the curious convertibility--if one may use the word--of his characters.
They are the very reverse of the men of iron of the previous generation.
They change their state of mind as easily as the characters of the
contemporary drama put on disguises. We are often amazed at the
simplicity which enables a whole family to suppose the brother and
father to whom they have been speaking ten minutes before to be an
entire stranger, because he has changed his coat or talks broken
English. The audience must have been easily satisfied in such cases; but
it requires almost equal simplicity to accept some of Massinger's
transformations. In such a play as the 'Virgin Martyr,' a religious
conversion is a natural part of the scheme. Nor need we be surprised at
the amazing facility with which a fair Mohammedan is converted in the
'Renegado' by the summary assertion that the 'juggling Prophet' is a
cheat, and taught a pigeon to feed in his ear. Can there be strength, it
is added, in that religion which allows us to fear death? 'This is
unanswerable,' exclaims the lady, 'and there is something tells me I err
in my opinion.' This is almost as good as the sudden thought of swearing
eternal friendship in the 'Anti-Jacobin.' The hardened villain of the
first act in the same play falls into despair in the third, and, with
the help of an admirable Jesuit, becomes a most useful and exemplary
convert by the fifth. But such catastrophes may be regarded as more or
less miraculous. The versatility of character is more singular when
religious conversions are not in question. 'I am certain,' says Philanax
in the 'Emperor of the East,'
'A prince so soon in his disposition altered
Was never heard nor read of.'
That proves that Philanax was not familiar with Massinger's plays. The
disposition of princes and of subjects is there constantly altered with
the most satisfactory result. It is not merely that, as often happens
elsewhere, the villains are summarily forced to repent at the end of a
play, like Angelo in 'Measure for Measure,' in order to allow the
curtain to fall upon a prospect of happiness. Such forced catastrophes
are common, if clumsy enough. But there is something malleable in the
very constitution of Massinger's characters. They repent half-way
through the performance, and see the error of their ways with a facility
which we could wish to be imitated in common life. The truth seems to be
that Massinger is subject to an illusion natural enough to a man who is
more of the rhetorician than the seer. He fancies that eloquence must be
irresistible. He takes the change of mood produced by an elevated appeal
to the feelings for a change of character. Thus, for example, in the
'Picture'--a characteristic, though not a very successful play--we have
a story founded upon the temptations of a separated husband and wife.
The husband carries with him a magical picture, which grows dark or
bright according to the behaviour of the wife, whom it represents. The
husband is tempted to infidelity by a queen, herself spoilt by the
flatteries of an uxorious husband; and the wife by a couple of
courtiers, who have all the vices of Fletcher's worst heroes without any
of their attractions. The interest of the play, such as it is, depends
upon the varying moods of the chief actors, who become so eloquent under
a sense of wrong or a reflection upon the charms of virtue, that they
approach the bounds of vice, and then gravitate back to respectability.
Everybody becomes perfectly respectable before the end of the play is
reached, and we are to suppose that they will remain respectable ever
afterwards. They avoid tragic results by their want of the overmastering
passions which lead to great crimes or noble actions. They are really
eloquent, but even more moved by their eloquence than the spectators can
be. They form the kind of audience which would be most flattering to an
able preacher, but in which a wise preacher would put little confidence.
And, therefore, besides the fanciful incident of the picture, they give
us an impression of unreality. They have no rich blood in their veins;
and are little better than lay figures taking up positions as it may
happen, in order to form an effective tableau illustrative of an
unexceptionable moral.
There is, it is true, one remarkable exception to the general weakness
of Massinger's characters. The vigour with which Sir Giles Overreach is
set forth has made him the one well-known figure in Massinger's gallery,
and the 'New Way to Pay Old Debts' showed, in consequence, more vitality
than any of his other plays. Much praise has been given, and not more
than enough, to the originality and force of the conception. The
conventional miser is elevated into a great man by a kind of inverse
heroism, and made terrible instead of contemptible. But it is equally
plain that here, too, Massinger fails to project himself fairly into his
villain. His rants are singularly forcible, but they are clearly what
other people would think about him, not what he would really think,
still less what he would say, of himself. Take, for example, the very
fine speech in which he replies to the question of the virtuous
nobleman, whether he is not frightened by the imprecations of his
victims:--
Yes, as rocks are
When foaming billows split themselves against
Their flinty sides; or as the moon is moved
When wolves, with hunger pined, howl at her brightness.
