1653 of 'A Very Woman or The Woman's Plot, but this
second title has no justification in the play, and is, perhaps, a mistake.
second title has no justification in the play, and is, perhaps, a mistake.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v06
3.
The Queene of Corinth, probably 1617 (allusion to Coryate's Greeting
(1616), act 111, sc. 1). Fletcher, Massinger and a third author. Based on a
common story, cf. Gesta Romanorum, tale 4; not taken from La Fuerza de
la sangre of Cervantes.
Thierry and Theodoret, probably after April 1617; printed 1621. Fletcher,
act 1, sc. 1, act 11, sc. 2, act iv, sc. 1, act v, so. 2; Massinger, act 1, sc. 2, act 11,
sc. 1, act iv, sc. 2; a third author, acts III and v, sc. 1. Historical basis;
immediate source, perhaps de Serres. The name de Vitry seems to indicate
an allusion to the death of marshal d’Ancre, April 1617.
The Loyal Subject, licensed Nov. 1618. Fletcher. (The plot of Hey-
wood's Royall King and Loyall Subject, from Painter, bk. 11, nov. 4, has only
a slight resemblance to this story. )
The Knight of Malta, 1618 or the beginning of 1619 (by list of actors).
Fletcher, acts 11, III, so. 1, act iv, sc. 2, 3, 4; Massinger, act 111, sc. 2, act iv,
sc. 1(? ); third author, acts 1, v. The style of the third author is somewhat
like that of Field, but better than his usual work.
The Mad Lover, before March 1619. Fletcher.
The Humorous Lieutenant, 1619 (by list of actors). Fletcher. Partly
from Plutarch, lives of Pelopidas and Demetrius. A somewhat fuller text
than that of the folios was printed by Dyce in 1830 from a MS in which the
play is entitled Demetrius and Enanthe.
Sir John van Olden Barnavelt, acted 1619; printed 1883. Fletcher and
Massinger. Founded on the events of May 1619.
Women pleas'd, 1619 or 1620 (by list of actors). Fletcher. From the
Historia de Aurelio y de Ysabela, of Juan de Flores, of which several trans-
lations were current, combined with Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale. For
various scenes of the underplot, cf. Boccaccio, Decameron, day vii, nov. 6, 8,
and day viii, nov. 8.
The Custome of the Countrey, 1619 or 1620. Fletcher, acts I, III, sc. 1, 2, 3,
act iv, sc. 3, 4, act v, sc. 5 (part); Massinger, acts II, III, sc. 4, 5, act iv, sc. 1, 2,
act v, sc. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (part). Two principal elements of the plot are from
Cervantes, Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (Eng. trans. Stationers'
register, 22 Feb. 1619), bk. III, chap. 6, and bk. iv, chaps. 6–10, and most of
the names are from this romance, but some applied differently.
The Little French Lawyer, 1619 or 1620. Fletcher, acts II, III, sc. 2, 3,
a
## p. 139 (#157) ############################################
Appendix to Chapter V
139
а
2, 3.
acts iv, v, sc. 1 (a), 2, 3; Massinger, acts I, III, 8c. 1, act v, sc. 1 (6). Partly
from part 1 of Guzman de Alfarache (vol. 1, chap. 4), or from a similar story
elsewhere.
The Lawes of Candy, about 1620. Probably Massinger and another
anthor (not Fletcher) Partly from Cinthio, Hecatommithi, dec. X, nov. 9.
The False One, about 1620. Fletcher, acts 11, III, IV; Massinger, acts 1, v.
The double Marriage, about 1620. Fletcher, acts II, III, sc. 2, 3, act iv,
sc. 3, 4, act v, sc. 1; Massinger, acts I, III, sc. 1, act iv, sc. 1, 2, act v, so.
For the plot, cf. Gesta Romanorum, tale 5.
The Pilgrim, acted at court, Christmas 1621. Fletcher. Perhaps partly
from d'Audiguier, Les diverses fortunes de Pamphile et de Nise (1614),
which, again, is from Lope de Vega’s romance El Peregrino en su patria;
but the resemblance is only in trifling details, and there may be no connection.
The Wild-Goose Chase, acted at court, 1621; printed 1652. Fletcher.
The Island Princesse, acted at court, 1621. Fletcher. From La Conquista
de las Islas Malucas by Bart. de Argensola, printed 1609; but Fletcher
deviates from his source in acts iv and v.
The Beggars Bush, acted at court, 1622, but produced probably some time
earlier. Fletcher, act 11, sc. 1, 2, acts III, IV; Massinger, acts I, II, sc. 3, act v.
The Prophetesse, licensed 14 May 1622. Fletcher, acts I, III, V, sc. 3;
Massinger, acts II, IV, V, sc. 1, 2. Partly historical: the story of Diocletian
and the prophetess is told by Vopiscus.
The Sea Voyage, licensed 22 June 1622. Anthors doubtful: considerable
portions of acts I and iv are by Fletcher, but no scene, as we have it, can be
attributed wholly to him; it is doubtful whether Massinger had any share:
the metre, generally, is very defective.
The Spanish Curate, licensed 24 Oct. 1622. Fletcher, acts II, 111, sc. 1, 2, 4,
act iv, sc. 3, 5, 6, 7, act v, sc. 2; Massinger, acts I, III, sc. 3, act iv, sc. 1, 2, 4,
act v, sc. 1, 3 (Massinger deals with the main plot, and Fletcher with the
underplot). From Gerardo the Unfortunate Spaniard, a translation,
published 1622, of the (prose) romance by Gonzalo de Cespedes y Meneses,
entitled Poema tragico del Español Gerardo. The situation in the main
plot, of Don Henrique, Don Jamie, etc. , is from the conclusion of the first
part of Gerardo, pp. 231 ff. (ed. 1622), but the final development is different:
the plot of Leandro, Lopez, etc. follows closely the story told by Leandro in
the second part, pp. 246–266, omitting the conclusion as supplied by
Violante.
The Maid in the Mill, licensed Aug. 1623, as by Fletcher and W. Rowley.
Fletcher, acts I, III, sc. 2, 3, act v, sc. 2 (a). From Gerardo, pp. 394-418, with
change of conclusion, and Painter, bk. II, nov. 22.
The Lovers Progress, end of 1623 (by list of actors); the original play
was, perhaps, The Wandering Lovers, licensed 6 Dec. 1623 as by Fletcher.
In its present form it has been revised by Massinger (see prologue), and this
being a case of revision and not cooperation, mixed work is to be expected
and occurs frequently. Acts IV and v are almost entirely by Massinger.
From d’Audiguier, Histoire tragicomique de nostre temps sous les noms de
Lysandre et de Caliste, 1616.
A Wife for a Month, licensed 27 May 1624 (the name of Tooley among
the actors is probably a mistake for Lowin). Fletcher.
Rule a Wife And have a Wife, licensed 19 Oct. 1624, printed 1640.
Fletcher. The underplot is from Cervantes, El Casamiento engañoso (Nov.
Exempl. ).
The Two Noble Kinsmen, date uncertain; printed as by Fletcher and
Shakespeare, 1634. Fletcher wrote act II, sc. 3, 4, 5, act III, sc. 3, 4, 5, 6,
act iv, sc. 1, 2, act v, sc. 2, and parts of other scenes. From Chaucer's
Knight's Tale.
## p. 140 (#158) ############################################
140
Appendix to Chapter V V
The Nice Valour, or, The Passionate Mad-man, in its present form not
earlier than 1624 (allusions in act v, sc. 3), but the play bears marks of revision,
and was, perhaps, originally much earlier. Fletcher and another, perhaps
Rowley, but Fletcher's part is much altered.
The Chances, acted 1625 or 1626 (after Fletcher's death, see prologue).
Fletcher, but probably touched here and there by another hand, e. g. in act 1,
sc. 1, 9, act 11, sc. 4. From Cervantes, La Señora Cornelia (Nov. Exempl. ).
The Elder Brother, acted after Fletcher's death (see prologue), printed
1637. Fletcher, acts 11, 111, 1v; Massinger, acts 1, v. Source connected with
that of Calderon's later drama, De una causa dos efectos.
The Faire Maide of the Inne, licensed 22 Jan. 1626. Massinger and another
(not Fletcher). The disowning of Cesario by his mother is probably taken
from La Cour Sainte of Nicolas Caussin, published in 1624 (not 1632, as
stated by Koeppel). The plot of the play does not at all resemble the story
of La ilustre Fregona of Cervantes.
The Noble Gentleman, licensed 3 Feb. 1626 as by Fletcher. He may have
planned the play and written some passages, but no complete scene can be
attributed to him.
Loves Cure, or The Martial Maid, date uncertain but not earlier than
1622 in its present form. No scene can be attributed to Fletcher; Massinger
probably wrote acts , iv, v, sc. 1, 2. There is no real ground for the sug-
gestion (by Stiefel, A. L. ) that this play is taken from the Spanish comedy by
Guillén de Castro, La fuerza de la costumbre. The two dramas are founded
on the same story, but the treatment is entirely different.
The Night-Walker, or the Little Theife, licensed as corrected by Shirley,
11 May 1633; printed 1640; the original play was, perhaps, as early as 1614.
As it stands, the first three acts are by Fletcher, with revision, and the last
two by Shirley, who must have rewritten this part of the play.
Loves Pilgrimage, revived 1635, with alterations, perhaps by Shirley, in-
cluding some matter from Jonson’s New Inne. Fletcher appears most markedly
in act 1, sc. 2, acts 11 and 111. From Cervantes, Las dos Doncellas(Nov. Exempl. ).
A Very Woman, or The Prince of Tarent, licensed 1634; printed as
Massinger's, 1655, and never included among Beaumont and Fletcher's plays.
As we have it, it is revised from an earlier drama (see prologue): Fletcher
was probably the author of acts III and iv, sc. 1, 3. It is com mmonly identified
with A Woman's Plot, acted at court 1621, because of the entry in Stationers'
register, 9 Sept.
1653 of 'A Very Woman or The Woman's Plot, but this
second title has no justification in the play, and is, perhaps, a mistake.
The Coronation, printed in the folio of 1679, is by Shirley. The Widow,
attributed in the quarto to Jonson, Fletcher and Middleton, is probably by
Middleton.
The Faithful Friends was entered in Stationers' register, 29 June 1660
as by Beaumont and Fletcher, and first printed in Weber's edition, 1812; but
it is not likely that they had any share in it.
