
successful than his great model in the case of Shylock and Jessica. I
cannot agree that it is inconsistent with the character of Sir Giles that
he should be anxious for his daughter to marry a lord—there are several
passages in the earlier part of the play which show that he is not only a
bully but a base-born snob.(452)
Where so much is admirable it is difficult to make selection, but we may
point out that Wellborn’s character is a fine piece of work; we pity his
disgrace, we rejoice in his success, we believe in his desire to do better
in the future. The grief of Lady Allworth for her husband and the jealous
fears of young Allworth when Lord Lovell is to meet Margaret are
excellently drawn. There are, moreover, touches of poetry in the play of a
high order, as, for instance:
ALLWORTH. If ever
The queen of flowers, the glory of the spring,
The sweetest comfort to our smell, the rose,
Sprang from an envious briar, I may infer,
There’s such disparity in their conditions,
Between the goodness of my soul, the daughter,
And the base churl, her father.(453)
Or in Allworth’s speech about his love:
Add this too; when you feel her touch, and breath
Like a soft western wind, when it glides o’er
Arabia, creating gums and spices;
And in the van, the nectar of her lips,
Which you must taste, bring the battalia on,
Well-arm’d, and strongly lined with her discourse,
And knowing manners, to give entertainment;
Hippolytus himself would leave Diana,
To follow such a Venus.(454)
The play which Massinger himself at one time esteemed the most highly was
_The Roman Actor_,(455) but we have to remember that much of his best work
was done after 1626, the date of the play. _The Roman Actor_, though most
admirable, is strong and hard rather than inspired. More than any other of
his works it shows us an element of greatness in the author’s mind, which
reveals itself in many ways; in the attractive and noble character of
Paris, in the mastery shown in dealing with a Roman theme, the local
colour of which is put on with a light and yet sure hand, in the skill
with which the story is invested with the atmosphere of tyranny, in the
breathless interest with which we follow the last moments of Domitian in
Act V., in the dexterity with which three smaller plays are introduced
into the action without in the least confusing the construction. In making
an actor the hero of the play, and in giving him so many opportunities of
showing his art, Massinger no doubt felt every confidence in the genius of
J. Taylor, but perhaps the chief charm of the play is due to the
reflection which it inspires in the mind of the reader, that it expresses
with fire and conviction the struggling author’s high ideal for the
theatre as a social institution, and his esteem for actors. On the other
hand, there is little comic relief, and little female interest beyond the
infatuation of the Empress. Indeed, the women who take part in the play
are one and all unattractive, and though it might be fairly urged that
they are probably adequate portraits of the originals, we cannot help
feeling that the author ought to have seen that they were timid sketches.
In other words, we are face to face here with an acknowledged limitation
of Massinger’s art. Nor should it be forgotten that while the play is full
of noble and even impassioned rhetoric,(456) there are one or two prosy
passages(457) and several small improbabilities.(458) In the third of the
inserted plays Domitian, taking the part of an actor, avenges himself on
Paris. This device by which characters in a play avenge themselves by
taking parts in a subordinate play, occurs in the famous _Spanish Tragedy_
of Kyd, and in Middleton’s _Women, beware Women_. Most successful of all
is the splendid climax of Act IV., where we have the clash of interest
required by the highest form of tragedy; we sympathize with Paris, and yet
we feel that the Emperor, who has been wronged, must avenge himself
signally and at once.
It is the tragi-comedies which give me the most pleasure, the romantic
plays with a happy ending, such as _The Great Duke of Florence_, _The
Emperor of the East_, _The Bashful Lover_ (the last of Massinger’s plays
which we possess), _A Very Woman_; closely allied with these is _The Maid
of Honour_. _The Great Duke of Florence_ is full of courtesy and grace;
there are some charming passages of poetry, and the metre is liquid and
easy. The whole play is bathed in the sunshine of youth, and while there
is some good comedy in it, there is little for the expurgator to do. The
characters are all drawn with skill and propriety, especially the Duke,
the Duchess of Urbin, and Lidia. Petronella in disguise is Massinger’s
best comic creation.
In _The Emperor of the East_, with a trivial plot and some improbability
in details, there is much admirable work, especially at the beginning. The
two courtiers get to the point at once, mentioning Pulcheria in I., 1, 10.