I am of a solid temper, and, like these,
Steer on a constant course; with mine own sword,
If called into the field, I can make that right
Which fearful enemies murmur at as wrong.
Now, for those other piddling complaints
Breath'd out in bitterness, as when they call me
Extortioner, tyrant, cormorant, or intruder
On my poor neighbour's rights or grand incloser
Of what was common to my private use,
Nay, when my ears are pierced with widows' cries,
And undone orphans wash with tears my threshold,
I only think what 'tis to have my daughter
Right honourable; and 'tis a powerful charm
Makes me insensible to remorse or pity,
Or the least sting of conscience.
Put this into the third person; read 'he' for 'I,' and 'his' for 'my,'
and it is an admirable bit of denunciation of a character probably
intended as a copy from life. It is a description of a wicked man from
outside; and wickedness seen from outside is generally unreasonable and
preposterous. When it is converted, by simple alteration of pronouns,
into the villain's own account of himself, the internal logic which
serves as a pretext disappears, and he becomes a mere monster. It is for
this reason that, as Hazlitt says, Massinger's villains--and he was
probably thinking especially of Overreach and Luke in 'A City
Madam'--appear like drunkards or madmen. His plays are apt to be a
continuous declamation, cut up into fragments, and assigned to the
different actors; and the essential unfitness of such a method to
dramatic requirements needs no elaborate demonstration. The villains
will have to denounce themselves, and will be ready to undergo
conversion at a moment's notice, in order to spout openly on behalf of
virtue as vigorously as they have spouted in transparent disguise on
behalf of vice.
There is another consequence of Massinger's romantic tendency, which is
more pleasing. The chivalrous ideal of morality involves a reverence for
women, which may be exaggerated or affected, but which has at least a
genuine element in it. The women on the earlier stage have comparatively
a bad time of it amongst their energetic companions. Shakespeare's women
are undoubtedly most admirable and lovable creatures; but they are
content to take a subordinate part, and their highest virtue generally
includes entire submission to the will of their lords and masters. Some,
indeed, have an abundant share of the masculine temperament, like
Cleopatra or Lady Macbeth; but then they are by no means model
characters. Iago's description of the model woman is a cynical version
of the true Shakespearian theory. Women's true sphere, according to him,
or according to the modern slang, is domestic life; and if circumstances
force a Cordelia, an Imogen, a Rosalind, or a Viola, to take a more
active share in life, they take good care to let us know that they have
a woman's heart under their man's doublet. The weaker characters in
Massinger give a higher place to women, and justify it by a sentiment of
chivalrous devotion. The excess, indeed, of such submissiveness is often
satirised. In the 'Roman Actor,' the 'Emperor of the East,' the 'Duke of
Milan,' the 'Picture,' and elsewhere, we have various phases of uxorious
weakness, which suggest a possible application to the Court of Charles
I. Elsewhere, as in the 'Maid of Honour' and the 'Bashful Lover,' we are
called upon to sympathise with manifestations of a highflown devotion to
feminine excellence. Thus, the bashful lover, who is the hero of one of
his characteristic dramatic romances, is a gentleman who thinks himself
scarcely worthy to touch his mistress's shoe-string. On the sight of her
he exclaims--
As Moors salute
The rising sun with joyful superstition,
I could fall down and worship.--O my heart!
Like Phoebe breaking through an envious cloud,
Or something which no simile can express,
She shows to me; a reverent fear, but blended
With wonder and astonishment, does possess me.
