Chapter II: Preface (2)

I will quote three more passages: one to show how lifelike in description Massinger can be; the second, to show how he can ennoble the expression of love; the third, to show how tender he is at his best.

The first is from _The Maid of Honour_. A soldier comes in with news for the besieged general, who is standing on the walls of Siena, looking for aid from his friends:

_Enter_ a Soldier.

FERDINAND. What news with thee?

SOLDIER. From the turret of the fort,
By the rising clouds of dust, through which, like lightning
The splendour of bright arms sometimes brake through,
I did descry some forces making towards us;
And from the camp, as emulous of their glory,
The general, for I know him by his horse,
And bravely seconded, encounter’d them.
Their greetings were too rough for friends; their swords,
And not their tongues, exchanging courtesies.
By this the main battalias are join’d;
And if you please to be spectators of
The horrid issue, I will bring you where,
As in a theatre, you may see their fates
In purple gore presented.(129)

The second is from _The Duke of Milan_, where Marcelia expresses her love for her lord, Sforza, the Duke of Milan.

MARCELIA. My worthiest lord!
The only object I behold with pleasure,
My pride, my glory, in a word, my all!
Bear witness, heaven, that I esteem myself
In nothing worthy of the meanest praise
You can bestow, unless it be in this,
That in my heart, I love and honour you.
And, but that it would smell of arrogance
To speak my strong desire and zeal to serve you,
I then could say, these eyes yet never saw
The rising sun, but that my vows and prayers
Were sent to heaven for the prosperity
And safety of my lord, nor have I ever
Had other study, but how to appear
Worthy your favour; and that my embraces
Might yield a fruitful harvest of content
For all your noble travail, in the purchase
Of her that’s still your servant; by these lips,
Which pardon me that I presume to kiss——

SFORZA. O swear, for ever swear!

MARCELIA. I ne’er will seek
Delight but in your pleasure; and desire,
When you are sated(130) with all earthly glories,
And age and honours make you fit for heaven,
That one grave may receive us.

The third is from _A Very Woman_; the disguised John Antonio is telling his story at Almira’s request:

Not far from where my father lives, a lady,
A neighbour by, blest with as great a beauty
As nature durst bestow without undoing,
Dwelt, and most happily, as I thought then,
And bless’d the house a thousand times she dwelt in.
This beauty, in the blossom of my youth,
When my first fire felt no adulterate incense,
Nor I no way to flatter, but my fondness;
In all the bravery my friends could show me,
In all the faith my innocence could give me,
In the best language my true tongue could tell me,
And all the broken sighs my sick heart lend me,
I sued and serv’d; long did I love this lady,
Long was my travail, long my trade to win her;
With all the duty of my soul I serv’d her.(131)

At times the poet rises to what is not far removed from inspiration; and such lines as the following from _The Parliament of Love_ make good the claim of English to be the imperial language of the world. King Charles seeks to justify the honours which he, the “most Christian king,” gives to the statue of Cupid; he then continues thus:

CHARLES. ’Tis rather to instruct deceived mankind,
How much pure love that has his birth in heaven,
And scorns to be received a guest, but in
A noble heart prepared to entertain him,
Is by the gross misprision of weak men,
Abused and injured. That celestial fire,
Which hieroglyphically is described
In this his bow, his quiver, and his torch,
First warm’d their bloods, and after gave a name
To the old heroic spirits; such as Orpheus,
That drew men, differing little then from beasts,
To civil government; or famed Alcides
The tyrant-queller, that refused the plain
And easy path leading to vicious pleasures,
And ending in a precipice deep as hell,
To scale the rugged cliffs on whose firm top
Virtue and Honour, crown’d with wreaths of stars,
Did sit triumphant.(132)

But there is another characteristic of Massinger’s style and that perhaps more obvious still; it is full of courtliness and grace. A perusal of _The City Madam_, where the subject is the absurdity of the ladies of the Mansion House who ape the manners of the West End, suggests the question whether Massinger was ever attached to the Court. We do not know. He must, at any rate, have moved amongst refined and educated people. Napoléon said that Corneille’s plays ought to be performed to an audience of ambassadors and ministers of state;(133) in the same way, in reading Massinger, we feel that we are moving freely in the palaces of the great. There is comparatively little here of dialect(134) or low life; we are at once taken up into high life with all its virtues and its faults. The kings and courtiers behave and express themselves as we should expect them to do; the politeness and the compliments which we hear on every side have the merit of being entirely natural. And if there is little to remind us of Dickens, there is still less to recall Thackeray. There is no air of snobbishness; such is the dexterity of our author that we do not feel like Jeames Yellowplush, that we are awkward menials watching the doings of the titled and the great. Not only do the characters move with an inborn grace which is free from self-analysis and self-contempt, but they take the audience up into their company; and as the gallants of that era used sometimes to sit upon the stage, close among the actors,(135) so in reading Massinger we feel that we are unconsciously present at the scenes he portrays.

This is as much as to say that the stage of those days responded to a real and living need in the minds of the audience; there was nothing exotic or artificial about it, as there seems to have been about our plays ever since the Puritans turned things upside down. It will be said that this enchanted atmosphere belongs to all the greater playwrights of the age alike. And this is true; it is one of the secrets of their abiding charm. Brander Matthews, in dealing with the unreality of Massinger’s atmosphere, says that “some of Shakspere’s most delightful plays, _The Merchant of Venice_ for one, and _Much Ado_ for another, are charming to us now only because we are quite willing to make believe with the poet” (_op. cit._, p. 311). And so, when Leslie Stephen asks if we are “invigorated” by the perusal of Massinger’s plays,(136) I reply to that apostle of common sense that I am not only charmed and delighted, but invigorated. And why? Because I am admitted to a world of heroism and romance.