It was a play at which the author worked hard, and of which he thought
highly.(459) The two good women, the sister and the wife, are well drawn,
and we understand how natural it is that they should be antipathetic; we
welcome the allowance they make for one another,(460) we sympathize with
the humiliation of each in her turn, and we rejoice in their
reconciliation. Especially pleasing are the gentle dignity of Eudocia in
III., 4, and her slowness to take up Chrysapius’ suggestion in IV., 1. The
Emperor is not an attractive character, as he is at once weak and violent;
but we have to remember that he is very young, and also that he has been
kept in leading-strings all the earlier part of his life. I should like to
believe, with many critics, that the prose scene, in which the Empiric
figures, is not due to Massinger. It is a study in the manner of Ben
Jonson. Another touch of the older master is “The Projector,”(461) who is,
however, on very much fainter lines than Meercroft in _The Devil is an
Ass_. Imitation of Shakspere is prominent in _The Emperor of the East_.
Scenes I., 1, and III., 1, remind us of Henry VIII’s courtiers. The
pictures in Act II. seem to be suggested by a similar scene in _The
Merchant of Venice_. Act IV., 5 recalls _Othello_, III., 4; Act V., 2,
105-8 is modelled on _Othello_ III., 3, 330-3.(462)
_A Very Woman_ or _The Prince of Tarent_ is based, as the Prologue tells
us, on an old play; the author’s modesty cannot forbear saying that, good
as it was before, it is “much better’d now.” By this he probably means
that substantial additions have been made, that the plot has been put into
better shape,(463) and that perhaps the comic element is cut down. Boyle
assigns about two-fifths of the play to Massinger, including the quarrel
between Cardenes and Antonio, and the great love scene between Antonio and
Almira, but excluding the careful treatment of Cardenes’ melancholy by
Paulo the doctor.(464) I should myself unhesitatingly assign the latter
scene to Massinger. The only scenes which can be safely attributed to
Fletcher are those of the slave-market,(465) and that where Leonora seeks
to console Almira.(466) The sprightly vivacity of the former and the
tenderness of the latter are good evidence for this assignation. A perusal
of this admirable masterpiece leads us to the conclusion that if
Massinger, instead of collaborating with Fletcher, had rewritten the plays
of the latter, our literature would have been greatly enriched.
I would not deny that a man may have several styles, and may write in the
manner of another; especially is this possible when the other has been his
bosom friend. Still there are a grace and delicacy about _A Very Woman_
which seem to suggest the hand of Fletcher. The characters are drawn with
great refinement and vividness. There is a pair of devoted friends,
Antonio and Pedro, and over against them two charming ladies, Leonora and
Almira, the former at once sensible and kind, the latter almost worthy of
a place beside Shakspere’s heroines. The great love scene, though
suggested by Desdemona and Othello, is not unworthy of Shakspere
himself.(467) Cuculo is an amusing study of the old courtier, such as we
get elsewhere in Massinger. Borachia, the lady who loves wine, is drawn
with a lighter hand than Massinger’s; yet I feel that Fletcher, unassisted
or unpruned, would have made the scenes in which she appears grosser than
they are. Antonio, the Prince of Tarent, reminds us of a clean-limbed,
honest English public-school boy; he is slow to take offence, but brave
when provoked, sorry for the mischance of which he is the innocent cause,
courteous, and ready on all occasions.
The plot has been shaped with great attention to detail. Thus, when
Antonio, disguised as a slave, first meets his friend Pedro, his master
Cuculo does not allow him to speak,(468) so that Pedro has no chance of
identifying him by his voice. Later on, however, Pedro has an intuition
that the slave is other than he seems to be:
“I do see something in this fellow’s face still
That ties my heart fast to him.”(469)
He treats him as a friend, as though his intuition pierced through the
external disguise,(470) and when the recognition takes place he naturally
remarks:
“Have I not just cause,
When I consider how I could be so stupid,
As not to see a friend through all disguises.”(471)
Again, we have an indication at the end of the slave-market scene that the
slave who followed Paulo will be an important link in the plot:
PAULO. Follow me, then;
The knave may teach me something.
SLAVE. Something that
You dearly may repent; howe’er you scorn me,
The slave may prove your master.(472)
It is this slave who leads the pirates in their attempt to carry off
Leonora and Almira.
When Antonio appears in his former dress(473) we ask, how did he get it?