When she condescends to speak to him, the utmost that he dares to ask is
liberty to look at her, and he protests that he would never aspire to
any higher privilege. It is gratifying to add that he follows her
through many startling vicissitudes of fortune in a spirit worthy of
this exordium, and of course is finally persuaded that he may allow
himself a nearer approach to his goddess. The Maid of Honour has two
lovers, who accept a rather similar position. One of them is unlucky
enough to be always making mischief by well-meant efforts to forward her
interest. He, poor man, is rather ignominiously paid off in downright
cash at the end of the piece. His more favoured rival listens to the
offers of a rival duchess, and ends by falling between two stools. He
resigns himself to the career of a Knight of Malta, whilst the Maid of
Honour herself retires into a convent. Mr. Gardiner compares this
catastrophe unfavourably with that of 'Measure for Measure,' and holds
that it is better for a lady to marry a duke than to give up the world
as, on the whole, a bad business. A discussion of that question would
involve some difficult problems. If, however, Isabella is better
provided for by Shakespeare than Camiola, 'the Maid of Honour,' by
Massinger, we must surely agree that the Maid of Honour has the
advantage of poor Mariana, whose reunion with her hypocritical husband
certainly strikes one as a questionable advantage. Her fate seems to
intimate that marriage with a hypocritical tyrant ought to be regarded
as better than no marriage at all. Massinger's solution is, at any rate,
in harmony with the general tone of chivalrous sentiment. A woman who
has been placed upon a pinnacle by overstrained devotion, cannot,
consistently with her dignity, console herself like an ordinary creature
of flesh and blood. When her worshippers turn unfaithful she must not
look out for others. She may permit herself for once to return the
affection of a worthy lover; but, when he fails, she must not condescend
again to love. That would be to admit that love was a necessity of her
life, not a special act of favour for some exceptional proofs of
worthiness. Given the general tone of sentiment, I confess that, to my
taste, Massinger's solution has the merit, not only of originality, but
of harmony. It may, of course, be held that a jilted lady should, in a
perfectly healthy state of society, have some other alternative besides
a convent or an unworthy marriage. Some people, for example, may hold
that she should be able to take to active life as a lawyer or a
professor of medicine; or they may hold that love ought not to hold so
prominent a part even in a woman's life that disappointed passion should
involve, as a necessary consequence, the entire abandonment of the
world. But, taking the romantic point of view, of which it is the very
essence to set an extravagant value upon love, and remembering that
Massinger had not heard of modern doctrines of woman's rights, one must
admit, I think, that he really shows, by the best means in his power, a
strong sense of the dignity of womanhood, and that his catastrophe is
more satisfactory than the violent death or the consignment to an
inferior lover which would have commended themselves to most Elizabethan
dramatists.
The same vein of chivalrous sentiment gives a fine tone to some of
Massinger's other plays; to the 'Bondman,' for example, and the 'Great
Duke of Florence,' in both of which the treatment of lover's devotion
shows a higher sense of the virtue of feminine dignity and purity than
is common in the contemporary stage. There is, of course, a want of
reality, an admission of extravagant motives, and an absence of dramatic
concentration, which indicate an absence of high imaginative power.
Chivalry, at its best, is not very reconcilable with common-sense; and
the ideal hero is divided, as Cervantes shows, by very narrow
distinctions from the downright madman. What was absurd in the more
vigorous manifestations of the spirit does not vanish when its energy is
lowered, and the rhetorician takes the place of the poet. But the
sentiment is still genuine, and often gives real dignity to Massinger's
eloquent speeches. It is true that, in apparent inconsistency with this
excellence, passages of Massinger are even more deeply stained than
usual with revolting impurities. Not only are his bad men and women apt
to be offensive beyond all bearable limits, but places might be pointed
out in which even his virtuous women indulge in language of the
indescribable variety. The inconsistency of course admits of an easy
explanation. Chivalrous sentiment by no means involves perfect purity,
nor even a lofty conception of the true meaning of purity. Even a strong
religious feeling of a certain kind is quite compatible with
considerable laxity in this respect. Charles I. was a virtuous monarch,
according to the admission of his enemies; but, as Kingsley remarks, he
suggested a plot to Shirley which would certainly not be consistent with
the most lax modern notions of decency. The Court of which he was the
centre certainly included a good many persons who might have at once
dictated Massinger's most dignified sentiments and enjoyed his worst
ribaldry. Such, for example, if Clarendon's character of him be
accurate, would have been the supposed 'W. H.,' the elder of the two
Earls of Pembroke, with whose family Massinger was so closely connected.