But may we not put the matter more broadly still? When we read the Cavalier lyrics of Suckling, Herrick, and Lovelace, when we think of Falkland, when we stand before the portraits of Vandyck, do we not feel that modern England was in danger until lately of losing something? There is an aroma there of chivalry which had almost faded from our ken. And yet there is an element in our shy and dumb English nature to which this atmosphere is congenial, however overgrown with money-making our minds had seemed to be. Nor, as the student of history knows well, had the Puritans in the Civil War the monopoly of religion and duty. Indeed, the Civil War was a true tragedy, because both sides had right, both fought and bled for what they believed to be the truth. To-day, in spite of our many domestic discords, no party spirit discounts the gallant deeds of which we have read daily, and of which of necessity only a fraction has been publicly rewarded. Perhaps the flame of romance will breathe once more in our midst, now the War is over, purified by suffering, and quickened by the memory of those serene yet manly spirits whom we have lost on the battlefield, whose departure in the dayspring of life seems, as it were, to have extinguished so many stars in the vault of heaven. They put aside the calls of culture and pleasure, and the natural ambition to do something in the world before they were abolished by death. They have willingly given for their country all that they had; they have given themselves. If we remember their devotion with gratitude it may purify us from the commonplace, the vulgar, and the selfish. They, at any rate, can address the power of evil, which for the moment seemed to triumph, in the words of Dorothea:

What is this life to me? Not worth, a thought:
Or, if it be esteem’d, ’tis that I lose it
To win a better; even thy malice serves
To me but as a ladder to mount up
To such a height of happiness, where I shall
Look down with scorn on thee and on the world;
Where, circled with true pleasures, placed above
The reach of death or time, ’twill be my glory
To think at what an easy price I bought it.
There’s a perpetual spring, perpetual youth;
No joint-benumbing cold, or scorching heat,
Famine, nor age, have any being there.
Forget for shame your Tempe; bury in
Oblivion your feign’d Hesperian orchards;
The golden fruit, kept by the watchful dragon,
Which did require a Hercules to get it,
Compared with what grows in all plenty there,
Deserves not to be named. The Power I serve
Laughs at your happy Araby, or the
Elysian shades; for He hath made His bowers
Better in deed than you can fancy yours.(137)

As an instance of Massinger’s courtliness I will quote a short passage from _The Great Duke of Florence_: Contarino has come from the court of the Duke to fetch his nephew Giovanni, who has been brought up by a tutor, Charomonte by name, in the country. As the prince comes in, Charomonte addresses Contarino:

CHAROMONTE. Make your approaches boldly; you will find
A courteous entertainment. (CONTARINO _kneels_.)

GIOVANNI. Pray you, forbear
My hand, good signior; ’tis a ceremony
Not due to me. ’Tis fit we should embrace
With mutual arms.

CONTARINO. It is a favour, sir,
I grieve to be denied.

GIOVANNI. You shall o’ercome;
But ’tis your pleasure, not my pride, that grants it.
Nay, pray you, guardian and good sir, put on;
How ill it shews to have that reverend head
Uncover’d to a boy!

CHAROMONTE. Your excellence
Must give me liberty, to observe the distance
And duty that I owe you.(138)

Take another instance, from _The Duke of Milan_:

SFORZA. Excuse me, good Pescara.
Ere long I will wait on you.

PESCARA. You speak, sir,
The language I should use.(139)

And this, from The Bashful Lover:

FARNESE. Madam, I am bold
To trench so far upon your privacy
As to desire my friend (let not that wrong him,
For he’s a worthy one) may have the honour
To kiss your hand.

MATILDA. His own worth challenges
A greater favour.

FARN. Your acknowledgment
Confirms it, madam.(140)

I have used the word “lucid” of Massinger’s style; perhaps a more appropriate word would be dexterous; not that he is obscure like Chapman, or like Shakspere in his later manner, far less turgid, but he is not afraid of somewhat long sentences. What he is really afraid of, unlike Fletcher, is a full-stop at the end of the verse. There are two devices which the reader will notice, often in combination; in the first place, Massinger is very fond of the “absolute” construction, and loves to multiply parentheses. The following passages from _A New Way_ will serve as illustrations:

FURNACE. She keeps her chamber, dines with a panada,
Or water gruel, my sweat never thought on.(141)

WOMAN. And the first command she gave, after she rose,
Was, her devotions done, to give her notice
When you approach’d here.(142)

Or again, from _The Emperor of the East_:

Astraea once more lives upon the earth,
Pulcheria’s breast her temple.(143)

Or from _The Bondman_:

And, to those that stay,
A competence of land freely allotted
To each man’s proper use, no lord acknowledged.(144)

We find the “absolute” construction occasionally in Shakspere, as in _The Merchant of Venice_:

So are those crisped snaky golden locks
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,
Upon supposed fairness, often known
To be the dowry of a second head,
The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.(145)

Or in _Hamlet_:

Folded the writ up in form of the other,
Subscribed it, gav’t th’ impression, placed it safely,
The changeling never known.(146)

A passage from _The Fatal Dowry_ will show an elaborate use of parenthesis:

What though my father
Writ man before he was so, and confirm’d it,
By numbering that day no part of his life
In which he did not service to his country;
Was he to be free therefore from the laws
And ceremonious form in your decrees?
Or else because he did as much as man,
In those three memorable overthrows,
At Granson, Morat, Nancy, where his master,
The warlike Charalois, with whose misfortunes
I bear his name, lost treasure, men, and life,
To be excused from payment of those sums
Which (his own patrimony spent) his zeal
To serve his country forced him to take up!(147)

Compare also these lines from _The Guardian_:

And if you shew not
An appetite, and a strong one, I’ll not say
To eat it, but devour it, without grace too,
For it will not stay a preface, I am shamed,
And all my past provocatives will be jeer’d at.(148)

From _The Picture_:

HONORIA. That you please, sir,
With such assurances of love and favour,
To grace your handmaid, but in being yours, sir,
A matchless queen, and one that knows herself so,
Binds me in retribution to deserve
The grace conferr’d upon me.(149)

From _A Very Woman_:

PAULO. This friend was plighted to a beauteous woman,
(Nature proud of her workmanship) mutual love
Possessed them both, her heart in his heart lodged
And his in hers.(150)

From _The Bashful Lover_:

ALONZO. By me, his nephew,
He does salute you fairly, and entreats
(A word not suitable to his power and greatness)
You would consent to tender that, which he
Unwillingly must force, if contradicted.(151)

From _The Parliament of Love_:

What coy she, then,
Though great in birth, not to be parallel’d
For nature’s liberal bounties, (both set off
With fortune’s trappings, wealth); but, with delight,
Gladly acknowledged such a man her servant?(152)

It has been pointed out by Zielinski that “the perfection of language in regard to the formation of periods depends upon the presence and prevalence of abbreviated by-sentences,”(153) by which expression he describes “absolute” constructions.

Secondly, he delights in an expedient which the poems of Robert Browning have made familiar to this generation, the frequent omission of the relative pronoun.(154) And so his sentences meander with a seemingly negligent grace to an unexpected conclusion. It is clear that such a style both requires and repays a careful study of the rhetorical art.

I give as an instance of this combination the words of Paulinus in _The Emperor of the East_. He is talking of the Emperor’s sister and Prime Minister Pulcheria:

She indeed is
A perfect phœnix, and disdains a rival.
Her infant years, as you know, promised much,
But grown to ripeness she transcends, and makes
Credulity her debtor. I will tell you
In my blunt way, to entertain the time
Until you have the happiness to see her,
How in your absence she hath borne herself,
And with all possible brevity; though the subject
Is such a spacious field, as would require
An abstract of the purest eloquence
(Deriv’d from the most famous orators
The nurse of learning, Athens, shew’d the world)
In that man that should undertake to be
Her true historian.(155)

The style of Massinger is not only lucid and dexterous; it is strong, partly because of its ease, and more mature and modern than that of many of his contemporaries. Milton’s prose would have gained much in directness if he had studied Massinger. This strength does not show itself so much in isolated fine lines, for, as we have already seen, epigram was foreign to his nature, though from time to time we get such lines, as, for example, in _The Duke of Milan_:

One smile of hers would make a savage tame;
One accent of that tongue would calm the seas,
_Though all the winds at once strove there for empire_.(156)

Or, again, in the same play:

How coldly you receive it! I expected
The mere relation of so great a blessing,
_Borne proudly on the wings of sweet revenge_,
Would have call’d on a sacrifice of thanks.(157)

Or, again, in _A New Way_:

OVERREACH. The garments of her widowhood laid by,
_She now appears as glorious as the spring_.(158)

Or in _The Roman Actor_:

Could I imp feathers to the wings of time,
Or with as little ease command the sun
_To scourge his coursers up heaven’s eastern hill_.(159)

We may remark in passing that Massinger’s best single lines are usually decasyllabic.

It has been remarked by Mr. Swinburne, whose discerning judgment of the Jacobean dramatists has lavished just praise on Massinger’s art and style, that in the second act of _Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt_, “the student will say, ‘This tune goes manly,’ ” and it is remarkable that our poet had formed in 1619 the style which marked him to the end of his life.(160)

An instance of this simple strength may be given from _The City Madam_, where Luke debates whether he shall agree to the proposition of the pretended Indians:

LUKE. Give me leave—(_walks aside_)
I would not lose this purchase. A grave matron!
And two pure virgins! Umph, I think my sister,
Though proud, was ever honest, and my nieces
Untainted yet. Why should not they be shipp’d
For this employment? They are burthensome to me,
_And eat too much_.(161)

When rudeness is necessary it is uttered with some vigour, as in _The Fatal Dowry_, where this is what Romont gets for his well-meant pains:

ROCHFORT. Sir, if you please
To bear yourself as fits a gentleman,
The house is at your service; but if not,
Though you seek company elsewhere, your absence
Will not be much lamented.(162)

The rejected lover in such a scene as the following has no illusions left him:

MUSTAPHA. All happiness—

DONUSA. Be sudden.
’Twas saucy rudeness in you, sir, to press
On my retirements; but ridiculous folly
To waste the time that might be better spent,
In complimental wishes.

CORISCA. There’s a cooling
For his hot encounter! (_aside_)

DONUSA. Come you here to stare?
If you have lost your tongue and use of speech,
Resign your government; there’s a mute’s place void
In my uncle’s court, I hear; and you may want me
To write for your preferment.(163)

Two minor features of Massinger’s style may be mentioned here:

1. The catalogue line, so familiar to the student of Lucretius—_e.g._:

_Believe as You List_, I., 2, 85. The sapphire, ruby, jacinth,
amber, coral.

_Believe as You List_ II, 2, 312. All circumstances,
Answers, despatches, doubts, and difficulties.