The answer is, from the Captain, his fellow-slave, whose life he had saved
in the past by interceding with the Viceroy.(474) Lastly, the Duke’s
reference (V., 2, 130) to the advice which the Viceroy had given him in
II., 2, is one of those careful touches making for unity of design in
which Massinger delights.(475)
No doubt the plot is not free from improbabilities; in real life Antonio
would have revealed himself to Pedro, and Pedro and Almira would both have
recognized him. We have already seen that Massinger is so fond of a story
that he sometimes forgets to let his characters guide it. To round off the
play harmoniously, Antonio should have had a soliloquy, to explain to the
audience who he was, to lament over the change of his fortunes, to express
a hope that all would come right in the end, to reassert his devotion to
Pedro, and to protest his loyalty in spite of everything to Almira.
Perhaps something of the sort was cut out.
_The Bashful Lover_ is the last play of “the strange old fellow”(476) that
we possess; it reminds us in several respects of Fletcher; in the romantic
atmosphere,(477) the overwrought devotion of the hero, the bustling action
and the complexity of the plot, and in a metrical detail.(478) On the
other hand, the smooth and careful construction, the subordination of the
comedy, the constant use of parentheses, and, above all, the vacillations
of the violent Lorenzo, are characteristics of Massinger. There are many
noble personages in the play, and considerable tenderness. Matilda’s
character is drawn well at the start; in the latter part she rather tends
to become a lay figure. A princess with three aspirants to her hand, of
whom two are princes, while the one she loves is to all appearance of
lowly birth, is awkwardly placed. The same fault, as Boyle points
out,(479) might be found with the hero, Hortensio; the fact is that the
story rather carries the characters along in its sweep than is developed
by them; moreover, Massinger seems in the last two acts to be more
interested in the psychological study of Lorenzo’s emotions than in his
hero’s fortunes. With all its beauties, the play betrays the advancing
years of the author by a certain heaviness of touch, although the episode
of Ascanio, the disguised page, is carried through with great delicacy and
skill, and the varied incidents of Act II. make the battle one of the most
lifelike in literature.
_The Maid of Honour_ is well planned, and the characters well contrasted.
Indeed, anyone who doubts Massinger’s skill in this respect will be
convinced by this play. Though the end is sombre, it is, as Leslie Stephen
has pointed out, dignified and inevitable. As Bertoldo was sworn to
celibacy, Camiola could not have married him, even if her self-respect had
allowed it.(480) Here again we get an imperious lady, the Duchess Aurelia,
who changes her mind too rapidly, but cannot be charged with viciousness.
The comic touches, a foolish lover and a pair of effeminate courtiers, are
quite good. The various moods of Adorni—his deepening devotion to Camiola,
his humility at her rebuke, his fidelity in doing her commands, his
temptation to commit suicide—are admirably portrayed. The King, too, is
well drawn; he is a complex character, who is not wholly bad. The rough
old soldier Gonzaga is a lifelike study, but the figure who dominates the
play is the high-spirited and beautiful heroine. The careful skill of the
author is shown in many details, among others, in the way in which
Camiola, before taking the veil, persuades the King to forgive Fulgentio.
For this to be possible the way is paved by the King’s change of mind as
to Camiola’s character in IV., 5. The end of the play shows in what way
Massinger is a greater artist than Fletcher. The latter would certainly
have married off the Duchess Aurelia to the King or the Duke of Urbin, and
provided Gonzaga with a wife.
No student of our comic drama can ignore the brilliant vigour of _The City
Madam_.(481) The characters one and all contribute to an harmonious unity,
the most lifelike perhaps being Sir John Frugal, the bluff, successful
British merchant, tender-hearted, yet ashamed of being unbusinesslike, and
a good judge of men. The plot moves easily, not overloaded with satire.
The women remind us of Ben Jonson’s women, but with less strength there is
a greater art shown here than Ben Jonson had at his command. The great
triumph of the play is the hypocrite Luke, to whom some splendid rhetoric
is assigned. He arrests our attention from the first; though not on the
grand scale like Sir Giles Overreach, he is an innate villain, who only
lacks opportunity to be capable of anything, a sordid soul, who does not
know what goodness is. The two ’prentices are of the same kidney as
Quicksilver in _Eastward Ho_.
For sheer vitality and strength three of the plays stand out
conspicuously: _The Bondman_, _The Renegado_, and _The Guardian_. Though
they are disfigured by one or two coarse scenes, one is carried along in
reading them as if one were in a sailing-boat, dancing along a fresh sea.