The following appear to be lost: The History of Cardenio, entered in
Stationers' register, 9 Sept. 1653 as by Fletcher and Shakespeare, and, perhaps,
the same as the Cardenes, Cardema or Cardano, which ras acted at court,
1613; The Jeweller of Amsterdam, entered Stationers' register, 8 April
1654 as by Fletcher, Field and Massinger, probably produced about 1616;
A Woman's Plot, acted at court, 1621; The Devil of Dowgate, or Usury
put to Use, 'written by Fletcher,' mentioned as a new play in Herbert's
official register, 17 Oct. 1623; A Right Woman, entered in Stationers' register,
29 June 1660 as by Beaumont and Fletcher; Mador, King of Great Britain,
attributed to Beaumont, Stationers' register, 29 June 1660. These two latter
attributions must be regarded as very doubtful.
## p. 141 (#159) ############################################
CHAPTER VI
PHILIP MASSINGER
EVERY biographer of Philip Massinger must echo the frequently
repeated complaint that we know very little about the life of many
of the chief dramatists of the times of Elizabeth and the first two
Stewart kings. We may consider it an exceptional good fortune
that we know at least the chief facts of Massinger's early
days—that he was born at Salisbury in 1583, the son of Arthur
Massinger, who, in some manner, was intimately connected with
the 'noble family of the Herberts,' to use Philip's own expression,
and who was evidently highly esteemed by his employers ; that
his baptism took place on 24 November 1583, and that he was
entered on 14 May 1602 at St Alban hall in the university of
Oxford. In 1606, he left the university for unexplained reasons
without having taken his degree. From Oxford he came to
London, where we lose sight of him for many years as totally as
of the great immigrant from Stratford-on-Avon about twenty years
before.
One fact, however, stands out clearly — that Massinger's
London career was far from prosperous. When we hear of
him again, in 1613 or 1614, we find him already immersed in
those financial difficulties which remained the heavy burden
of his life. He reappears as one of the three signatories of a
petition for the loan of five pounds, addressed to that powerful
personage to whom many needy dramatists used to look more
or less hopefully—the theatrical manager and broker Philip
Henslowe. In a few additional words, Massinger pathetically calls
a
him his “true loving friend,' and the joint request was granted.
There was a similar pleading in 1615.
As in the case of this epistle to Henslowe, most of the first
dramatic ventures of Massinger seem to have been joint pro-
ductions. The first time we meet his name in print, on the
title-page of an evidently successful drama, we find it coupled
with the name of an older and very popular dramatist. In 1622
## p. 142 (#160) ############################################
142
Philip Massinger
was published The Virgin Martir, a Tragedy, written by Philip
Massinger and Thomas Dekker. But Dekker, whose poetical
temper was different from Massinger's, was neither his first nor
his most important fellow worker. A good many years before
the composition of The Virgin Martir, he must have fallen under
the sway of John Fletcher. It is a curious fact that no early
edition of any one of those dramas which have been recognised as
the joint labours of Fletcher and Massinger makes the slightest
reference to the participation of the younger dramatist; all were
printed as by Fletcher alone. Massinger seems to have been quite
content to leave the risk and the glory to his teacher; so far as
we know, he never protested against the omission of his name
on the title-pages of the dramas printed during his lifetime.
However, one of his most enthusiastic benefactors and friends, Sir
Aston Cockayne, repeatedly insisted on the fact of Massinger's
cooperation with Fletcher-an assertion which, in the case of a
considerable number of Fletcherian plays, has received support
from the philological researches of later times. And that he was
buried in Fletcher's grave, probably by his own wish, may be
taken as a striking proof that no coldness had arisen between
Massinger and the man with whom he had associated in the
early years of his dramatic writing.
We are not able to fix the time when Massinger ventured to
present himself as an independent author to the public of the
metropolis; but we may assume that this did not happen much
before the end of the second decade of the seventeenth century.
For the ensuing period of his life we possess a considerable number
of direct utterances of his own, the authenticity of which is not
to be questioned, but the biographical value of which is somewhat
impaired by their official character and by the consideration neces-
sarily shown in them for the position and feelings of the persons
addressed. These utterances consist in the dedications prefixed
by Massinger to the ten dramas published by himself. In these
letters, Massinger's prose appears to the greatest advantage; it is,
perhaps, a little pompous now and then, but it is clear and per-
fectly free from Euphuistic tricks of style.
Much less pleasing are the glimpses of the poet's private life
afforded by these documents. Both the first dedication, preceding
.
The Duke of Millaine (1623), and the last, composed for The
Unnaturall Combat in 1639, about a year before his death, exhibit
the poet as much dissatisfied with his vocation as a dramatic writer.
He speaks of the misfortunes which cast him on this course and
## p. 143 (#161) ############################################
>
Massinger's Personal Life 143
numbers himself among those whose 'necessitous fortunes' made
them choose poetry as their profession. Complaints about the
neglect which his age showed to the contemned sons of the
Muses,' and about his own depressed circumstances, protestations
that he could never have lived without the help of those kind
patrons who endeavoured to rebuild the ruins of demolished
poesy' and declarations of his gratitude and his devotion, are inter-
mingled in these epistles with rarer outbursts of consciousness of
his poetical powers, remarks about the intrinsic value of his works
and hints that there were some eminent men who have not
thought themselves disparaged, I dare not say honoured, to be
celebrated the patrons of my humble studies. '
Two of the dedications show that the poet did his best to keep
up that connection with the Pembroke family which he regarded
as a paternal inheritance. In 1624, he dedicated his tragi-
comedy The Bond-Man to the younger brother of the third earl
of Pembroke Philip Herbert, earl of Montgomery—with respectful
allusions to the many happy years his father had spent in the
service of that honourable house ; and, nine years later, in 1633,
he recommended his famous comedy A New Way to Pay Old
Debts to the favourable acceptance of Montgomery's son-in-law,
Robert Dormer, earl of Carnarvon, in very humble and com-
plimentary terms. Besides these dedications, two of his rare
non-dramatic poems refer to members of the same family. One
of these poems is a poetical supplication of uncertain date,
addressed to the 'Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain. The
earl's Christian name is missing ; but the whole tenor of this
petition leads to the conclusion that it was meant to reach
the ear of the third earl of Pembroke, the William Herbert
frequently mentioned in biographies of Shakespeare, who had
been appointed lord chamberlain in 1615. It is to be feared, ,
however, that this most persuasive poetical begging-letter, in
which Massinger speaks of his 'trod-down poverty,' had not the
desired effect; for, had the earl proved kind, Massinger would
assuredly have shown his gratitude by dedicating one of his later
dramas to this powerful nobleman. There is an old tradition
that William Herbert had been the protector of young Massinger
during the years of his university life, but had withdrawn his
helping hand later, for unknown reasons. This rumour is not
verified by the epistle in question, the manuscript of which was
rediscovered but a few years ago; for it contains no reference
to former benefits received by the poet.
## p. 144 (#162) ############################################
144
Philip Massinger
The other poem, with the motto Sero sed serio, is an elegy on
the death of Charles, lord Herbert, third son of Philip Herbert,
who, after the death of his brother, in 1630, had become fourth
earl of Pembroke. The poet blames himself for having remained
silent on the occasion of the wedding of this unfortunate young
nobleman, which had taken place at Christmas 1634, a few weeks
only before his early death at Florence in January 1635; and he
evidently tries to compensate for this sin of omission by courtly
flattery in a funeral poem, the most undignified of all his compo-
sitions and a striking contrast to the above mentioned supplication,
in which the poet declares that neither a pension nor a place could
induce him ‘to part with his own candour ! ' It is stated that this
fourth earl of Pembroke granted him an annuity of £30 or £40
with reversion to his widow.
The dedications and poems make us acquainted with numerous
members of the nobility to whom Massinger felt himself bound for
benefits received, or whom he wished to number among his patrons.
About his relations to his literary contemporaries we gain very
little information from Massinger himself, and not much more
from other sources. One of his shorter poems is addressed to
James Smith, an obscure clerical poet, whom he praises as the
author of a 'neat' poem, calling him, after the fashion of Ben
Jonson, his ‘son. One of the many dramas of James Shirley,
entitled The Grateful Servant (1630), Massinger ushered in by
some commendatory verses, whose well weighed and carefully
worded praise leaves a deeper impression than the customary
hyperboles of similar compositions. Among the poets who did
him a similar service at the publication of his own dramas, we
find, together with Shirley, Massinger's other fellow dramatists
John Ford, Thomas May, Thomas Goffe and his faithful friend
and fervent admirer Sir Aston Cockayne.
Massinger is said to have been married : a Miss Massinger,
who died in 1762, claimed a direct descent from him. But all
the other circumstances of his life, which seems to have had its
full share of cares besides ceaseless work, are hidden from us. He
died in March 1640 and was buried on the 18th of that month in
the churchyard of St Saviour's church in Southwark, where John
Gower had also found his resting place.
Massinger's dramatic apprenticeship, the period of his col-
laboration with other dramatists, especially with Fletcher, has,
of late, frequently attracted the attention of English scholars.
Their investigations have resulted in a great increase of the number
## p. 145 (#163) ############################################
Massinger's Collaboration with Fletcher 145
of plays for which this cooperation is to be assumed. At the
time of the publication of the first collected edition of Beaumont
and Fletcher's works, in 1647, Cockayne blamed the editor on
account of the injustice towards Fletcher implied in the title,
inasmuch as Beaumont had written but few of those dramas. As
Massinger's friend, Cockayne availed himself of this opportunity
to inform the world of another noteworthy fact about which the
editor had been silent: he pointed out that Massinger also had
to claim a partnership ‘in other few, adding that he got this
information from 'Fletcher's chief bosom friend'-possibly from
Massinger himself. Not content with Cockayne's few plays, modern
enquirers have traced the hand of Massinger in about twenty pieces
of the Fletcherian series. It cannot be denied that the modern
method of settling questions of doubtful authorship is sometimes
purely subjective, and many discrepancies have, accordingly, to be
noted between the conclusions reached by different scholars. But,
in Massinger's case, the task was facilitated by a striking peculiarity
in the writer. Massinger is afflicted with the itch of iteration to
an exceptional degree: his repetitions of the same phrases and
similes are countless. Wherever such marks appear in great
numbers, Massinger's cooperation may safely be held to be very
likely. On the other hand, it is not to be doubted that, in all their
joint compositions, the older and more experienced Fletcher was
the leading spirit, the chief builder, to whose directions Massinger
had to attend. That, no doubt, is the reason why he never himself
thought of proclaiming his partnership to the world!
A second, much smaller, group of plays consists of those which,
in the old prints, are assigned to Massinger and some other
dramatist. The oldest of these pieces seems to be the amusing
comedy called The Old Law. Though published very late, in 1656,
as the work of Massinger, Middleton and William Rowley, the
mention of the year 1599 in the dialogue of this piece seems to
prove that it was composed several years before the beginning of
Massinger's dramatic career. It is just possible that he revised
the old play; but, if he did so, he carefully abstained from any
material alterations. No trace of his individual style is to be
discovered in the existing text.