_Picture_, V., I, 59. The comfortable names of breakfasts,
dinners,
Collations, supper, beverage.

_Emperor of East_, 2 Prol., 8. With his best of fancy, judgment,
language, art.

I., 2, 194. To his merchant, mercer, draper,
His linen-man, and tailor.

V., 2, 88. As sacred, glorious, high, invincible.

_City Madam_, II., 1, 72. Tissue, gold, silver, velvets, satins,
taffetas.

IV., 3, 69. Entreaties, curses, prayers, or imprecations.

_Unnatural Combat_, II., 1, 128. All respect,
Love, fear, and reverence cast
off.

_Great Duke of Florence_, II., 1, 7. We of necessity must be
chaste, wise, fair.

2. A more marked feature is the repetition of words or short phrases in various parts of the line.(164) The following instances may be given from (_a_) _The Great Duke of Florence_:

I., 1, 154. It is the duke!
The duke.

I., 2, 41. Our duchess; such a duchess.

I., 2, 95. See, signiors, see our care.

I., 2, 131. Take up, take up.

II., 1, 71. Fie! fie! the princess.

III., 1, 102. Tells
His son, this is the prince, the hopeful prince.

(_b_) _The City Madam_:

II., 1, 58. I blush for you,
Blush at your poverty of spirit.

III., 1, 11. I am starv’d,
Starv’d in my pleasures.

V., 1, 12. Far, far above your hopes.

V., 1, 81. The height
Of honour, principal honour.

V., 2, 67. A manor pawn’d,
Pawn’d, my good lord.

And, thirdly, the versification of Massinger is musical and melodious. Boyle says that Milton’s blank verse owes much to the study of it. “In the indefinable touches which make up the music of a verse, in the artistic distribution of pauses, and in the unerring choice and grouping of just those words which strike the ear as the perfection of harmony, there are, if we leave Cyril Tourneur’s _Atheist’s Tragedy_ out of the question, only two masters in the drama, Shakspere in his latest period and Massinger.”(165) Coleridge says that it is “an excellent metre, a better model for dramatists in general to imitate than Shakspere’s. Read Massinger aright, and measure by time, not syllables, and no lines can be more legitimate, none in which the substitution of equipollent feet, and the modifications by emphasis, are managed with such exquisite judgment.”(166) Be it noted that this praise comes from a master of his art, for no one who has once appreciated Coleridge’s command of vowel-syzygy and the velvet-like texture of his blank verse can refuse him that title.

Massinger’s blank verse is equal to all the emotions which the author can express and kindle. It never fails him, nor, on the other hand, does it obtrude itself unduly on the sense conveyed. Only after reading a considerable passage of our poet do we understand how much the versification contributes to his lifelike and dignified atmosphere.

Moreover, the metre of Massinger is admirably suited to his style. There seems a hidden but real harmony between them. Some might call his metre at times slipshod and undignified, from the fact that, except in elevated passages, the characters speak in rhythmical sentences which approximate to prose. Boyle, who declares that “Marlowe and Massinger are the two extremes of the metrical movement in the dramatists,”(167) has pointed out that “Massinger’s blank verse shows a larger proportion of run-on lines and double endings in harmonious union than any of his contemporaries.(168) Cartwright and Tourneur have more run-on lines, but not so many double endings. Fletcher has more double endings, but very few run-on lines. Shakspere and Beaumont alone exhibit a somewhat similar metrical style.”(169) This is interesting, because we shall see later on that Massinger was a devoted admirer and imitator of Shakspere in thought, device, and expression. It is not strange, therefore, that he should also copy his metre, or rather, develop his own on the same lines. To show how flexible and dexterous the metre of Massinger is, I will give two instances from _The Bashful Lover_. In the first Uberti encourages Gonzaga to persevere with the contest:

UBERTI. Sir, these tears
Do well become a father, and my eyes
Would keep you company as a forlorn lover,
But that the burning fire of my revenge
Dries up those drops of sorrow. We, once more,
Our broken forces rallied up, and with
Full numbers strengthen’d, stand prepared t’ endure
A second trial; nor let it dismay us
That we are once again t’ affront the fury
Of a victorious army; their abuse
Of conquest hath disarm’d them, and call’d down
The Powers above to aid us. I have read
Some piece of story, yet ne’er found but that
The general, that gave way to cruelty,
The profanation of things sacred, rapes
Of virgins, butchery of infants, and
The massacre in cold blood of reverend age,
Against the discipline and law of arms,
Did feel the hand of heaven lie heavy on him
When most secure.(170)

In the second Gonzaga refuses the hand of his daughter Matilda to Lorenzo:

GONZAGA. Two main reasons
(Seconding those you have already heard)
Give us encouragement; the duty that
I owe my mother country, and the love
Descending to my daughter. For the first,
Should I betray her liberty, I deserv’d
To have my name with infamy razed from
The catalogue of good princes; and I should
Unnaturally forget I am a father,
If, like a Tartar, or for fear or profit,
I should consign her, as a bondwoman,
To be disposed of at another’s pleasure;
Her own consent or favour never sued for,
And mine by force exacted. No, Alonzo,
She is my only child, my heir; and if
A father’s eyes deceive me not, the hand
Of prodigal nature hath given so much to her,
As, in the former ages, kings would rise up
In her defence and make her cause their quarrel;
Nor can she, if that any spark remain
To kindle a desire to be possess’d
Of such a beauty, in our time, want swords
To guard it safe from violence.(171)

Anyone who compares the metre of Massinger with that of Fletcher will find that our author observes far stricter laws than his friend. The plays of Massinger abound in lines divided between two speakers, or even three, which, nevertheless, observe the strict rule of the metre.(172)

The way in which Massinger’s style and metre suit one another can best be illustrated by a passage or two from _The Parliament of Love_; the first is where Bellisant speaks about the decay of chivalry.