Of _The Bondman_ Monck Mason says: “I don’t recollect any play whatsoever
that begins or ends in a manner so pleasing, uncommon, and striking.” It
contains four well-drawn characters—Timoleon, Marullo, Leosthenes, and
Cleora. The plot is lively, though some critics, I think unjustly, have
accused the author of cutting the knot in the fifth act. The disguised
brother and sister who meet in Act III., I should perhaps indicate their
relationship. Timandra does not explicitly mention her brother till V., 1,
64. A reference earlier in the play to the wrong which Leosthenes had done
her would certainly make for clearness. There is much fine eloquence in
the play. The one or two offensive comic scenes are not essential to the
plot.
_The Renegado_ has an Oriental setting, which alone would make it
attractive on the stage. The character of Donusa is on the grand scale,
one of Massinger’s successes; the Merchant, the Jesuit, and Grimaldi are
all well drawn. There is some fine oratory and a good plot, which works up
to an exciting end. There is not much in the comic line of value here.
The plot of _The Guardian_ is more complicated than is usual with
Massinger. It contains some charming banditti scenes, while Alphonso’s
fictitious narrative in the last act is one of the strongest pieces of
writing in our author. The guardian, Durazzo, the kind-hearted but cynical
and quick-tempered old man of the world, is one of Massinger’s most
successful creations. On the other hand, it will be allowed that there is
too much concession in _The Guardian_ to a corrupt taste, due perhaps to
poverty and the depression of failure. The character of Iolante is
unattractive; her intrigue with a man who turns out to be her brother is
odious; her repentance is cheap and unconvincing. The earlier part of the
play in its movement and morals alike reminds us of Fletcher.
_The Picture_ is full of power, and enriched with some good strokes of
satire; the alternations of mood in the chief characters are represented
with skill, while the magic portrait on which the plot hinges seems to
take a natural place in the story. There is, however, a crudeness and
hardness of texture about the play, though Mathias and Sophia are well
drawn, especially the latter. Everything comes right at the last, and true
love is vindicated after the display of some proper pride; but one feels
that the three venture their honour too far. “He comes too near who comes
to be denied.” The King’s faults are overdrawn; the Queen very nearly
spoils the play; the young courtiers, though realistic, are unpleasant;
the comic element is poor and farcical.(482) In dealing with a
psychological theme, Massinger was trying to adjust to the hard-and-fast
concrete outlines of the drama a story which would have been easier to
manage and more attractive to read if it had been cast in the form of a
novel. There would then have been possible gradations of light and shade,
which would have made the treatment less bald. It would have supplied
Richardson with a problem worthy of his heart-breaking and long-drawn
analysis.
_The Duke of Milan_ is a gloomy play, with a somewhat intricate plot,
presenting to us that strange “Italianate”(483) world of treachery and
poison with which Webster, Ford, and Tourneur make us familiar. We must
remember, on the other hand, that Italy gives an atmosphere which domestic
plays like _The Yorkshire Tragedy_ and _Arden of Feversham_ lack. As in
_The Bondman_ and _The Unnatural Combat_, the plot is developed late,
though hints are given before. Thus, the ill-treated sister is early
referred to,(484) while the last words of the same act prepare us for
Francisco’s villainy. The finest scene in the play is Act III., 1, which
is bathed in the romantic atmosphere so congenial to our author. Sforza
submits to his enemy, the Emperor Charles, without forfeiting our esteem,
while the Emperor shows a noble magnanimity. There is a subdued comic
element in the person of Graccho, the musician.
_The Duke of Milan_ is carefully written(485) and skilfully constructed;
the author has taken great pains to draw the characters of Sforza and
Marcelia, though Francisco is perhaps more successful than either.(486)
The Duke’s last words are the clue to his character:
I come: Death, I obey thee!
Yet I will not die raging; for alas!
My whole life was a frenzy: good Eugenia,
In death forgive me.(487)
The chief “frenzy” of his life was his devotion to his wife Marcelia. This
peerless beauty combines pride(488) with a kindly simplicity which is no
match for Francisco; while she dearly loves her husband and forgives him
in her last words, she is not altogether attractive. On the other hand,
her anger with Sforza for leaving orders that she should be killed if he
did not return safe from his hazardous enterprise is natural, and the
scene in which she receives him coldly and provokes his violent anger
would be effective when acted.(489) We are inevitably reminded of
_Othello_, and the comparison is most instructive as revealing the great
gap which separates the pupil from the master. Marcelia is not so gracious
as Desdemona, nor Sforza so strong as Othello, nor Francisco so devilish
as Iago. As is usually the case with Massinger, the fifth act carries
along our interest to the end. We do not weep, but we are certainly moved
by the horror of the Duke’s death. The princesses of the Ducal House are
responsible for an improbable scene(490) when they flout Marcelia in the
absence of her lord. Their behaviour reminds us of the ladies in _The
Roman Actor_. In style _The Duke of Milan_ is marked by several passages
of fine poetry and a comparative absence of the parenthetic construction.