Not the slightest doubt, on the contrary, can be entertained
concerning Massinger's cooperation in two other plays attributed
to him and Dekker and Field respectively on the title-pages of the
1 As to the probable shares of Massinger and Fletcher respectively in the dramas in
which they collaborated, see appendix to chap. v.
E. L. VI.
10
CH. VI.
## p. 146 (#164) ############################################
146
Philip Massinger
old prints. Both plays were published in the lifetime of the
three authors : the coarse, but by no means ineffective legendary
drama The Virgin Martir, in 1622, as the work of Massinger and
Dekker, and, in 1632, the impressive tragedy The Fatall Dowry,
assigned to him and Nathaniel Field, his old friend, the writer of the
letter to Henslowe signed also by Massinger and Daborne. Internal
evidence corroborates the statements of the printers. As to the
scenes of Massinger and those of Dekker, even a careless reader
must be struck by the difference of character between them'; but
it is a more delicate task to distinguish between the work of
Massinger and that of Field.
Massinger's name alone fronts the ten plays, published within
the period 1623 to 1639, for which he wrote his dedications, and
four other plays, posthumously printed in 1655 and 1658. One
of the three dramas which appeared together in 1655, entitled
A Very Woman, or The Prince of Tarent, is regarded, but with-
out any certainty, as another joint effort of Fletcher and Massinger.
In the course of the nineteenth century, two more plays bearing
the unmistakable stamp of Massinger's authorship were discovered.
Besides these sixteen plays, on which our study of Massinger's
art must be based, we know the titles of twelve more, which seem
to be irretrievably lost.
Among Massinger's sixteen genuine dramas, only three trage-
dies are to be found. All his other plays end without blood-
shed, even a drama whose historical foundation might exact
the death of the hero-one of the new-found plays, bearing the
fanciful title Believe as you List, published for the first time in
1844. This drama is mentioned in all discussions of the question
whether Massinger frequently gave vent to political opinions
in his dramas. Generally speaking, the dramatists of his time
shrank from touching on the politics of the day, for excellent
reasons: they knew but too well that political dramas might
have unpleasant consequences for both actors and writers. George
Chapman's two sensational dramas, for instance, treating of the
story of the life and sudden fall of an ambitious French politician,
Charles, duke of Biron, marshal of France, who had been be-
headed in Paris but a few years previously, 31 July 1602, caused
a complaint by the French ambassador, in consequence of which
the representations of the plays were stopped and some of the
actors sent to prison. The author seems to have escaped scot-
free; but, in 1608, at the printing of his plays, he experienced
1 Cf. ante, chap. II.
Cf. ante, chap. v.
## p. 147 (#165) ############################################
6
The English Drama and Politics 147
the wrath of the censor, who mutilated his text in so ferocious a
manner that, in his dedication, Chapman speaks of 'these poor
dismembered poems. ' Another playwright, Thomas Middleton, in
1624, in his allegorical drama A Game at Chesse made himself
the interpreter of the intense dissatisfaction of the great majority
of the English people with the policy of James I, who endeavoured
to keep up friendly relations with Spain in opposition to a strong
national feeling against any alliance with the arch-enemy. The
incensed king threatened the players with heavy fines in case of
another misbehaviour; but the poet himself was not to be found,
and the king's resentment seems to bave been of short duration :
That, notwithstanding those warning examples, Massinger could
not resist the temptation of meddling with politics, we know on
good authority. In January 1631, the master of the revels, Sir
Henry Herbert, refused to license one of Massinger's plays, “be-
cause it did contain dangerous matter, as the deposing of Sebastian,
King of Portugal, by Philip II, and there being a peace sworn
betwixt the Kings of England and Spain. ' From the same 'Cato
of the stage’ we hear, besides, that, in 1638, king Charles himself,
perusing a new play by Massinger, entitled The King and the
Subject, marked one passage for alteration with the words: “This
is too insolent, and to be changed. ' The play itself is lost; but
the objectionable verses have been preserved for us by the censor
himself. They are taken from an angry speech of Don Pedro, king
of Spain, proclaiming despotically the absolute right of the king
to raise new taxes. It was then the time of king Charles's exaction
of ship-money, stoutly resisted by many of his subjects, and it is
hardly to be doubted that the poet when composing, and the king
when cancelling, this passage were both thinking, from a very
different point of view, of the possible effect this manifestation
might have on the audience.
Believe as you List, against which the censor had entered his
veto in order to avoid giving offence to the Spanish government,
was licensed a few months later, in May 1631, in a revised shape,
the poet having made it acceptable by changing the costume of
his dramatis personae. Instead of the Portuguese king deposed
by Spain, Massinger introduced a fabulous Asiatic king Antiochus,
deposed and pitilessly persecuted by Rome. After this change,
the censor found nothing smacking of recent political changes
in the play; and this proves that he did not think of the pos-
sibility of another political interpretation, since suggested by
1 For an account of A Game at Chesse, cf. chap. II.
10-2
## p. 148 (#166) ############################################
148
Philip Massinger
S. R. Gardiner? . According to this view, Massinger's play had a
very real meaning indeed, being intended to mirror the fate of
the unfortunate brother-in-law of Charles I, Frederick V, elector
Palatine and titular king of Bohemia, who, at that time, was a
landless fugitive persecuted by his powerful enemies, just as Mas-
singer's dethroned Antiochus was by the Romans. Prusias king of
Bithynia, who, against his own inclinations, is forced to give up
his guest to his enemies, is said to represent Charles himself, who
refrained from actively assisting his brother-in-law; Flaminius, the
Roman ambassador, is the Spanish ambassador, intriguing against
Frederick at the English court; Philoxenus, the king of Bithynia's
counsellor, who made common cause with Rome, is the lord treasurer
Weston, who used his influence with the king in the Spanish interest;
and, finally, the kind queen of Bithynia, who tried in vain to save
the hapless fugitive, is Henrietta Maria, queen of England, who
cordially disliked Weston.
Some years after the publication of Gardiner's ingenious hypo-
thesis, the main source of Massinger's plot was discovered in the
French historian Pierre Victor Palma Cayet's account of the
fate of the Portuguese pretender, known as the false Sebastian?
A detailed comparison led to the result that the dramatist found
the prototypes of all his chief characters in Cayet's work, with the
sole exception of the nameless wife of Prusias. It is quite possible,
however, that her introduction was caused by the same need of the
dramatist which made him add two amatory incidents to his plot:
he wanted some female characters to brighten a political story
which offered him only male personages. Gardiner's assumption
that the dramatist, when he made his Antiochus a fugitive, must
have been thinking of Frederick’s wanderings, because there was
nothing similar to be found in the Sebastian story, is refuted by an
examination of Massinger's source. Cayet gives a detailed account
of the wanderings of the Portuguese impostor, and tells how,
flying before the persecutions of the Spaniards, he came first to
Venice in the hope of being acknowledged and protected by the
republic, and afterwards to the court of the grand duke of Florence,
who, by the pressure of Spain, was finally obliged to deliver the
pretender into the hands of his enemies. Also, the surprising fact
already alluded to, that, at the end of the English drama, we hear
only of the imprisonment, not of the death, of the hero, is ex-
1 The Political Element in Massinger,' Contemporary Review, August, 1876;
reprinted in the Transactions of the New Shakespere Society for the same year.
Cayet died in 1610.
## p. 149 (#167) ############################################
Massinger's Political Sympathies 149
plained by the circumstance that Cayet, when penning his account,
was not yet aware of the final execution of the pretender.
The decisive influence of the French chronicler on Massinger's
plot is not to be questioned; nevertheless, it is possible that
the dramatist was reminded by some of the circumstances of the
Sebastian story of the sad fate of the German prince and the
vacillations of the English king, and that, induced by his personal
and political sympathies, he did his best to surround Antiochus
and his friends with a poetical nimbus. His fugitive, certainly, is
no impostor, but a man of kingly bearing. Gardiner observed that
the two Herberts, the brothers William and Philip, were opposed
to Weston, trying to counterbalance his influence by means
of the queen: and the introduction into Massinger's play of
the nameless queen of Bithynia and the part taken by her in its
action remain the only substantial arguments in favour of the
historian's political interpretation.
That Massinger was sincerely interested in the fate of the
quondam elector is proved by certain passages in another play,
The Maid of Honour, containing veiled but unmistakable allu-
sions to his fate and to James I's tardiness in assisting his son-in-
law, a slackness which had been blamed by many of his subjects
and which was repeated by Charles. Some further passages,
which, possibly, may refer to political personages and events of
his days, have been pointed out in several other of Massinger's
plays, particularly in the tragicomedy The Bond-Man, which seems
to convey a severe criticism of the royal favourite, George Villiers,
duke of Buckingham, and of the unsatisfactory state of the English
fleet. All the utterances of Massinger which are supposed to be of
a political character show him in opposition to the faction of the
court.
The same intellectual courage which made Massinger utter his
political opinions without deference to the sentiments of the
influential court party was displayed in his dealings with another
power whose favour was of the utmost importance to him: he dared
to cross the current of one of the most violent prejudices of the
public which filled the metropolitan theatres. The church of
Rome was regarded by the mass of the English nation as the most
dangerous and implacable enemy of their country, and was hated
accordingly; the English members of the Roman church were
watched suspiciously, being popularly regarded in the light of
spies belonging to that hated outlandish power; all Roman
Catholic priests had been banished from London by James I, in
## p. 150 (#168) ############################################
150
Philip Massinger
1604. The anti-Romish propaganda had also invaded the stage.
Thomas Dekker, in his allegorical play The Whore of Babylon,
strained all his powers, with the exception of his charming poetical
gift, to incense his countrymen against Rome and Spain; Barnabe
Barnes, in his tragedy The Devil's Charter, which was played
before the king, afforded Londoners an insight into all the abomi-
nations of the Roman curia, and, finally, the delightful spectacle
of a vicious and murderous pope in the clutches of the devil;
while, in Middleton's political play A Game at Chesse, Ignatius
Loyola, founder of the society of Jesus, is made to speak the
prologue and to proclaim his vices and his evil intentions con-
cerning England in the most shameless manner. In view of
this inveterate hostility, which formed an integral part of the
religious and political persuasions of most Englishmen, it needed
great strength and independence of mind to write and publish a
drama like Massinger's The Renegado. In this play a priest of
the church of Rome acts as the friend and leader of all the charac-
ters for whom the sympathy of the audience is engaged ; in all
their difficulties, they appeal to him with a confidence which is
justified by his saving them from destruction. And this benefactor
is not only a priest, but also a member of that brotherhood whom
protestants thought they had especial reasons to fear and to hate-
a Jesuit.