But it is only right to add that Massinger's errors in this kind are
superficial, and might generally be removed without injury to the
structure of his plays.
I have said enough to suggest the general nature of the answer which
would have to be made to the problem with which I started. Beyond all
doubt, it would be simply preposterous to put down Massinger as a simple
product of corruption. He does not mock at generous, lofty instincts, or
overlook their influence as great social forces. Mr. Ward quotes him as
an instance of the connection between poetic and moral excellence. The
dramatic effectiveness of his plays is founded upon the dignity of his
moral sentiment; and we may recognise in him 'a man who firmly believes
in the eternal difference between right and wrong.' I subscribe most
willingly to the truth of Mr. Ward's general principle, and, with a
certain reservation, to the correctness of this special illustration.
But the reservation is an important one. After all, can anybody say
honestly that he is braced and invigorated by reading Massinger's plays?
Does he perceive any touch of what we feel when we have been in company,
say, with Sir Walter Scott; a sense that our intellectual atmosphere is
clearer than usual, and that we recognise more plainly than we are apt
to do the surpassing value of manliness, honesty, and pure domestic
affection? Is there not rather a sense that we have been all the time
in an unnatural region, where, it is true, a sense of honour and other
good qualities come in for much eloquent praise, but where, above
everything, there is a marked absence of downright wholesome
common-sense? Of course the effect is partly due to the region in which
the old dramatists generally sought for their tragic situations. We are
never quite at home in this fictitious cloudland, where the springs of
action are strange, unaccountable, and altogether different from those
with which we have to do in the workaday world. A great poet, indeed,
weaves a magic mirror out of these dream-like materials, in which he
shows us the great passions, love, and jealousy, and ambition, reflected
upon a gigantic scale. But, in weaker hands, the characters become
eccentric instead of typical: his vision simply distorts instead of
magnifying the fundamental truths of human nature. The liberty which
could be used by Shakespeare becomes dangerous for his successors.
Instead of a legitimate idealisation, we have simply an abandonment of
any basis in reality.
The admission that Massinger is moral must therefore be qualified by the
statement that he is unnatural; or, in other words, that his morality is
morbid. The groundwork of all the virtues, we are sometimes told, is
strength. A strong nature may be wicked, but a weak one cannot attain
any high moral level. The correlative doctrine in literature is, that
the foundation of all excellence, artistic or moral, is a vivid
perception of realities and a masculine grasp of facts. A man who has
that essential quality will not blink the truths which we see
illustrated every day around us. He will not represent vice as so ugly
that it can have no charms, so foolish that it can never be plausible,
or so unlucky that it can never be triumphant. The robust moralist
admits that vice is often pleasant, and that wicked men flourish like a
green bay-tree. He cannot be over-anxious to preach, for he feels that
the intrinsic charm of high qualities can dispense with any artificial
attempts to bolster them up by sham rhetoric, or to slur over the hard
facts of life. He will describe Iago as impartially as Desdemona, and,
having given us the facts, leave us to make what we please of them. It
is the mark of a more sickly type of morality, that it must always be
distorting the plain truth. It becomes sentimental, because it wishes to
believe that what is pleasant must be true. It makes villains condemn
themselves, because such a practice would save so much trouble to judges
and moralists. Not appreciating the full force of passions, it allows
the existence of grotesque and eccentric motives. It fancies that a
little rhetoric will change the heart as well as the passing mood, and
represents the claims of virtue as perceptible on the most superficial
examination. The morality which requires such concessions becomes
necessarily effeminate; it is unconsciously giving up its strongest
position by implicitly admitting that the world in which virtue is
possible is a very different one from our own.