_The Fatal Dowry_ is a famous and much-admired play, adapted by Nicholas
Rowe in the eighteenth century to form the basis of his _Fair
Penitent_.(491) There are some fine scenes here, notably the funeral,
which is as effective as anything our poet has written. On the other hand,
the scene in which Rochfort is robed and blindfolded, and assents to his
daughter’s death, recalls Fletcher in its improbability; nor is it likely
that Beaumelle would marry Charalois at such short notice. All we can say
about this is that hurried weddings are one of the presuppositions of the
Jacobean drama.(492) There are an heroic atmosphere, a fine friendship,
and much rhetoric of a high order in _The Fatal Dowry_. Moreover, as the
moral lines at the end point out, there is the clash of law and natural
vengeance in this play, which is a legitimate source of dramatic power.
Charalois, Romont, Malotin, and Pontalier are all well drawn: the “sweet
and gentle nature” of Charalois is particularly attractive, though he is
not incapable of passionate anger,(493) which makes the punishment he
inflicts on his guilty wife in IV., 4 more credible. On the other hand, a
story is at a disadvantage in which the father, though generous and
dignified, is impulsive and quixotic, the heroine is worthless, and her
lover contemptible.(494) The style in places is less lucid than usual,
which may be due to the co-operation of Field; moreover, the metre is more
halting than Massinger’s is wont to be, and I think it probable that the
play has been carelessly printed. There is much spirited sarcasm in Act
III., and some fun in Act IV.(495)
_The Unnatural Combat_ is full of splendid rhetoric; indeed, there are
perhaps too many soliloquies. This early work is grim as an iron-bound
coast; yet the affairs of the honest, brave, and poverty-stricken captain,
Belgarde, provide a lighter element, and the moralizing of the pert page
in III., 2 is both sensible and light-handed in execution. The reason for
the son’s antipathy to his father is hinted at from time to time in the
first act; its disclosure is postponed too late. We should also have been
prepared for the wrongs and treachery of Montreville, which burst upon us
too suddenly in the last act. The evil passion of Malefort is powerfully
depicted; here, again, we have a careful study of conflicting emotions.
Though he struggles against his evil desires, we feel that a bad man must
come to a bad end.(496) The play would have been better rounded off if in
the initial part some indication had been given that he seemed to everyone
a man whose mind, for some mysterious reason, was unbalanced and
unhinged.(497) Once allow that such a theme can be tolerable as that which
we have here, and the hints which Montreville drops from time to time are
adequate to stir the suspicion of the spectator.
The style is more like rhythmical prose than that of any other of
Massinger’s plays. Here alone in our author do children occur, and that in
an unpleasing context.(498) The ghosts of Malefort’s victims, which appear
in the last scene, seem to me a legitimate and powerful episode. It was
natural to compare this violent play with Chapman’s tragedies; Malefort
reminding us of _Bussy d’Ambois_ and Byron; but there is little in common
between the two authors. In the first place, Massinger knows how to
construct a play; in the second place, there is hardly a line in _The
Unnatural Combat_ which is obscure, whereas in the last act of _Bussy
d’Ambois_, Chapman’s masterpiece, there is hardly a line which is
intelligible.
The _Parliament of Love_ contains much fine poetry(499) and one great
forensic scene, such as our author loves.(500) It is, however, in too
fragmentary a state for us to judge it fairly.(501) The atmosphere is
unreal, the interest flags, the boisterous comedy is unattractive. There
are more women than is usual in Massinger, and duelling and friendship
inspire two noble scenes (III., 2; IV., 2). Though vice is humbled, we ask
here, as in _The Picture_, does virtue gain by the way in which its
opposite is portrayed? And are not the characters, male and female alike,
undiscriminated? The interest, in other words, is concentrated in the
triple story, and doubtless we feel some satisfaction in the punishment of
Clarindore, the betrayer of secrets.(502) There are a good many half-lines
in the manner of Fletcher.