We do not know whether Massinger, who had been baptised
according to the rite of the Anglican communion, ever publicly con-
formed to the church of Rome: the supposition that he became a
Roman Catholic at Oxford and, in consequence of this step, lost the
protection of the earl of Pembroke, is nothing more than a guess.
But it cannot be doubted that he repeatedly showed a marked
predilection for the religious observances of the papal church.
One of his noblest women, the virgin Camiola, heroine of the
fascinating drama The Maid of Honour, being afflicted by the
discovery of the faithlessness of her lover, resolves to take the
veil—a harmonious climax to her devoted life, in adopting which
Massinger departed from his well known source, a novel in Painter's
Palace of Pleasure. The saintly Dorothea, whose martyrdom is
the subject of the tragedy The Virgin Martir, is, it is true,
a daughter of the primitive church, to whose glorification even the
anti-Popish Dekker did not object.
To the question whether the remarkable independence Mas-
singer manifested in freely expressing his political and religious
sympathies be also a distinctive quality of his dramatic art, an
## p. 151 (#169) ############################################
Massinger and Fletcher
151
affirmative answer cannot be given without some restrictions.
When Massinger entered the theatrical world of London, which
was suffering already from an excess of competition and pro-
duction, he found established in it a great tradition from whose
influence it was impossible for him to escape. We may well
suppose the sensitive soul of a young poet to have been impressed
and overwhelmed by the magnificent multitude of Shakespeare's
heroes and heroines! Not that the younger dramatists surrounding
Fletcher always pronounced the name of Shakespeare with awe
and veneration—we have proofs enough that the younger gene-
ration delighted in parodying famous passages of his works, and
that many of them were ready to extol Ben Jonson or Fletcher
in a more exalted strain than that in which they praised him—but
they could not help succumbing to the influence of his creations,
repeating and imitating him in thoughts, words, characters and
situations in numberless scenes and passages of their own dramas.
And, in Massinger's plays, we meet with many reminiscences of
this kind, though he carefully avoids anything like plagiarism.
Generally speaking, it cannot be said that he possessed an over-
scrupulous conscience in literary matters. In this respect, he was
no better and no worse than most of his contemporaries, who
remorselessly appropriated the intellectual goods of their fellows:
the general story of his successful comedy A New Way to Pay
Old Debts, for instance, he borrowed from a play of the defunct
Middleton, without deeming it necessary to allude to his model in
his dedication. But, in dealing with Shakespeare, his sentiments
seem to have been akin to the feeling tersely expressed later in
the verse: "Within that circle none durst walk but he. '
Not Shakespeare, who, searching the human soul, became
conversant with all the great problems of life-not the dead master,
whose eyes had penetrated to the core of things, became Massinger's
teacher, but the living Fletcher, the creator of a partly realistic,
and partly shadowy, world, who always aimed at stage effects and
applause, and was prepared to risk probability in order to secure
them. Undoubtedly, Massinger owed much of his own dramatic
cunning to this apprenticeship to Fletcher's cleverness in all the
technicalities of the stage—but this gain could not outweigh the
heavy loss in power. ( In reading Massinger's plays, we often be-
come aware of the contest between two very different forces, his
own serious and earnest manner, as it were, wrestling with the
injunctions of his master to lay hold of the attention of the
audience by any means, however frivolous.
## p. 152 (#170) ############################################
152
Philip Massinger
1
In view of the protracted joint authorship of the two dramatists,
which must have covered many years, it is difficult to say whether
Massinger transplanted Fletcherian motives and types into his own
plays. It is true that the duchess Aurelia of Siena, whom he
added to the plot of The Maid of Honour, greatly resembles her
namesake, the sister of the emperor Carinus in The Prophetesse;
that the warlike duke Lorenzo in The Bashful Lover, who is
suddenly vanquished by Matilda's beauty, strongly reminds us of
the rough old warrior Memnon in The Mad Lover, adoring on
his knees the suddenly revealed charms of the princess Calis; and
that intimate connections are noticeable between Massinger's Par-
liament of Love and Fletcher's The Little French Lawyer-but it
is possible that, in these and some similar cases, we have to assume
not a borrowing of Fletcherian motives, but only a readjustment of
his own contributions. To repeat himself was perfectly admissible
according to Massinger's artistic code.
As to his relations with either Shakespeare or Fletcher, Massinger
himself leaves us in the dark. Shakespeare he never mentions,
Fletcher but once, and then only to tell us that Fletcher never had
Such reputation and credit won
But by his honord patron, Huntingdon.
Furthermore, the name of Shakespeare's famous rival, whom many
younger poets delighted to honour—the name of Ben Jonson—never
appears in Massinger's writings. Perhaps he was not on the best of
terms with that outspoken poet. A few ironical words by Massinger
about the strange self-love of a writer who professed
that when
The critics laugh, he'll laugh at them agen
have been thought—not without some likelihood—to refer to the
angry old man who tried to console himself for the failure of one
of his last dramas, The New Inne, by bitterly inveighing against
hostile critics. As to the possible influence of Jonson's dramatic
method on the compositions of the younger poet, it is discoverable,
perhaps, in his two domestic dramas A New Way and The City-
Madam. The impressive but exaggerated personifications of the
vices of avarice, hypocrisy and pride presented in these comedies
are in the manner of Jonson's types, which were assiduously
imitated by later dramatists. In Massinger's other plays, the
traces of Jonsonian influence are very slight: the small group of
patriotic Romans in The Roman Actor calls to mind a similar
chorus in Sejanus his Fall, and the foolish wooer of The Maid
of Honour, Signior Sylli, may claim kinship with Sir Amorous
## p. 153 (#171) ############################################
Massinger's Constructive Power
153
La-Foole in The Silent Woman, by virtue of his name and some
remarks about the family of the Syllis.
The most striking feature of Massinger's individual art, undoubt-
edly, is to be found in his great constructive power. The structure
of his best plays is admirable in the severity of its lines and in
the wise economy shown in the use of his materials. In most cases,
he was content with working out a single action; the mixture of
plots which many of his brother poets preferred, and of which
Shakespeare's King Lear had been the great example, seems to
have had no attraction for a dramatist whose intellect favoured
clearness above all other poetical charms. Some of the dramas of his
contemporaries resemble mazes in whose artfully interwoven paths
both writers and spectators ran the risk of losing themselves—a
danger which Richard Brome, for instance, perceived and tried to
avoid by drawing attention to particularly difficult complications
by an explicit remark of one of his dramatis personae; Massinger's
best plays convey the impression of being well built and ample
halls, in which we move with a feeling of perfect security.
That he was a severe critic of his own labours is proved by the
clear progress to be noted in the construction of his plots in
the course of years. The Unnaturall Combat, which the author
calls an old work in his dedication, and which appears to be
a free rendering of the story of the crimes of the Cenci family,
has, no doubt, a central figure in Malefort, the destroyer of his own
children; yet it contains not one but two separate tragedies. First,
the tragedy of young Malefort, the son, who revenges the death of
his mother and is himself killed by her murderer, his father; and
then, the tragedy of the daughter, hunted to death by the father's
incestuous passion. In what probably is his second tragedy, The
Duke of Millaine, we meet with a striking proof that the dramatist
had not yet learned to economise his subject : the fate of his
heroine reaches the tragic climax at the end of the fourth act,
so that he was obliged to fill the fifth act with a new action, not
clearly hinted at before, a brother's revenge for the injury done
to his sister. It is true that, in the last tragedy composed by
Massinger alone, The Roman Actor, Paris, the actor, falls a
victim to the jealousy of the emperor also in the fourth act;
nevertheless, the poet was entitled to speak of this drama as
'the most perfect birth of his Minerva,' because the fate of the
player was not his chief object : he wished to present the tragedy
of the bloodthirsty madness of the Roman Caesars, personified in
Domitian, whose ruin is prepared and effected in the fifth act.
## p. 154 (#172) ############################################
154
Philip Massinger
Our admiration of Massinger's power of dramatic construction
is further heightened, if we come to look at the raw materials at
his disposal. Nothing, for instance, could be more interesting
than to observe how, in The Roman Actor, the process of blending
the accounts of historians, of Suetonius and Dio Cassius principally,
results in well arranged scenes in which no trace of patchwork is
to be discovered. Not less cunningly the plot of The Renegado
is pieced together out of different works of Cervantes. That
Massinger's predilection for a single action is not to be explained
by the inability to marshal and, finally, to unite a greater number
of figures, is demonstrated by the lively scenes of his Parliament
of Love, for the intrigues in which he availed himself of motives
drawn from Martial d'Auvergne, Shakespeare, Marston and, prob-
ably, also from Middleton. It must be confessed, however, that,
in this case, the fusion is not flawless, Leonora's senseless cruelty
showing that the dramatist's wish to use a striking episode of a
Marstonian drama was stronger than his respect for what the laws
of psychology allow to be possible.
In obedience to the taste of his time, Massinger twice trans-
planted the action of his plays from the localities named in his
sources to the favourite country of the Elizabethan dramatists,
Italy, and, in both cases, with entire success. Without knowledge
of his authorities, it would be impossible to find out that the duke
of Milan and his wife Marcelia, killed by her husband's jealousy,
have been substituted for Herod, king of the Jews, and his wife
Mariamne; or that the story told in his charming comedy The
Great Duke of Florence, with its variation of the motive of the
treacherous friend, is a transformation of an old legend rooted in
the soil of England.
Many of Massinger's independent additions to the stories in
his sources are also well calculated to deepen the impression left
by his works. For a few of his plays, no literary source has been so
far traced; but it would be rash to assert that he entirely invented
any of his plots. A far more striking sign of a certain weakness
in inventive power is his tendency to repeat himself in his tech-
nical artifices and in the means used for eking out his plots. The
necessary revelation of a hidden passion is frequently attained by
the simple stratagem of letting a conversation between lovers be
overheard by their enemies. The passionate attempt of Antoninus
to waken the flame of an earthly love in Dorothea's bosom is
overheard by his father and by the princess in love with the
youth (The Virgin Martir); Cleora and Marullo are surprised
a
## p. 155 (#173) ############################################
Massinger's Self-repetitions
155
in prison (The Bond-Man); Donusa and Vitelli, Domitia and Paris
are watched by the Turkish princes and Domitian respectively (The
Renegado and The Roman Actor); the rivals of Hortensio listen
to his decisive talk with Matilda (The Bashful Lover). Also, in
other emergencies, the timehonoured artifice of the listener is
freely resorted to. Another of Massinger's favourite situations is
the introduction of one of his male characters with a book in his
hand, like Hamlet, indulging in some short philosophical specula-
tion. By way of amplifying his plot, he repeatedly brings in a
brother revenging a wrong done to his sister.