BELLISANT. Ere they durst
Presume to offer service to a lady,
In person they perform’d some gallant acts
The fame of which prepar’d them gracious hearing,
Ere they made their approaches; what coy she, then,(173)
Though great in birth, not to be parallel’d
For nature’s liberal beauties (both set off
With fortune’s trappings, wealth); but with delight,
Gladly acknowledg’d such a man her servant,
To whose heroic courage and deep wisdom,
The flourishing commonwealth, and thankful king,
Confess’d themselves for debtors? Whereas, now,
If you have travelled Italy, and brought home
Some remnants of the language, and can set
Your faces in some strange and ne’er-seen posture,
Dance a la volta, and be rude and saucy,
Protest and swear and damn (for these are acts
That most think grace them), and then view yourselves
In the deceiving mirror of self-love,
You do conclude there hardly is a woman
That can be worthy of you.(174)

The second is a speech of Leonora exposing Cleremond’s baseness:

I, burning then with a most virtuous anger,
Razed from my heart the memory of his name,
Railed and spit at him; and knew ’twas justice
That I should take those deities he scorn’d,
Hymen and Cupid, into my protection,
And be the instrument of their revenge;
And so I cast him off, scorn’d his submission,
His poor and childish winnings, will’d my servants
To shut my gates against him; but, when neither
Disdain, hate, or contempt could free me from
His loathsome importunities, and fired too
To wreak mine injur’d honour, I took gladly
Advantage of his execrable oaths,
To undergo what penance I enjoin’d him;
Then, to the terror of all future ribalds,
That make no difference between love and lust,
Imposed this task upon him. I have said, too;
Now, when you please, a censure.(175)

The critics may differ in their estimate of Massinger’s style and metre; but it is simple truth to say that they are unique in our literature, in their correctness, dignity, ease, and classical frugality.

Let us now turn to the poet’s faults. It is said that his range of thought is limited, and this may be at once conceded. It might also be said that Greek tragedy is limited, and the statement is true of all our Elizabethan playwrights; yet we return to them again and again, for they have something to give us which we cannot do without. It is idle to depreciate one period of our literature at the expense of another. Are not the old madrigal writers limited, and Farrant and Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and Blow? and yet we enjoy them; nay, to take even Purcell himself, when we confess that the pleasure he gives us is due to the fact that he is more daring, less shackled than his generation, “so modern” as we say, are we not in the end forced to confess that he too is unmistakably limited, “bewrayed” by his quaint and stately rhythms to be one of the seventeenth century?

Our age has a wider and subtler range of psychology; to revert from “The Georgian Poets” of 1911 to Massinger is like going back from the films of a cinema palace to a tondo of Luca Signorelli. Both films and tondo have their uses. We may take a single illustration of this point from _The Brothers Karamazov_. The great Russian novelist, among other problems, deals in that book with the case of the young man who is in love with two women at once. That is the sort of complicated interest which we do not expect our Elizabethan writers to cope with, in as great detail as a modern writer uses. The problem occurs in _The Bondman_, where the heroine, Cleora, is distracted between her plighted love to Leosthenes and her warm sense of obligation to Marullo;(176) it is interesting and instructive to see how simply the whole thing is touched upon, and how soon the doubt is solved by the discovery of Leosthenes’ former intrigue with Statilia. May we not say, with Aristophanes, in comparing Massinger and Dostoevsky:

Τὸν μὲν γὰρ ἡγοῦμαι σοφόν, τῷ δ ἥδομαι.(177)

Then it is said that Massinger’s work is not free from coarseness. The answer to this accusation may be made in more ways than one. I might with confidence reply to such critics: If you wish for real vulgarity of diction, read Marston; if you wish for real vulgarity of mind, read Middleton; if you wish for poisoned morals, read Ford and Tourneur; and then revise your judgment of Massinger. It is notorious that all the stage writers of the Elizabethan age are tarred with the same brush; there is much in Shakspere himself that we wish he had not written; still more is this true of Ben Jonson. In _The Virgin Martyr_, where we have the odious servants, Hircius and Spungius, it is generally believed that the parts of the play in which they appear are due to Dekker, not to Massinger, whose other works present nothing so disgusting. There are, at any rate, no lapses of taste in Massinger like those which we find in Fletcher; nothing like the fate of Rutilio in _The Custom of the Country_, or of Merione in _The Queen of Corinth_, or of the Father in _The Captain_. It must be confessed that Massinger’s conception of love is apt to be earthly, physical, sensuous; there is but little in his plays about the marriage of true minds,(178) too much about “Hymen’s taper” and “virgin forts.” Captivated by the charms of female beauty, his intellect is too concrete in its ideals to rise above mere morality to the mysteries of the diviner love. So far it must be allowed that his art interests and stimulates the passions of his audience without elevating them. But if at times we feel a monotonous limitation in his outlook in these matters, if we miss the healthy breezes of bracing commonsense and cheerful self-restraint, we are never pained by the triumph of what is low, corrupt, or morbid.