The decline of the great poetic impulse does not yet reveal itself by
sheer blindness to moral distinctions, or downright subservience to
vice. A lowered vitality does not necessarily imply disease, though it
is favourable to the development of vicious germs. The morality which
flourishes in an exhausted soil is not a plant of hardy growth and tough
fibre, nourished by rough common-sense, flourishing amongst the fierce
contests of vigorous passions, and delighting in the open air and the
broad daylight. It loves the twilight of romance, and creates heroes
impulsive, eccentric, extravagant in their resolves, servile in their
devotion, and whose very natures are more or less allied to weakness and
luxurious self-indulgence. Massinger, indeed, depicts with much sympathy
the virtues of the martyr and the penitent; he can illustrate the
paradox that strength can be conquered by weakness, and violence by
resignation. His good women triumph by softening the hearts of their
persecutors. Their purity is more attractive than the passions of their
rivals. His deserted King shows himself worthy of more loyalty than his
triumphant persecutors. His Roman actor atones for his weakness by
voluntarily taking part in his own punishment.
Such passive virtues are undoubtedly most praiseworthy; but they may
border upon qualities not quite so praiseworthy. It is a melancholy
truth that your martyr is apt to be a little sanctimonious, and that a
penitent is generally a bit of a sneak. Resignation and self-restraint
are admirable qualities, but admirable in proportion to the force of the
opposing temptation. The strong man curbing his passions, the weak woman
finding strength in patient suffering, are deserving of our deepest
admiration; but in Massinger we feel that the triumph of virtue implies
rather a want of passion than a power of commanding it, and that
resignation is comparatively easy when it connotes an absence of active
force. The general lowering of vitality, the want of rigid dramatic
colouring, deprive his martyrs of that background of vigorous reality
against which their virtues would be forcibly revealed. His pathos is
not vivid and penetrating. Truly pathetic power is produced only when we
see that it is a sentiment wrung from a powerful intellect by keen
sympathy with the wrongs of life. We are affected by the tears of a
strong man; but the popular preacher who enjoys weeping produces in us
nothing but contempt. Massinger's heroes and heroines have not, we may
say, backbone enough in them to make us care very deeply for their
sorrows. And they moralise rather too freely. We do not want sermons,
but sympathy, when we are in our deepest grief; and we do not feel that
anyone feels very keenly who can take his sorrows for a text, and preach
in his agony upon the vanity of human wishes or the excellence of
resignation.
Massinger's remarkable flow of genuine eloquence, his real dignity of
sentiment, his sympathy for virtuous motive, entitle him to respect; but
we cannot be blind to the defect which keeps his work below the level of
his greatest contemporaries. It is, in one word, a want of vital force.
His writing is pitched in too low a key. He is not invigorating,
stimulating, capable of fascinating us by the intensity of his
conceptions. His highest range is a dignified melancholy or a certain
chivalrous recognition of the noble side of human nature. The art which
he represents is still a genuine and spontaneous growth instead of an
artificial manufacture. He is not a mere professor of deportment, or
maker of fine phrases. The days of mere affection have not yet arrived;
but, on the other hand, there is an absence of that grand vehemence of
soul which breathes in the spontaneous, if too lawless, vigour of the
older race. There is something hollow under all this stately rhetoric;
there are none of those vivid phrases which reveal minds moved by strong
passions and excited by new aspects of the world. The sails of his verse
are not, in Chapman's phrase, 'filled with a lusty wind,' but moving at
best before a steady breath of romantic sentiment, and sometimes
flapping rather ominously for want of true impulse. High thinking may
still be there, but it is a little self-conscious, and in need of
artificial stimulant. The old strenuous spirit has disappeared, or gone
elsewhere--perhaps to excite a Puritan imagination, and create another
incarnation of the old type of masculine vigour in the hero of 'Paradise
Lost.'
FOOTNOTES:
[6] _Contemporary Review_ for August 1876.
_FIELDING'S NOVELS_