The Queene of Corinth, probably 1617 (allusion to Coryate's Greeting
(1616), act 111, sc. 1). Fletcher, Massinger and a third author. Based on a
common story, cf. Gesta Romanorum, tale 4; not taken from La Fuerza de
la sangre of Cervantes.
Thierry and Theodoret, probably after April 1617; printed 1621. Fletcher,
act 1, sc. 1, act 11, sc. 2, act iv, sc. 1, act v, so. 2; Massinger, act 1, sc. 2, act 11,
sc. 1, act iv, sc. 2; a third author, acts III and v, sc. 1. Historical basis;
immediate source, perhaps de Serres. The name de Vitry seems to indicate
an allusion to the death of marshal d’Ancre, April 1617.
The Loyal Subject, licensed Nov. 1618. Fletcher. (The plot of Hey-
wood's Royall King and Loyall Subject, from Painter, bk. 11, nov. 4, has only
a slight resemblance to this story. )
The Knight of Malta, 1618 or the beginning of 1619 (by list of actors).
Fletcher, acts 11, III, so. 1, act iv, sc. 2, 3, 4; Massinger, act 111, sc. 2, act iv,
sc. 1(? ); third author, acts 1, v. The style of the third author is somewhat
like that of Field, but better than his usual work.
The Mad Lover, before March 1619. Fletcher.
The Humorous Lieutenant, 1619 (by list of actors). Fletcher. Partly
from Plutarch, lives of Pelopidas and Demetrius. A somewhat fuller text
than that of the folios was printed by Dyce in 1830 from a MS in which the
play is entitled Demetrius and Enanthe.
Sir John van Olden Barnavelt, acted 1619; printed 1883. Fletcher and
Massinger. Founded on the events of May 1619.
Women pleas'd, 1619 or 1620 (by list of actors). Fletcher. From the
Historia de Aurelio y de Ysabela, of Juan de Flores, of which several trans-
lations were current, combined with Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale. For
various scenes of the underplot, cf. Boccaccio, Decameron, day vii, nov. 6, 8,
and day viii, nov. 8.
The Custome of the Countrey, 1619 or 1620. Fletcher, acts I, III, sc. 1, 2, 3,
act iv, sc. 3, 4, act v, sc. 5 (part); Massinger, acts II, III, sc. 4, 5, act iv, sc. 1, 2,
act v, sc. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (part). Two principal elements of the plot are from
Cervantes, Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (Eng. trans. Stationers'
register, 22 Feb. 1619), bk. III, chap. 6, and bk. iv, chaps. 6–10, and most of
the names are from this romance, but some applied differently.
The Little French Lawyer, 1619 or 1620. Fletcher, acts II, III, sc. 2, 3,
a
## p. 139 (#157) ############################################
Appendix to Chapter V
139
а
2, 3.
acts iv, v, sc. 1 (a), 2, 3; Massinger, acts I, III, 8c. 1, act v, sc. 1 (6). Partly
from part 1 of Guzman de Alfarache (vol. 1, chap. 4), or from a similar story
elsewhere.
The Lawes of Candy, about 1620. Probably Massinger and another
anthor (not Fletcher) Partly from Cinthio, Hecatommithi, dec. X, nov. 9.
The False One, about 1620. Fletcher, acts 11, III, IV; Massinger, acts 1, v.
The double Marriage, about 1620. Fletcher, acts II, III, sc. 2, 3, act iv,
sc. 3, 4, act v, sc. 1; Massinger, acts I, III, sc. 1, act iv, sc. 1, 2, act v, so.
For the plot, cf. Gesta Romanorum, tale 5.
The Pilgrim, acted at court, Christmas 1621. Fletcher. Perhaps partly
from d'Audiguier, Les diverses fortunes de Pamphile et de Nise (1614),
which, again, is from Lope de Vega’s romance El Peregrino en su patria;
but the resemblance is only in trifling details, and there may be no connection.
The Wild-Goose Chase, acted at court, 1621; printed 1652. Fletcher.
The Island Princesse, acted at court, 1621. Fletcher. From La Conquista
de las Islas Malucas by Bart. de Argensola, printed 1609; but Fletcher
deviates from his source in acts iv and v.
The Beggars Bush, acted at court, 1622, but produced probably some time
earlier. Fletcher, act 11, sc. 1, 2, acts III, IV; Massinger, acts I, II, sc. 3, act v.
The Prophetesse, licensed 14 May 1622. Fletcher, acts I, III, V, sc. 3;
Massinger, acts II, IV, V, sc. 1, 2. Partly historical: the story of Diocletian
and the prophetess is told by Vopiscus.
The Sea Voyage, licensed 22 June 1622. Anthors doubtful: considerable
portions of acts I and iv are by Fletcher, but no scene, as we have it, can be
attributed wholly to him; it is doubtful whether Massinger had any share:
the metre, generally, is very defective.
The Spanish Curate, licensed 24 Oct. 1622. Fletcher, acts II, 111, sc. 1, 2, 4,
act iv, sc. 3, 5, 6, 7, act v, sc. 2; Massinger, acts I, III, sc. 3, act iv, sc. 1, 2, 4,
act v, sc. 1, 3 (Massinger deals with the main plot, and Fletcher with the
underplot). From Gerardo the Unfortunate Spaniard, a translation,
published 1622, of the (prose) romance by Gonzalo de Cespedes y Meneses,
entitled Poema tragico del Español Gerardo. The situation in the main
plot, of Don Henrique, Don Jamie, etc. , is from the conclusion of the first
part of Gerardo, pp. 231 ff. (ed. 1622), but the final development is different:
the plot of Leandro, Lopez, etc. follows closely the story told by Leandro in
the second part, pp. 246–266, omitting the conclusion as supplied by
Violante.
The Maid in the Mill, licensed Aug. 1623, as by Fletcher and W. Rowley.
Fletcher, acts I, III, sc. 2, 3, act v, sc. 2 (a). From Gerardo, pp. 394-418, with
change of conclusion, and Painter, bk. II, nov. 22.
The Lovers Progress, end of 1623 (by list of actors); the original play
was, perhaps, The Wandering Lovers, licensed 6 Dec. 1623 as by Fletcher.
In its present form it has been revised by Massinger (see prologue), and this
being a case of revision and not cooperation, mixed work is to be expected
and occurs frequently. Acts IV and v are almost entirely by Massinger.
From d’Audiguier, Histoire tragicomique de nostre temps sous les noms de
Lysandre et de Caliste, 1616.
A Wife for a Month, licensed 27 May 1624 (the name of Tooley among
the actors is probably a mistake for Lowin). Fletcher.
Rule a Wife And have a Wife, licensed 19 Oct. 1624, printed 1640.
Fletcher. The underplot is from Cervantes, El Casamiento engañoso (Nov.
Exempl. ).
The Two Noble Kinsmen, date uncertain; printed as by Fletcher and
Shakespeare, 1634. Fletcher wrote act II, sc. 3, 4, 5, act III, sc. 3, 4, 5, 6,
act iv, sc. 1, 2, act v, sc. 2, and parts of other scenes. From Chaucer's
Knight's Tale.
## p. 140 (#158) ############################################
140
Appendix to Chapter V V
The Nice Valour, or, The Passionate Mad-man, in its present form not
earlier than 1624 (allusions in act v, sc. 3), but the play bears marks of revision,
and was, perhaps, originally much earlier. Fletcher and another, perhaps
Rowley, but Fletcher's part is much altered.
The Chances, acted 1625 or 1626 (after Fletcher's death, see prologue).
Fletcher, but probably touched here and there by another hand, e. g. in act 1,
sc. 1, 9, act 11, sc. 4. From Cervantes, La Señora Cornelia (Nov. Exempl. ).
The Elder Brother, acted after Fletcher's death (see prologue), printed
1637. Fletcher, acts 11, 111, 1v; Massinger, acts 1, v. Source connected with
that of Calderon's later drama, De una causa dos efectos.
The Faire Maide of the Inne, licensed 22 Jan. 1626. Massinger and another
(not Fletcher). The disowning of Cesario by his mother is probably taken
from La Cour Sainte of Nicolas Caussin, published in 1624 (not 1632, as
stated by Koeppel). The plot of the play does not at all resemble the story
of La ilustre Fregona of Cervantes.
The Noble Gentleman, licensed 3 Feb. 1626 as by Fletcher. He may have
planned the play and written some passages, but no complete scene can be
attributed to him.
Loves Cure, or The Martial Maid, date uncertain but not earlier than
1622 in its present form. No scene can be attributed to Fletcher; Massinger
probably wrote acts , iv, v, sc. 1, 2. There is no real ground for the sug-
gestion (by Stiefel, A. L. ) that this play is taken from the Spanish comedy by
Guillén de Castro, La fuerza de la costumbre. The two dramas are founded
on the same story, but the treatment is entirely different.
The Night-Walker, or the Little Theife, licensed as corrected by Shirley,
11 May 1633; printed 1640; the original play was, perhaps, as early as 1614.
As it stands, the first three acts are by Fletcher, with revision, and the last
two by Shirley, who must have rewritten this part of the play.
Loves Pilgrimage, revived 1635, with alterations, perhaps by Shirley, in-
cluding some matter from Jonson’s New Inne. Fletcher appears most markedly
in act 1, sc. 2, acts 11 and 111. From Cervantes, Las dos Doncellas(Nov. Exempl. ).
A Very Woman, or The Prince of Tarent, licensed 1634; printed as
Massinger's, 1655, and never included among Beaumont and Fletcher's plays.
As we have it, it is revised from an earlier drama (see prologue): Fletcher
was probably the author of acts III and iv, sc. 1, 3. It is com mmonly identified
with A Woman's Plot, acted at court 1621, because of the entry in Stationers'
register, 9 Sept.
1653 of 'A Very Woman or The Woman's Plot, but this
second title has no justification in the play, and is, perhaps, a mistake.
The Coronation, printed in the folio of 1679, is by Shirley. The Widow,
attributed in the quarto to Jonson, Fletcher and Middleton, is probably by
Middleton.
The Faithful Friends was entered in Stationers' register, 29 June 1660
as by Beaumont and Fletcher, and first printed in Weber's edition, 1812; but
it is not likely that they had any share in it.