When it is said that his women are impure it is necessary to enter a clear protest.(179) There are offensive and heartless women in Massinger, such as Domitia in _The Roman Actor_, and Beaumelle in _The Fatal Dowry_;(180) there are odious old women, like Borachia and Corisca. There are pert and vulgar ladies’ maids; but you have only to read _The Bondman_, _The Bashful Lover_, _A Very Woman_, _The Maid of Honour_, _The Great Duke of Florence_, _The Emperor of the East_, _The Picture_, to see that his world includes some charming female characters—not, indeed, so lovely as those of Shakspere, but still, types which show that he had not lost his faith in human nature, as, when we read Fielding, we feel regretfully almost obliged to allow, in spite of Sophia Western and Amelia, is the case with our great novelist.

It is true that there are ladies in Massinger’s plays who offer their hands in marriage to the men they love, and very charmingly the thing is done, though there is nothing equal to the scene between the Duchess and Antonio in Webster’s masterpiece; as, for example, Artemia in _The Virgin Martyr_, the Duchess of Urbin in _The Great Duke_, Calista in _The Guardian_.(181) This feature is not confined to Massinger among the writers of his age; to mention no other instances, what about Arethusa in _Philaster_, Bianca in _The Fair Maid of the Inn_, Beliza and the Queen in _The Queen of Corinth_,(182) Frank in _The Captain_, Clara in _Love’s Cure_ (IV., 2), Martia in _The Double Marriage_ (II., 3), Lamira in _The Honest Man’s Fortune_ (V., 3), Erota in _The Laws of Candy_? Or, what about Desdemona in _Othello_,(183) or Olivia in _Twelfth Night_?(184) What about the plot of _All’s Well that Ends Well_? To the vulgar mind all things are vulgar. _Honi soit qui mal y pense._(185) It may certainly be conceded that in some of Massinger’s plays, as, for instance, _The Unnatural Combat_ and _Believe as You List_, the feminine interest is comparatively slight. Brander Matthews tells us that Massinger’s women “are all painted from the outside only”;(186) “they are not convincing; they lack essential womanliness.” This may be due to the fault which the same critic points out in our author, that “he is heavy-handed and coarse-fibred ethically as well as æsthetically.” One may reply that if the theatre be the mirror of life Massinger had an undoubted right to bring bad women on the stage; there are good and noble women also among his characters, and if they are not “convincing,” perhaps we may quote Coleridge’s remark about Shakspere, that “he saw it was the perfection of women to be characterless.” However far our author may fall short of his great model in grace, charm, and delicacy, he at any rate deserves credit for having imagined female characters who are full of passions and made of “flesh and blood.”(187)

Massinger resembles other dramatists of his age; at times we feel that they talk like the little boys on the links in Stevenson’s _Lantern-Bearers_. But Massinger is a robuster mind than Fletcher, for example; if he brings vice upon the stage, and if he speaks too freely about things which we prefer not to have mentioned, if “like Hogarth, he enjoys his own portrayal of degrading vice and its appalling consequences,”(188) we must, to do him justice, take his work as a whole. Indeed, most of the critics have singled out as one of his special claims to praise his sturdy morality,(189) and the general effect on any fair mind of a perusal of his plays is a conviction that he loved virtue. Vitelli(190) may make the best of both worlds, but he converts Donusa, and faces death and torture with fortitude. Goodness emerges from Massinger’s plays, sometimes compromised for the moment, but always triumphant in the end. There is considerable outspokenness, but not much lubricity, and no perverted morality. Passages which offend can nearly always, as in Shakspere, be omitted without damaging the course of the plot. Moreover, as has often been pointed out, the works of Massinger are almost wholly free from blasphemy and profanity, and attacks on the clergy, such as moved the wrath of Jeremy Collier in later times.

It may be a fanciful suggestion, but it is possible that the drama of that day suffered from the fact that boys took the female parts.(191) No one would deny the artistic loss thereby involved, but there was a moral loss as well. It made it possible for things to be said that would not have been said by men to women, still less by women to men. It unconsciously invested the love-scenes with an air of unreality and grossness. It prevented the relation of the sexes from being depicted with that union of passion and purity which, though difficult, is possible.

It has been said that Massinger is hard and metallic, and devoid of pathos. This charge, again, is largely true. You will not find in him scenes which clutch the heart like those of _Dr. Faustus_, or _The Duchess of Malfi_, or _The Broken Heart_, or _The Maid’s Tragedy_, or _The Wife for a Month_; you will not find the sublimity of Ordella’s self-sacrifice in _Thierry and Theodoret_, or the chivalry of _A Fair Quarrel_; still less will you find anything so appalling as the end of _King Lear_, or _Othello_, or _Romeo and Juliet_. There is plenty of passion in Massinger; like the legendary lion, he lashes with his tail, and you can almost see him in the act; but his rhetoric does not entirely carry you away. Let me recall the fine passage which was quoted just now from _The Roman Actor_.(192) I hope everyone will allow its eloquence; but the repetition of the commonplace phrase, “we cannot help it,”(193) natural and forcible as it is, falls short of the ideal grandeur at which the passage aims. We feel that Fletcher could have made a finer thing of the prison-scene in The _Emperor of the East_.

It is significant that the most tender passage in Massinger,(194) where Leonora bids Almira take consolation, has been assigned by some to Fletcher. In other words, Massinger is not in the front rank of genius, but no one would claim for him such a place.