Though _Believe as You List_(503) is full of dignity and poetry, it has a
plot without much nexus, of the sort which Aristotle would blame as
ἐπεισοδιώδης.(504) We are wafted from Carthage to Bithynia, from Bithynia
to Lusitania, from Lusitania to Sicily. Though Antiochus is truly a king
even in his misfortunes, and excites our respect and compassion, the play
can hardly have been a success. The melancholy tinge is too uniform; the
improbabilities of the recognitions are too glaring. The Courtesan and
Berecinthius cannot be said to have added to the gaiety of nations; of the
other characters Flaminius alone has individuality. The peculiar
circumstances under which the play was written may help to explain the
fiasco.
_The Old Law_ does not owe much to Massinger. As it was a favourite play,
it may have owed its association with his name to revision on his
part.(505) There is a charming tenderness in places and a rollicking
improbability about the whole scheme, both alien to the staid Massinger.
The humour is not his, but better; his phraseology is markedly
absent;(506) the prose scenes show another conception of art; the careless
metre suggests Rowley. It is clear that whoever wrote the comic parts of
_The Old Law_ was responsible for Chough, Trimtram, and the Roarers in _A
Fair Quarrel_. The scene is laid in “Epire,” a region which seems to have
been regarded by our ancestors as a place for strange things to happen,
and a vague background like the city of Callipolis;(507) it seems to have
the same character in the present day. A King of “Epire” figures among
Diocletian’s court in _The Virgin Martyr_, and in _The Dumb Knight_(508)
we find a Duke of Epire. The classical allusions and Latin phrases suggest
that the author of _The Old Law_ was a man of some culture.
My task is now ended. I shall consider myself happy if I persuade some of
my readers to make the acquaintance of Massinger’s plays.(509) We have
lately been celebrating the tercentenary of Shakspere’s death. The best
way of honouring a great author is to read his writings; but to appreciate
aright the greatness of Shakspere we should be wise to combine with our
study a just estimate of his contemporaries and satellites; and, of the
many dramatists of that century, none seem to me more worthy of
affectionate consideration than Philip Massinger. It is especially
instructive to return to his writings from the perusal of the masterpieces
of his contemporaries; though from time to time they display rich gifts of
pathos, poetry, and humour, they are too often marred by waywardness,
unnaturalness, want of proportion, and grossness; it is a relief to resume
the study of an author whose work is sober, well balanced, dignified, and
lucid. While he shares with them the modern atmosphere of romance and
adventure, he is the most Greek of his generation; and this is the real
secret of his abiding charm. The passionate, the abnormal, the lurid, the
farcical elements, in which his contemporaries revel, are not, indeed,
entirely absent, but they are less conspicuous; the luxuriance of the
thicket does not hinder the wayfarer from following the path; we pluck the
roses without tearing our flesh on the thorns; and as we contemplate the
marble splendour of his verse we almost forget that sculpture has its
limitations.
APPENDIX I. THE SMALL ACTOR IN MASSINGER’S PLAYS
There are several passages in our author in which reference is made to the
low stature of the actor of a female part.
_Duke of Milan_, II., 1, 108: Graccho, speaking of Mariana:
Of a little thing,
It is so full of gall!
II., 1, 156:
MARCELIA. For you, puppet—
MARIANA. What of me, pine-tree?
172:
MARIANA. O that I could reach you,
The little one you scorn so.
177:
GRACCHO. Forty ducats
Upon the little hen.
181:
MARCELIA. Where are you,
You modicum, you dwarf?
MARIANA. Here, giantess, here.
188:
MARIANA. Or right me on this monster (she’s three foot
Too high for a woman).
_Bondman_, I., 2, 3: Cleon, speaking to Corisca:
Beauty invites temptations, and short heels
Are soon tripp’d up.
(This passage may have another interpretation.)
_Renegado_, I., 2, 9: Manto, speaking of Paulina:
And though low of stature,
Her well-proportion’d limbs invite affection.
II., 5, 159: Asambeg, of Paulina:
Such a spirit,
In such a small proportion, I ne’er read of.
V., 2, 62: Carazie, of Paulina:
I would he had sent me
To the gallies or the gallows, when he gave me
To this proud little devil.
V., 3, 174: Mustapha, of Paulina:
A terrible little tyranness!