The following appear to be lost: The History of Cardenio, entered in
Stationers' register, 9 Sept. 1653 as by Fletcher and Shakespeare, and, perhaps,
the same as the Cardenes, Cardema or Cardano, which ras acted at court,
1613; The Jeweller of Amsterdam, entered Stationers' register, 8 April
1654 as by Fletcher, Field and Massinger, probably produced about 1616;
A Woman's Plot, acted at court, 1621; The Devil of Dowgate, or Usury
put to Use, 'written by Fletcher,' mentioned as a new play in Herbert's
official register, 17 Oct. 1623; A Right Woman, entered in Stationers' register,
29 June 1660 as by Beaumont and Fletcher; Mador, King of Great Britain,
attributed to Beaumont, Stationers' register, 29 June 1660. These two latter
attributions must be regarded as very doubtful.
## p. 141 (#159) ############################################
CHAPTER VI
PHILIP MASSINGER
EVERY biographer of Philip Massinger must echo the frequently
repeated complaint that we know very little about the life of many
of the chief dramatists of the times of Elizabeth and the first two
Stewart kings. We may consider it an exceptional good fortune
that we know at least the chief facts of Massinger's early
days—that he was born at Salisbury in 1583, the son of Arthur
Massinger, who, in some manner, was intimately connected with
the 'noble family of the Herberts,' to use Philip's own expression,
and who was evidently highly esteemed by his employers ; that
his baptism took place on 24 November 1583, and that he was
entered on 14 May 1602 at St Alban hall in the university of
Oxford. In 1606, he left the university for unexplained reasons
without having taken his degree. From Oxford he came to
London, where we lose sight of him for many years as totally as
of the great immigrant from Stratford-on-Avon about twenty years
before.
One fact, however, stands out clearly — that Massinger's
London career was far from prosperous. When we hear of
him again, in 1613 or 1614, we find him already immersed in
those financial difficulties which remained the heavy burden
of his life. He reappears as one of the three signatories of a
petition for the loan of five pounds, addressed to that powerful
personage to whom many needy dramatists used to look more
or less hopefully—the theatrical manager and broker Philip
Henslowe. In a few additional words, Massinger pathetically calls
a
him his “true loving friend,' and the joint request was granted.
There was a similar pleading in 1615.
As in the case of this epistle to Henslowe, most of the first
dramatic ventures of Massinger seem to have been joint pro-
ductions. The first time we meet his name in print, on the
title-page of an evidently successful drama, we find it coupled
with the name of an older and very popular dramatist. In 1622
## p. 142 (#160) ############################################
142
Philip Massinger
was published The Virgin Martir, a Tragedy, written by Philip
Massinger and Thomas Dekker. But Dekker, whose poetical
temper was different from Massinger's, was neither his first nor
his most important fellow worker. A good many years before
the composition of The Virgin Martir, he must have fallen under
the sway of John Fletcher. It is a curious fact that no early
edition of any one of those dramas which have been recognised as
the joint labours of Fletcher and Massinger makes the slightest
reference to the participation of the younger dramatist; all were
printed as by Fletcher alone. Massinger seems to have been quite
content to leave the risk and the glory to his teacher; so far as
we know, he never protested against the omission of his name
on the title-pages of the dramas printed during his lifetime.
However, one of his most enthusiastic benefactors and friends, Sir
Aston Cockayne, repeatedly insisted on the fact of Massinger's
cooperation with Fletcher-an assertion which, in the case of a
considerable number of Fletcherian plays, has received support
from the philological researches of later times. And that he was
buried in Fletcher's grave, probably by his own wish, may be
taken as a striking proof that no coldness had arisen between
Massinger and the man with whom he had associated in the
early years of his dramatic writing.
We are not able to fix the time when Massinger ventured to
present himself as an independent author to the public of the
metropolis; but we may assume that this did not happen much
before the end of the second decade of the seventeenth century.
For the ensuing period of his life we possess a considerable number
of direct utterances of his own, the authenticity of which is not
to be questioned, but the biographical value of which is somewhat
impaired by their official character and by the consideration neces-
sarily shown in them for the position and feelings of the persons
addressed. These utterances consist in the dedications prefixed
by Massinger to the ten dramas published by himself. In these
letters, Massinger's prose appears to the greatest advantage; it is,
perhaps, a little pompous now and then, but it is clear and per-
fectly free from Euphuistic tricks of style.
Much less pleasing are the glimpses of the poet's private life
afforded by these documents. Both the first dedication, preceding
.
The Duke of Millaine (1623), and the last, composed for The
Unnaturall Combat in 1639, about a year before his death, exhibit
the poet as much dissatisfied with his vocation as a dramatic writer.
He speaks of the misfortunes which cast him on this course and
## p. 143 (#161) ############################################
>
Massinger's Personal Life 143
numbers himself among those whose 'necessitous fortunes' made
them choose poetry as their profession. Complaints about the
neglect which his age showed to the contemned sons of the
Muses,' and about his own depressed circumstances, protestations
that he could never have lived without the help of those kind
patrons who endeavoured to rebuild the ruins of demolished
poesy' and declarations of his gratitude and his devotion, are inter-
mingled in these epistles with rarer outbursts of consciousness of
his poetical powers, remarks about the intrinsic value of his works
and hints that there were some eminent men who have not
thought themselves disparaged, I dare not say honoured, to be
celebrated the patrons of my humble studies. '
Two of the dedications show that the poet did his best to keep
up that connection with the Pembroke family which he regarded
as a paternal inheritance. In 1624, he dedicated his tragi-
comedy The Bond-Man to the younger brother of the third earl
of Pembroke Philip Herbert, earl of Montgomery—with respectful
allusions to the many happy years his father had spent in the
service of that honourable house ; and, nine years later, in 1633,
he recommended his famous comedy A New Way to Pay Old
Debts to the favourable acceptance of Montgomery's son-in-law,
Robert Dormer, earl of Carnarvon, in very humble and com-
plimentary terms. Besides these dedications, two of his rare
non-dramatic poems refer to members of the same family. One
of these poems is a poetical supplication of uncertain date,
addressed to the 'Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain. The
earl's Christian name is missing ; but the whole tenor of this
petition leads to the conclusion that it was meant to reach
the ear of the third earl of Pembroke, the William Herbert
frequently mentioned in biographies of Shakespeare, who had
been appointed lord chamberlain in 1615. It is to be feared, ,
however, that this most persuasive poetical begging-letter, in
which Massinger speaks of his 'trod-down poverty,' had not the
desired effect; for, had the earl proved kind, Massinger would
assuredly have shown his gratitude by dedicating one of his later
dramas to this powerful nobleman. There is an old tradition
that William Herbert had been the protector of young Massinger
during the years of his university life, but had withdrawn his
helping hand later, for unknown reasons. This rumour is not
verified by the epistle in question, the manuscript of which was
rediscovered but a few years ago; for it contains no reference
to former benefits received by the poet.
## p. 144 (#162) ############################################
144
Philip Massinger
The other poem, with the motto Sero sed serio, is an elegy on
the death of Charles, lord Herbert, third son of Philip Herbert,
who, after the death of his brother, in 1630, had become fourth
earl of Pembroke. The poet blames himself for having remained
silent on the occasion of the wedding of this unfortunate young
nobleman, which had taken place at Christmas 1634, a few weeks
only before his early death at Florence in January 1635; and he
evidently tries to compensate for this sin of omission by courtly
flattery in a funeral poem, the most undignified of all his compo-
sitions and a striking contrast to the above mentioned supplication,
in which the poet declares that neither a pension nor a place could
induce him ‘to part with his own candour ! ' It is stated that this
fourth earl of Pembroke granted him an annuity of £30 or £40
with reversion to his widow.
The dedications and poems make us acquainted with numerous
members of the nobility to whom Massinger felt himself bound for
benefits received, or whom he wished to number among his patrons.
About his relations to his literary contemporaries we gain very
little information from Massinger himself, and not much more
from other sources. One of his shorter poems is addressed to
James Smith, an obscure clerical poet, whom he praises as the
author of a 'neat' poem, calling him, after the fashion of Ben
Jonson, his ‘son. One of the many dramas of James Shirley,
entitled The Grateful Servant (1630), Massinger ushered in by
some commendatory verses, whose well weighed and carefully
worded praise leaves a deeper impression than the customary
hyperboles of similar compositions. Among the poets who did
him a similar service at the publication of his own dramas, we
find, together with Shirley, Massinger's other fellow dramatists
John Ford, Thomas May, Thomas Goffe and his faithful friend
and fervent admirer Sir Aston Cockayne.
Massinger is said to have been married : a Miss Massinger,
who died in 1762, claimed a direct descent from him. But all
the other circumstances of his life, which seems to have had its
full share of cares besides ceaseless work, are hidden from us. He
died in March 1640 and was buried on the 18th of that month in
the churchyard of St Saviour's church in Southwark, where John
Gower had also found his resting place.
Massinger's dramatic apprenticeship, the period of his col-
laboration with other dramatists, especially with Fletcher, has,
of late, frequently attracted the attention of English scholars.
Their investigations have resulted in a great increase of the number
## p. 145 (#163) ############################################
Massinger's Collaboration with Fletcher 145
of plays for which this cooperation is to be assumed. At the
time of the publication of the first collected edition of Beaumont
and Fletcher's works, in 1647, Cockayne blamed the editor on
account of the injustice towards Fletcher implied in the title,
inasmuch as Beaumont had written but few of those dramas. As
Massinger's friend, Cockayne availed himself of this opportunity
to inform the world of another noteworthy fact about which the
editor had been silent: he pointed out that Massinger also had
to claim a partnership ‘in other few, adding that he got this
information from 'Fletcher's chief bosom friend'-possibly from
Massinger himself. Not content with Cockayne's few plays, modern
enquirers have traced the hand of Massinger in about twenty pieces
of the Fletcherian series. It cannot be denied that the modern
method of settling questions of doubtful authorship is sometimes
purely subjective, and many discrepancies have, accordingly, to be
noted between the conclusions reached by different scholars. But,
in Massinger's case, the task was facilitated by a striking peculiarity
in the writer. Massinger is afflicted with the itch of iteration to
an exceptional degree: his repetitions of the same phrases and
similes are countless. Wherever such marks appear in great
numbers, Massinger's cooperation may safely be held to be very
likely. On the other hand, it is not to be doubted that, in all their
joint compositions, the older and more experienced Fletcher was
the leading spirit, the chief builder, to whose directions Massinger
had to attend. That, no doubt, is the reason why he never himself
thought of proclaiming his partnership to the world!
A second, much smaller, group of plays consists of those which,
in the old prints, are assigned to Massinger and some other
dramatist. The oldest of these pieces seems to be the amusing
comedy called The Old Law. Though published very late, in 1656,
as the work of Massinger, Middleton and William Rowley, the
mention of the year 1599 in the dialogue of this piece seems to
prove that it was composed several years before the beginning of
Massinger's dramatic career. It is just possible that he revised
the old play; but, if he did so, he carefully abstained from any
material alterations. No trace of his individual style is to be
discovered in the existing text.