Again, one might urge that his plays are not stores of worldly wisdom, like Shakspere’s; his aphorisms are not deep; they do not bite.(195) Consequently he does not lend himself to quotation. Yet this does not of necessity detract from his greatness. No one would question the excellence of the _Waverley Novels_, but Leslie Stephen has pointed out that we only make one quotation from Scott’s novels.(196) Aristotle has told us that “excessive brilliance of diction obscures characters and sentiments.”(197) There are few passages of high poetical emotion in Massinger; there is little magic in the rhythm of individual lines. Like most of his contemporaries he shows at times a strange insensibility to smooth rhythm in the heroic couplet. He has an anapæstic lilt in various parts of the line, inherited from Shakspere, and found in Milton’s early poems, which is not ineffective in its way, and which seems to have aimed at varying the monotony of the ten-syllable line.(198) He has not much power of rhyme,(199) nor are his plays studded with such lyrics as Shakspere and Fletcher could write upon occasion.(200)

Again, the comic element in Massinger is at times dull, forced, and ordinary; it does not take us very far to label a foolish Florentine gentleman with the name of “Sylli”;(201) the hungry soldier is rather a time-worn type,(202) nor can Greedy compare with Lazarillo. Though the situations are humorous, we do not split with laughter over Massinger, as we do in reading Aristophanes, or Shakspere, or Molière.(203) We do not find in him the mercurial lightness of _A Trick to Catch the Old One_, or the invincible absurdity of “The Roarers” in _The Fair Quarrel_. But it is necessary to remember that the comic business is of the kind which gains by acting, or indeed requires it, and to allow that towards the end of his life Massinger came forward as a grave and powerful satirist of contemporary men, reminding us of Ben Jonson, but, to my mind, excelling him; for he shows less asperity with greater lucidity and ease.(204) He is not unduly morose or bitter, yet he wins conviction with an admirable sanity and sobriety. The plays will repay good acting, and, after all, plays are meant to be acted; it is significant that the last of Massinger’s plays to hold the stage was his comedy, _The New Way to pay Old Debts_, and it is very much to be wished that it should be revived in England.(205)

Some critics have accused Massinger of redundancy in style, a characteristic which clearly will strike different people in different ways. Thus, Hallam regards this feature as on the whole meritorious, giving “fulness, or what the painters would call impasto, to his style, and if it might not always conduce to effect on the stage, suitable on the whole to the character of his composition.” Mr. Bullen,(206) after an eloquent tribute to “Massinger’s admirable ease and dignity,” and to “his rare command of an excellent work-a-day dramatic style, clear, vigorous, and free from conceit and affectation,” proceeds to allow that “he is apt to grow didactic and tax the reader’s patience; and there is often a want of coherence in his sentences, which amble down the page in a series of loosely linked clauses.” I do not myself feel that this charge comes to very much.

The real fault of Massinger lies in an imperfect presentation of character. This point has been felt by many writers, and put in various ways. Coleridge bluntly says: “Massinger’s characters have no character.”(207) Brander Matthews puts it in another way when he observes that “the plots are not the result of the characters, but the work of the playwright,”(208) a criticism we may remark in passing eminently applicable to Fletcher. It has been said that the characters are conventional, like those in the Italian or Spanish sources from which they are derived; the violent tyrant and the arrogant queen are the most familiar of these types. I do not think this statement arrives at the root of the matter. Characters may be conventional and yet interesting and lifelike. A great many of the personages in Massinger’s plays, important and unimportant alike, act reasonably; he takes great pains to discriminate them, and the effect is successful and consistent. Let us recall the great characters in Massinger; they are Paris, Luke, Sir Giles Overreach, Durazzo, Marullo, Malefort, Charalois, Antiochus, Camiola, Dorothea, Donusa, Almira. In the second rank we may put Timoleon, Romont, Bertoldo, John Antonio, Mathias, Wellborn, Athenais, Marcelia, Sophia, Cleora. Of these persons, the two that I think most men would like to have known best are Paris and Camiola. Notice, by the way, that there is seldom more than one great character in a play. Now, in _Henry VIII_ there are three, the King, Catherine, and Wolsey. The question arises whether Massinger, even with Fletcher’s help, could have worked on this scale. If Massinger wrote _Henry VIII_ it is certainly, with all its faults, his most remarkable achievement.

The point which I wish to emphasize is that there are many characters in Massinger drawn with care and ability. Think, for example, of the skilful contrast between Pulcheria and Athenais in _The Emperor of the East_, showing how easy it is for two good women to quarrel. Further, it is clear that the attempt to produce composite and developing characters is praiseworthy, even if it be not always successful, because it is more true to life than Ben Jonson’s brilliant but illusory delineation of “humours.” Human beings are too complex to be labelled in this slapdash way, however amusing it may be on the stage.

And yet we must allow that a certain number of the more important characters act outrageously; the explanation being that the faults which Massinger loves to portray and censure are such as show themselves in outrageous ways—such as anger, pride, impotence in the Latin sense, uxoriousness, and above all jealousy.(209) Take the case of Theophilus in _The Virgin Martyr_, who kills his daughters because they have been reconverted to Christianity; or of Domitian in _The Roman Actor_, who goes through life killing people as he would kill flies. It is not enough to say that there are such people in the world; the point is, that in Massinger they shock us without appalling us. Sforza behaves to Marcelia much as Othello behaves to Desdemona; we feel at once a difference of power in the two plays.(210) Massinger has many villains, but Shakspere manages better with Richard III and Iago. Think again of the uxoriousness of Ladislas, Theodosius, Domitian, which some have held to be a covert satire on Charles I. We despise these weak and servile husbands.

Now, is there anything we can urge in Massinger’s justification? I think there is. We read his plays nowadays, we do not see them acted. We are therefore apt to forget how impressive and vigorous good acting is. The display of passion on the stage with gesture, attitude, frown, and scorn, would render more tolerable some of these scenes which offend us in the study by their crudeness. Such a part, for instance, as Leosthenes in _The Bondman_, the jealous and yet guilty lover, has great opportunities for the actor. It might even be urged that Massinger wrote thus because he knew the capabilities of the actors who were going to perform his plays.