_Parliament of Love_, V., 1, 86: Perigot, of Leonora:
A confident little pleader.
_Roman Actor_, IV., 1, 15: Domitilla, referring to Domitia:
Who no sooner absent.
But she calls Dwarf! (so in her scorn she styles me)
Put on my pantofles, fetch pen and paper.
V., 2, 5: Domitilla speaks:
Could I make my approaches, though my stature
Does promise little, I have a spirit as daring
As hers that can reach higher.
_Picture_, I., 1, 96: Corisca speaks:
Your hand, or if you please
To have me fight so high, I’ll not be coy,
But stand a-tiptoe for’t.
III., 2, 27: Ricardo to Corisca:
Pretty one, I descend
To take the height of your lip.
II., 2, 197: And Pallas, bound up in a little volume.
_Emperor of the East_, II., 1, 388: Theodosius to Athenais:
By thyself,
The magazine of felicity, in thy lowness
Our eastern queens, at their full height, bow to thee.
_Maid of Honour_, I., 2, 46: Sylli to Camiola:
Nor I, your little ladyship, till you have
Perform’d the covenants.
II., 2, 117: Fulgentio to Camiola:
Of a little thing
You are a pretty peat, indifferent fair too.
_Maid of Honour_, IV., 3, 83:
BERTOLDO. Since she alone, in the abstract of herself,
That small but ravishing substance, comprehends
Whatever is, or can be wish’d, in the
Idea of a woman!
_The Bashful Lover_, I., 1, 116:
HORTENSIO. My little friend, good morrow.
(_Cf._ III., 1, 28, where “Ascanio” has to be carried.)
The part of Domitilla was taken by I. Hunniman; that of Paulina by Theo.
Bourne; that of Corisca (in _The Picture_) by W. Trigge. It would appear,
therefore, that these references are not all due to the stature of any one
individual actor, but that Massinger took care to have actors of different
height brought into juxtaposition in his plays. He may here be copying the
well-known passages in _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (III., 2, 288-298, 324,
329). _Cf._ also _Antony and Cleopatra_, II., 5, 118; III., 3, 13; _Much
Ado_, I., 1, 172 and 216; _As You Like It_, I., 2, 284; _Twelfth Night_,
I., 5, 219; II., 5, 16; _King Lear_, I., 1, 201. _Cf._ Bradley’s
_Shakspearean Tragedy_, p. 317, n. 1.
In Dekker’s _Honest Whore_, Pt. 2. III., 1, the heroine, Bellafront, is “a
little tiny woman.” So are Pretiosa in Middleton’s _Spanish Gipsy_ (I.,
5), and Isabella in _Women, beware Women_ (III., 2). _Cf._ also _The Case
is Altered_ (III., 3), “’Fore God, the taller is a gallant lady.” We find
the same idea in _The Fair Maid of the West_, II., 3; III., 1, 2.
Celestina, in Shirley’s _Lady of Pleasure_ (III., 2), is “a puppet.”
Spaconia in _A King and no King_ (III., 1) is “that little one”; Viola in
_The Coxcomb_ (V., 3) is “not high.” _Cf._ also _The Prophetess_ (I., 3,
59), a play which bears many marks of Massinger’s work:
DIOCLESIAN. Thou know’st she is a prophetess.
MAXIMINIAN. A small one,
And as small profit to be hoped for by her.
_The Spanish Curate_ (V., 1, 37), Jamie to Violante:
In stature you’re a giantess: and your tailor
Takes measures of you with a Jacob’s staff
Or he can never reach you: this by the way
For your large size.
_Love’s Cure_ (V., 3), Bobadillo to Lucio, speaking about Clara:
I put the longest weapon in your sister’s hand, my lord, because
she was the shortest lady.
_The Sea Voyage_ (IV., 3): MORILLAT: “This little gentlewoman that was
taken with us,” referring to Aminta. As Cleopatra in _The False One_ (II.,
3) arrives in a parcel, she must have been small. Margarita in _Rule a
Wife_ (III., 4) is “of a low stature.” Ismenia in _The Maid of the Mill_
“was of the lowest stature” (I., 2); _cf._ also V., 2, 7. Evanthe in _A
Wife for a Month_, IV., 3 is “this little fort.” _Cf._ also _The Noble
Gentleman_, IV., 3.