Not the slightest doubt, on the contrary, can be entertained
concerning Massinger's cooperation in two other plays attributed
to him and Dekker and Field respectively on the title-pages of the
1 As to the probable shares of Massinger and Fletcher respectively in the dramas in
which they collaborated, see appendix to chap. v.
E. L. VI.
10
CH. VI.
## p. 146 (#164) ############################################
146
Philip Massinger
old prints. Both plays were published in the lifetime of the
three authors : the coarse, but by no means ineffective legendary
drama The Virgin Martir, in 1622, as the work of Massinger and
Dekker, and, in 1632, the impressive tragedy The Fatall Dowry,
assigned to him and Nathaniel Field, his old friend, the writer of the
letter to Henslowe signed also by Massinger and Daborne. Internal
evidence corroborates the statements of the printers. As to the
scenes of Massinger and those of Dekker, even a careless reader
must be struck by the difference of character between them'; but
it is a more delicate task to distinguish between the work of
Massinger and that of Field.
Massinger's name alone fronts the ten plays, published within
the period 1623 to 1639, for which he wrote his dedications, and
four other plays, posthumously printed in 1655 and 1658. One
of the three dramas which appeared together in 1655, entitled
A Very Woman, or The Prince of Tarent, is regarded, but with-
out any certainty, as another joint effort of Fletcher and Massinger.
In the course of the nineteenth century, two more plays bearing
the unmistakable stamp of Massinger's authorship were discovered.
Besides these sixteen plays, on which our study of Massinger's
art must be based, we know the titles of twelve more, which seem
to be irretrievably lost.
Among Massinger's sixteen genuine dramas, only three trage-
dies are to be found. All his other plays end without blood-
shed, even a drama whose historical foundation might exact
the death of the hero-one of the new-found plays, bearing the
fanciful title Believe as you List, published for the first time in
1844. This drama is mentioned in all discussions of the question
whether Massinger frequently gave vent to political opinions
in his dramas. Generally speaking, the dramatists of his time
shrank from touching on the politics of the day, for excellent
reasons: they knew but too well that political dramas might
have unpleasant consequences for both actors and writers. George
Chapman's two sensational dramas, for instance, treating of the
story of the life and sudden fall of an ambitious French politician,
Charles, duke of Biron, marshal of France, who had been be-
headed in Paris but a few years previously, 31 July 1602, caused
a complaint by the French ambassador, in consequence of which
the representations of the plays were stopped and some of the
actors sent to prison. The author seems to have escaped scot-
free; but, in 1608, at the printing of his plays, he experienced
1 Cf. ante, chap. II.
Cf. ante, chap. v.
## p. 147 (#165) ############################################
6
The English Drama and Politics 147
the wrath of the censor, who mutilated his text in so ferocious a
manner that, in his dedication, Chapman speaks of 'these poor
dismembered poems. ' Another playwright, Thomas Middleton, in
1624, in his allegorical drama A Game at Chesse made himself
the interpreter of the intense dissatisfaction of the great majority
of the English people with the policy of James I, who endeavoured
to keep up friendly relations with Spain in opposition to a strong
national feeling against any alliance with the arch-enemy. The
incensed king threatened the players with heavy fines in case of
another misbehaviour; but the poet himself was not to be found,
and the king's resentment seems to bave been of short duration :
That, notwithstanding those warning examples, Massinger could
not resist the temptation of meddling with politics, we know on
good authority. In January 1631, the master of the revels, Sir
Henry Herbert, refused to license one of Massinger's plays, “be-
cause it did contain dangerous matter, as the deposing of Sebastian,
King of Portugal, by Philip II, and there being a peace sworn
betwixt the Kings of England and Spain. ' From the same 'Cato
of the stage’ we hear, besides, that, in 1638, king Charles himself,
perusing a new play by Massinger, entitled The King and the
Subject, marked one passage for alteration with the words: “This
is too insolent, and to be changed. ' The play itself is lost; but
the objectionable verses have been preserved for us by the censor
himself. They are taken from an angry speech of Don Pedro, king
of Spain, proclaiming despotically the absolute right of the king
to raise new taxes. It was then the time of king Charles's exaction
of ship-money, stoutly resisted by many of his subjects, and it is
hardly to be doubted that the poet when composing, and the king
when cancelling, this passage were both thinking, from a very
different point of view, of the possible effect this manifestation
might have on the audience.
Believe as you List, against which the censor had entered his
veto in order to avoid giving offence to the Spanish government,
was licensed a few months later, in May 1631, in a revised shape,
the poet having made it acceptable by changing the costume of
his dramatis personae. Instead of the Portuguese king deposed
by Spain, Massinger introduced a fabulous Asiatic king Antiochus,
deposed and pitilessly persecuted by Rome. After this change,
the censor found nothing smacking of recent political changes
in the play; and this proves that he did not think of the pos-
sibility of another political interpretation, since suggested by
1 For an account of A Game at Chesse, cf. chap. II.
10-2
## p. 148 (#166) ############################################
148
Philip Massinger
S. R. Gardiner? . According to this view, Massinger's play had a
very real meaning indeed, being intended to mirror the fate of
the unfortunate brother-in-law of Charles I, Frederick V, elector
Palatine and titular king of Bohemia, who, at that time, was a
landless fugitive persecuted by his powerful enemies, just as Mas-
singer's dethroned Antiochus was by the Romans. Prusias king of
Bithynia, who, against his own inclinations, is forced to give up
his guest to his enemies, is said to represent Charles himself, who
refrained from actively assisting his brother-in-law; Flaminius, the
Roman ambassador, is the Spanish ambassador, intriguing against
Frederick at the English court; Philoxenus, the king of Bithynia's
counsellor, who made common cause with Rome, is the lord treasurer
Weston, who used his influence with the king in the Spanish interest;
and, finally, the kind queen of Bithynia, who tried in vain to save
the hapless fugitive, is Henrietta Maria, queen of England, who
cordially disliked Weston.
Some years after the publication of Gardiner's ingenious hypo-
thesis, the main source of Massinger's plot was discovered in the
French historian Pierre Victor Palma Cayet's account of the
fate of the Portuguese pretender, known as the false Sebastian?
A detailed comparison led to the result that the dramatist found
the prototypes of all his chief characters in Cayet's work, with the
sole exception of the nameless wife of Prusias. It is quite possible,
however, that her introduction was caused by the same need of the
dramatist which made him add two amatory incidents to his plot:
he wanted some female characters to brighten a political story
which offered him only male personages. Gardiner's assumption
that the dramatist, when he made his Antiochus a fugitive, must
have been thinking of Frederick’s wanderings, because there was
nothing similar to be found in the Sebastian story, is refuted by an
examination of Massinger's source. Cayet gives a detailed account
of the wanderings of the Portuguese impostor, and tells how,
flying before the persecutions of the Spaniards, he came first to
Venice in the hope of being acknowledged and protected by the
republic, and afterwards to the court of the grand duke of Florence,
who, by the pressure of Spain, was finally obliged to deliver the
pretender into the hands of his enemies. Also, the surprising fact
already alluded to, that, at the end of the English drama, we hear
only of the imprisonment, not of the death, of the hero, is ex-
1 The Political Element in Massinger,' Contemporary Review, August, 1876;
reprinted in the Transactions of the New Shakespere Society for the same year.
Cayet died in 1610.
## p. 149 (#167) ############################################
Massinger's Political Sympathies 149
plained by the circumstance that Cayet, when penning his account,
was not yet aware of the final execution of the pretender.
The decisive influence of the French chronicler on Massinger's
plot is not to be questioned; nevertheless, it is possible that
the dramatist was reminded by some of the circumstances of the
Sebastian story of the sad fate of the German prince and the
vacillations of the English king, and that, induced by his personal
and political sympathies, he did his best to surround Antiochus
and his friends with a poetical nimbus. His fugitive, certainly, is
no impostor, but a man of kingly bearing. Gardiner observed that
the two Herberts, the brothers William and Philip, were opposed
to Weston, trying to counterbalance his influence by means
of the queen: and the introduction into Massinger's play of
the nameless queen of Bithynia and the part taken by her in its
action remain the only substantial arguments in favour of the
historian's political interpretation.
That Massinger was sincerely interested in the fate of the
quondam elector is proved by certain passages in another play,
The Maid of Honour, containing veiled but unmistakable allu-
sions to his fate and to James I's tardiness in assisting his son-in-
law, a slackness which had been blamed by many of his subjects
and which was repeated by Charles. Some further passages,
which, possibly, may refer to political personages and events of
his days, have been pointed out in several other of Massinger's
plays, particularly in the tragicomedy The Bond-Man, which seems
to convey a severe criticism of the royal favourite, George Villiers,
duke of Buckingham, and of the unsatisfactory state of the English
fleet. All the utterances of Massinger which are supposed to be of
a political character show him in opposition to the faction of the
court.
The same intellectual courage which made Massinger utter his
political opinions without deference to the sentiments of the
influential court party was displayed in his dealings with another
power whose favour was of the utmost importance to him: he dared
to cross the current of one of the most violent prejudices of the
public which filled the metropolitan theatres. The church of
Rome was regarded by the mass of the English nation as the most
dangerous and implacable enemy of their country, and was hated
accordingly; the English members of the Roman church were
watched suspiciously, being popularly regarded in the light of
spies belonging to that hated outlandish power; all Roman
Catholic priests had been banished from London by James I, in
## p. 150 (#168) ############################################
150
Philip Massinger
1604. The anti-Romish propaganda had also invaded the stage.
Thomas Dekker, in his allegorical play The Whore of Babylon,
strained all his powers, with the exception of his charming poetical
gift, to incense his countrymen against Rome and Spain; Barnabe
Barnes, in his tragedy The Devil's Charter, which was played
before the king, afforded Londoners an insight into all the abomi-
nations of the Roman curia, and, finally, the delightful spectacle
of a vicious and murderous pope in the clutches of the devil;
while, in Middleton's political play A Game at Chesse, Ignatius
Loyola, founder of the society of Jesus, is made to speak the
prologue and to proclaim his vices and his evil intentions con-
cerning England in the most shameless manner. In view of
this inveterate hostility, which formed an integral part of the
religious and political persuasions of most Englishmen, it needed
great strength and independence of mind to write and publish a
drama like Massinger's The Renegado. In this play a priest of
the church of Rome acts as the friend and leader of all the charac-
ters for whom the sympathy of the audience is engaged ; in all
their difficulties, they appeal to him with a confidence which is
justified by his saving them from destruction. And this benefactor
is not only a priest, but also a member of that brotherhood whom
protestants thought they had especial reasons to fear and to hate-
a Jesuit.