The same consideration applies to a feature in Massinger which will strike every reader. He sets himself at times to represent growth, or, at any rate, change, of character. Even Shakspere seldom tries to do this,(211) and it was too hard a task for his pupil. His most ambitious venture in this direction is in _The Picture_. In that play Mathias has a magic portrait, which shows him whether his wife is faithful to him or not in his absence; and the alternations of the mind in husband and wife alike are drawn with considerable power. Luke in _The City Madam_ is perhaps the most skilfully drawn example of a development of character. The hypocrite is quite carried away by the riches to which he unexpectedly succeeds.(212) Another successful conversion is that of Theophilus at the end of _The Virgin Martyr_. It is due partly to his eating the heavenly fruit, for which he had asked Dorothea at her death, partly to the effect which the grace and beauty of Angelo produce on his mind. The gradual growth of his new belief, in spite of all that Harpax can do, is managed with much skill, and it is in itself true to nature that the man who had been violent in one direction should ultimately be violent in another. Moreover, we are bound to remember that when people are soon persuaded, the play gets on. Indeed, I think we have in this consideration the clue to the whole matter; “the Stage Poet” had a practical mind.

Change of mood and vacillation of purpose, under the stress of temptation, or due to the conflict of contrary impulses, are features of some of Massinger’s best scenes. The wavering of the love-sick Caldoro while Durazzo is abusing him is very true to life.(213) The skill with which the “melancholy” Vitelli’s changes of mood are depicted in _The Renegado_(214) suggests the theory that Massinger is drawing his own portrait. The alternation of pride and humility in Honoria in _The Picture_(215) is forcibly shown. The just anger of Sophia at the end of the same play yields skilfully to a combined intercession.

As a rule, however, the changes are too rapid. Thus, in _The Maid of Honour_, Aurelia, when she hears that Camiola has ransomed Bertoldo and bound him with a promise to marry her, suddenly changes her mind; she has been on the point of marrying the faithless soldier, but, as she says:

On the sudden
I feel all fires of love quench’d in the water
Of my compassion.(216)

Though the change is natural, it is inartistically effected; it comes too suddenly. Think, however, what an opportunity this would be for a great actress. If we were in the audience, we should see the gradual development reflected in her expression and bearing long before she utters the words which embody her thought.

Other instances of the same thing are to be found in Donusa’s conversion to Christianity in _The Renegado_,(217) in the change of faith effected in Calista and Christeta by Dorothea’s story of the King of Egypt and Osiris’ image,(218) and in the indecision of Lorenzo about matrimony in _The Bashful Lover_.(219)

Change of mind is an ungrateful and inartistic experience. It has landed many honest politicians in bitter and undeserved reproaches. From Aristotle’s time onwards Euripides has been blamed for his Iphigenia at Aulis, who first feared to die, and then offered herself for her country.(220) We certainly feel that in Massinger there are occasionally instances of cheap repentance which do not seem real. Take the case of Corisca in _The Bondman_; a bad woman repents, but though convinced we are not pleased at the spectacle.(221) If Massinger had ever read the _Poetics_ of Aristotle, he forgot or ignored the precept that a character should be ὁμαλόν, or “consistent.”(222) If this is not the case there is a danger that the effect will be μιαρόν, or “odious,” to use a word of which Aristotle is fond. I think, then, that this charge is proven. Massinger saw how effective on the stage a sudden change of character might be, but lacked the necessary art to make it convincing. Hence some of his characters are not even ὁμαλῶς ἀνώμαλοι.(223) Perhaps the explanation is this, that, being a master of language, he overvalued the persuasiveness of rhetoric.(224) It is not enough to portray the varying emotions which sway the mind at a particular moment; to produce a satisfactory whole they have to be fused together. The reader should not feel that the characters are at the mercy of the situations in which they are placed, or they will appear to be lay-figures or puppets, rather than live flesh and blood.

Yet even here a defence of some sort can be set up for our poet. I will endeavour to make my meaning clear by an analogy from music. It may have occurred to someone to ask what the music of Mozart would have been like if he had lived after Beethoven. Would it have been more serious and sublime than it is? The question is worth asking, even if the only answer to it be this, that without Mozart Beethoven would never have existed. I think it is fair to argue that Massinger, in his constant effort after the representation of change of character, was before his time; he was seeking after a complex but possible effect, which the novelist can undertake but which the limitations of the stage render almost impossible.(225)

Is it fanciful to say that if he had lived in the eighteenth century, if he had had before his eyes the work of Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett, he would have been a good novelist, less cynical than Fielding, more concise than Richardson, more ideal than Smollett? There are authors like Euripides and Virgil whose very failures by a strange paradox seem part of their greatness; and we may perhaps say that Massinger, by pointing the way somewhat tentatively and blindly to subtle psychological studies, has helped to build up the noble fabric of the English novel.

Let us now turn to some miscellaneous points of interest in Massinger; and first, let us note his imitation of Shakspere. It is tempting to suppose that as he was at one time a dependent of a family which was intimate with Shakspere he may have come across the man himself;(226) it is, at any rate, simpler to remember that as he was thirty-two years of age when Shakspere died, he can hardly have failed to meet him in his professional relations. But we have no evidence of the fact. All we can say is that his plays, like those of Fletcher, Webster, Tourneur, and others,(227) show a constant study of Shakspere.(228)