APPENDIX II
Did Massinger know Greek? It is perhaps worth while collecting the scanty
evidence on the subject. We find a pun on the name Philanax in _The
Emperor of the East_,(510) and Mathias plays on the name of his wife
Sophia.(511) The phrase κατ᾽ ἐξοήν is used in _The Guardian_.(512) We find
a Greek construction in _The Emperor of the East_:(513)
And that before he gives he would consider
The what, to whom, and wherefore.
On the other hand, we notice Theseus scanned as a trisyllable.(514)
There are one or two passages where the unexpected turn of the thought
rather suggests a Greek original. Thus, in _The Renegado_(515) we are
reminded of _The Acharnians_:(516)
GAZET. What places of credit are there?
CARAZIE. Chief gardener.
GAZET. Out upon’t! ’Twill put me in mind my mother was an herb
woman.
Another passage of THE RENEGADO(517) reminds us of a famous fragment of
Euripides,(518) often mistranslated:
ASAMBEG. At Aleppo
I durst not press you so far: give me leave
To use my own will and command in Tunis.
In _The Virgin Martyr_(519) we find a parallel to _The Hecuba_:(520)
THEOPHILUS. As a curious painter,
When he has made some honourable piece,
Stands off, and with a searching eye examines
Each colour, how ’tis sweeten’d; and then hugs
Himself for his rare workmanship.
In _The Emperor of the East_(521) occurs a parallel quoted by Dr. Walter
Headlam in his notes to _Agamemnon_:(522)
THEODOSIUS. What an earthquake I feel in me!
And on the sudden my whole fabric totters!
My blood within me turns, and through my veins,
Parting with natural redness, I discern it
Chang’d to a fatal yellow.
It is the general opinion of scholars that our Elizabethan dramatists owed
very little to the Greek drama directly, but we cannot forget that
Massinger had had a good education at Oxford, and was a widely read
man.(523) His forensic skill often reminds us of Euripides; and if he did
not know the works of his illustrious predecessor, he would have found in
them a congenial spirit.(524)
The speech of Sanazarro to Giovanni in _The Great Duke of Florence_(525)
reminds us of Creon’s arguments in Sophocles’ _Œdipus Tyrannus_, line 596
κ.τ.λ.
The scene in _The Bondman_,(526) when the senators frighten the mutinous
slaves by shaking their whips, reminds us of the Scythians in
_Herodotus_,(527) but it is also found in _Justin_,(528) and Gifford
points out that it may really have been borrowed from a contemporary book
of travels, Purchas’s _Pilgrims_.(529)
Massinger had a good working knowledge of mythology; thus, references in
his plays to Hercules and Alcides abound, as they do in Shakspere. We find
several false quantities in proper names: Caesarĕa, in _The Virgin
Martyr_; Archidămus, in _The Bondman_; Eubŭlus, in _The Picture_;
Nomothētae, in _The Old Law_(530); Cybēle, in _Believe as You List_.(531)
We may compare Shakspere’s _Andronĭcus_; Anthrŏpos in _Four Plays in One_,
_The Triumph of Time_; and Euphānes in _The Queen of Corinth_.(532)
It seems scarcely worth while to collect the passages which show
Massinger’s knowledge of Latin; the authors he seems to have known best
are Ovid, Juvenal, and Horace. Swinburne and others have commented on his
indulgence in “the commonplace tropes and flourishes of the schoolroom or
the schools.”(533)
APPENDIX III. THE COLLABORATED PLAYS
The plays in which Massinger is supposed to have collaborated with other
authors are here set down, with the analyses made by Boyle (_D. N. B._,
xxxvii., pp. 10-16) and the views of Mr. A. H. Bullen in his article on
Fletcher (_D. N. B._, xix., pp. 303-311).(534)
1. _The Honest Man’s Fortune._ (Field, Daborne, Massinger, Fletcher.)
M.: Act III. or part of it.
A. H. B. agrees.
A. H. C.: I doubt whether Massinger had any share in this play. There are
passages of ten-syllable lines in Act III., 1 which are quite unlike him,
while 2 and 3 are interspersed with prose passages, a feature which
Massinger as a rule avoids.
2. _Thierry and Theodoret._ (Massinger, Field, Fletcher, and possibly a
fourth writer.)
M: Act I., 2; Act II., 1, 3; Act IV., 2.
A. H. B. attributes largely to Massinger, assigning Act III. to an unknown
author.
A. H. C. assigns to Massinger Act II., 1 and 3, and with some hesitation