We do not know whether Massinger, who had been baptised
according to the rite of the Anglican communion, ever publicly con-
formed to the church of Rome: the supposition that he became a
Roman Catholic at Oxford and, in consequence of this step, lost the
protection of the earl of Pembroke, is nothing more than a guess.
But it cannot be doubted that he repeatedly showed a marked
predilection for the religious observances of the papal church.
One of his noblest women, the virgin Camiola, heroine of the
fascinating drama The Maid of Honour, being afflicted by the
discovery of the faithlessness of her lover, resolves to take the
veil—a harmonious climax to her devoted life, in adopting which
Massinger departed from his well known source, a novel in Painter's
Palace of Pleasure. The saintly Dorothea, whose martyrdom is
the subject of the tragedy The Virgin Martir, is, it is true,
a daughter of the primitive church, to whose glorification even the
anti-Popish Dekker did not object.
To the question whether the remarkable independence Mas-
singer manifested in freely expressing his political and religious
sympathies be also a distinctive quality of his dramatic art, an
## p. 151 (#169) ############################################
Massinger and Fletcher
151
affirmative answer cannot be given without some restrictions.
When Massinger entered the theatrical world of London, which
was suffering already from an excess of competition and pro-
duction, he found established in it a great tradition from whose
influence it was impossible for him to escape. We may well
suppose the sensitive soul of a young poet to have been impressed
and overwhelmed by the magnificent multitude of Shakespeare's
heroes and heroines! Not that the younger dramatists surrounding
Fletcher always pronounced the name of Shakespeare with awe
and veneration—we have proofs enough that the younger gene-
ration delighted in parodying famous passages of his works, and
that many of them were ready to extol Ben Jonson or Fletcher
in a more exalted strain than that in which they praised him—but
they could not help succumbing to the influence of his creations,
repeating and imitating him in thoughts, words, characters and
situations in numberless scenes and passages of their own dramas.
And, in Massinger's plays, we meet with many reminiscences of
this kind, though he carefully avoids anything like plagiarism.
Generally speaking, it cannot be said that he possessed an over-
scrupulous conscience in literary matters. In this respect, he was
no better and no worse than most of his contemporaries, who
remorselessly appropriated the intellectual goods of their fellows:
the general story of his successful comedy A New Way to Pay
Old Debts, for instance, he borrowed from a play of the defunct
Middleton, without deeming it necessary to allude to his model in
his dedication. But, in dealing with Shakespeare, his sentiments
seem to have been akin to the feeling tersely expressed later in
the verse: "Within that circle none durst walk but he. '
Not Shakespeare, who, searching the human soul, became
conversant with all the great problems of life-not the dead master,
whose eyes had penetrated to the core of things, became Massinger's
teacher, but the living Fletcher, the creator of a partly realistic,
and partly shadowy, world, who always aimed at stage effects and
applause, and was prepared to risk probability in order to secure
them. Undoubtedly, Massinger owed much of his own dramatic
cunning to this apprenticeship to Fletcher's cleverness in all the
technicalities of the stage—but this gain could not outweigh the
heavy loss in power. ( In reading Massinger's plays, we often be-
come aware of the contest between two very different forces, his
own serious and earnest manner, as it were, wrestling with the
injunctions of his master to lay hold of the attention of the
audience by any means, however frivolous.
## p. 152 (#170) ############################################
152
Philip Massinger
1
In view of the protracted joint authorship of the two dramatists,
which must have covered many years, it is difficult to say whether
Massinger transplanted Fletcherian motives and types into his own
plays. It is true that the duchess Aurelia of Siena, whom he
added to the plot of The Maid of Honour, greatly resembles her
namesake, the sister of the emperor Carinus in The Prophetesse;
that the warlike duke Lorenzo in The Bashful Lover, who is
suddenly vanquished by Matilda's beauty, strongly reminds us of
the rough old warrior Memnon in The Mad Lover, adoring on
his knees the suddenly revealed charms of the princess Calis; and
that intimate connections are noticeable between Massinger's Par-
liament of Love and Fletcher's The Little French Lawyer-but it
is possible that, in these and some similar cases, we have to assume
not a borrowing of Fletcherian motives, but only a readjustment of
his own contributions. To repeat himself was perfectly admissible
according to Massinger's artistic code.
As to his relations with either Shakespeare or Fletcher, Massinger
himself leaves us in the dark. Shakespeare he never mentions,
Fletcher but once, and then only to tell us that Fletcher never had
Such reputation and credit won
But by his honord patron, Huntingdon.
Furthermore, the name of Shakespeare's famous rival, whom many
younger poets delighted to honour—the name of Ben Jonson—never
appears in Massinger's writings. Perhaps he was not on the best of
terms with that outspoken poet. A few ironical words by Massinger
about the strange self-love of a writer who professed
that when
The critics laugh, he'll laugh at them agen
have been thought—not without some likelihood—to refer to the
angry old man who tried to console himself for the failure of one
of his last dramas, The New Inne, by bitterly inveighing against
hostile critics. As to the possible influence of Jonson's dramatic
method on the compositions of the younger poet, it is discoverable,
perhaps, in his two domestic dramas A New Way and The City-
Madam. The impressive but exaggerated personifications of the
vices of avarice, hypocrisy and pride presented in these comedies
are in the manner of Jonson's types, which were assiduously
imitated by later dramatists. In Massinger's other plays, the
traces of Jonsonian influence are very slight: the small group of
patriotic Romans in The Roman Actor calls to mind a similar
chorus in Sejanus his Fall, and the foolish wooer of The Maid
of Honour, Signior Sylli, may claim kinship with Sir Amorous
## p. 153 (#171) ############################################
Massinger's Constructive Power
153
La-Foole in The Silent Woman, by virtue of his name and some
remarks about the family of the Syllis.
The most striking feature of Massinger's individual art, undoubt-
edly, is to be found in his great constructive power. The structure
of his best plays is admirable in the severity of its lines and in
the wise economy shown in the use of his materials. In most cases,
he was content with working out a single action; the mixture of
plots which many of his brother poets preferred, and of which
Shakespeare's King Lear had been the great example, seems to
have had no attraction for a dramatist whose intellect favoured
clearness above all other poetical charms. Some of the dramas of his
contemporaries resemble mazes in whose artfully interwoven paths
both writers and spectators ran the risk of losing themselves—a
danger which Richard Brome, for instance, perceived and tried to
avoid by drawing attention to particularly difficult complications
by an explicit remark of one of his dramatis personae; Massinger's
best plays convey the impression of being well built and ample
halls, in which we move with a feeling of perfect security.
That he was a severe critic of his own labours is proved by the
clear progress to be noted in the construction of his plots in
the course of years. The Unnaturall Combat, which the author
calls an old work in his dedication, and which appears to be
a free rendering of the story of the crimes of the Cenci family,
has, no doubt, a central figure in Malefort, the destroyer of his own
children; yet it contains not one but two separate tragedies. First,
the tragedy of young Malefort, the son, who revenges the death of
his mother and is himself killed by her murderer, his father; and
then, the tragedy of the daughter, hunted to death by the father's
incestuous passion. In what probably is his second tragedy, The
Duke of Millaine, we meet with a striking proof that the dramatist
had not yet learned to economise his subject : the fate of his
heroine reaches the tragic climax at the end of the fourth act,
so that he was obliged to fill the fifth act with a new action, not
clearly hinted at before, a brother's revenge for the injury done
to his sister. It is true that, in the last tragedy composed by
Massinger alone, The Roman Actor, Paris, the actor, falls a
victim to the jealousy of the emperor also in the fourth act;
nevertheless, the poet was entitled to speak of this drama as
'the most perfect birth of his Minerva,' because the fate of the
player was not his chief object : he wished to present the tragedy
of the bloodthirsty madness of the Roman Caesars, personified in
Domitian, whose ruin is prepared and effected in the fifth act.
## p. 154 (#172) ############################################
154
Philip Massinger
Our admiration of Massinger's power of dramatic construction
is further heightened, if we come to look at the raw materials at
his disposal. Nothing, for instance, could be more interesting
than to observe how, in The Roman Actor, the process of blending
the accounts of historians, of Suetonius and Dio Cassius principally,
results in well arranged scenes in which no trace of patchwork is
to be discovered. Not less cunningly the plot of The Renegado
is pieced together out of different works of Cervantes. That
Massinger's predilection for a single action is not to be explained
by the inability to marshal and, finally, to unite a greater number
of figures, is demonstrated by the lively scenes of his Parliament
of Love, for the intrigues in which he availed himself of motives
drawn from Martial d'Auvergne, Shakespeare, Marston and, prob-
ably, also from Middleton. It must be confessed, however, that,
in this case, the fusion is not flawless, Leonora's senseless cruelty
showing that the dramatist's wish to use a striking episode of a
Marstonian drama was stronger than his respect for what the laws
of psychology allow to be possible.
In obedience to the taste of his time, Massinger twice trans-
planted the action of his plays from the localities named in his
sources to the favourite country of the Elizabethan dramatists,
Italy, and, in both cases, with entire success. Without knowledge
of his authorities, it would be impossible to find out that the duke
of Milan and his wife Marcelia, killed by her husband's jealousy,
have been substituted for Herod, king of the Jews, and his wife
Mariamne; or that the story told in his charming comedy The
Great Duke of Florence, with its variation of the motive of the
treacherous friend, is a transformation of an old legend rooted in
the soil of England.
Many of Massinger's independent additions to the stories in
his sources are also well calculated to deepen the impression left
by his works. For a few of his plays, no literary source has been so
far traced; but it would be rash to assert that he entirely invented
any of his plots. A far more striking sign of a certain weakness
in inventive power is his tendency to repeat himself in his tech-
nical artifices and in the means used for eking out his plots. The
necessary revelation of a hidden passion is frequently attained by
the simple stratagem of letting a conversation between lovers be
overheard by their enemies. The passionate attempt of Antoninus
to waken the flame of an earthly love in Dorothea's bosom is
overheard by his father and by the princess in love with the
youth (The Virgin Martir); Cleora and Marullo are surprised
a
## p. 155 (#173) ############################################
Massinger's Self-repetitions
155
in prison (The Bond-Man); Donusa and Vitelli, Domitia and Paris
are watched by the Turkish princes and Domitian respectively (The
Renegado and The Roman Actor); the rivals of Hortensio listen
to his decisive talk with Matilda (The Bashful Lover). Also, in
other emergencies, the timehonoured artifice of the listener is
freely resorted to. Another of Massinger's favourite situations is
the introduction of one of his male characters with a book in his
hand, like Hamlet, indulging in some short philosophical specula-
tion. By way of amplifying his plot, he repeatedly brings in a
brother revenging a wrong done to his sister.
