Chapter III: Preface (3)

First let me give a few examples of the imitation of incidents. In _The Roman Actor_,(229) Paris refers to a tragedy “in which a murder was acted to the life,” which forced a guilty hearer to make discovery of his secret; this recalls the play scene in Hamlet.(230) In _A Very Woman_(231) Almira makes Antonio tell her his history. The hint of this is taken from _Othello_.(232) In _The Fatal Dowry_(233) Beaumelle and her maid arrange to be overheard, like Hero and Ursula in _Much Ado about Nothing_.(234) The device by which Beaupré recovers her husband in _The Parliament of Love_ is imitated from _All’s Well that Ends Well_ and _Measure for Measure_. The banditti in _The Guardian_(235) respect the poor like the outlaws in _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_.(236) The forest scenes in the same play recall _As You Like It_ and _Midsummer-Night’s Dream_.(237) In _The Bashful Lover_(238) the pretty tale of a sister which Ascanio tells is a reminiscence of _Twelfth Night_.(239) The incident in the same play of Hortensio with Ascanio in his arms(240) is modelled on _As You Like It_.(241) Malefort’s behaviour to the tailor(242) is imitated from Petruchio’s in _The Taming of the Shrew_.(243) The gibberish of the pretended Indians in _The City Madam_(244) reminds us of Parolles’ adventure in _All’s Well_.(245) The scene in _The Emperor of the East_(246) where Eudocia professes to have eaten the apple is modelled on _Othello_(247), where Desdemona asserts that the handkerchief is not lost. In _The Bondman_(248) Zanthia overhears Corisca’s confession of love in her sleep, as Iago does Cassio’s.(249) In _A New Way to pay Old Debts_(250) Sir Giles Overreach, is carried off for treatment to a dark room like Malvolio in _Twelfth Night_.(251) Almira in _A Very Woman_(252) reminds us of the sleep-walking scene in _Macbeth_. The ghosts in _The Unnatural Combat_(253) and _The Roman Actor_(254) are used like those in the finale of _Richard III_.

Parallels in thought and diction are also numerous. Take _The Roman Actor_(255):

ARETINUS. Are you on the stage,
You talk so boldly?

PARIS. The whole world being one,
This place is not exempted.

This goes back to Jaques in _As You Like It_.(256) In _The Maid of Honour_(257) Jacomo talks of “trailing the puissant pike;” the phrase of Pistol in _Henry V_.(258) In _The Emperor of the East_(259) Athenais makes use of the phrase “prophetic soul,” which we remember in _Hamlet_.(260) Leosthenes uses the same phrase in _The Bondman_(261) when the mutinous slave Cimbrio boasts of the excesses of his friends. The pun which Hircius makes on the cobbler’s awl(262) occurs in the first scene of _Julius Cæsar_. The madness of the English slave in _A Very Woman_(263) comes from the grave-diggers’ scene in _Hamlet_.(264) The “many-headed monster, multitude” of Theodosius in _The Emperor of the East_(265) takes us back to Coriolanus’ “beast with many heads”;(266) while the reference in the same play(267) to the “stomach” reminds us of the fable of Menenius.(268) In _The Bashful Lover_(269) Uberti discourses thus:

I look on your dimensions, and find not
Mine own of lesser size; the blood that fills
My veins, as hot as yours, my sword as sharp,
My nerves of equal strength, my heart as good.

This reminds us of Shylock in _The Merchant of Venice_(270) and the King in _Henry V_.(271) Clarindore’s language in _The Parliament of Love_(272) is modelled on Malvolio in _Twelfth Night_.(273) The same is true of Sir Giles Overreach in _A New Way_.(274) Shakspere’s dislike of spaniels reappears in the same play.(275)

No doubt we must make deductions for the common idioms of the day,(276) but the cumulative evidence of these parallels with the elder dramatist is overwhelming.(277)

Massinger is very fond of introducing doctors in his plays; so no doubt are the other dramatists of this period. It is interesting to compare Paulo in _A Very Woman_ with Corax in _The Lover’s Melancholy_ of Ford, who deals successfully with two cases of mental derangement. Ford is more subtle, Massinger more dignified. Thus we find in _The Virgin Martyr_(278) a consultation about Antoninus’ health. Sapritius, the afflicted father, hails the doctors thus:

O you that are half gods, lengthen that life
Their deities lend us; turn o’er all the volumes
Of your mysterious Æsculapian science
T’ increase the number of this young man’s days.(279)

Compare with this another passage in _The Duke of Milan_:

SFORZA. O you earthly gods,
You second natures, that from your great master,
Who join’d the limbs of torn Hippolytus,
And drew upon himself the Thunderer’s envy,
Are taught those hidden secrets that restore
To life death-wounded men!(280)

In _A Very Woman_(281) Paulo, on entering with two surgeons, is thus addressed:

DUKE. My hand! You rather
Deserve my knee, and it shall bend as to
A second father, if your saving aids
Restore my son.

VICEROY. Rise, thou bright star of knowledge,
Thou honour of thy art, thou help of nature.
Thou glory of our academies!

The old saying, “Ubi tres medici ibi duo athei,” referred to by Sir T. Browne in _Religio Medici_ is recalled to us by these lines:

VICEROY. Observe his piety; I have heard, how true
I know not, most physicians, as they grow
Greater in skill, grow less in their religion;
Attributing so much to natural causes,
That they have little faith in that they cannot
Deliver reason for; this doctor steers
Another course.(282)

We find them again in _The Emperor of the East_,(283) where a surgeon is contrasted with an empiric who vends his wares and talks much Latin, like the quack in Ben Jonson’s _Alchemist_, while Paulinus complains of the many medical impostors who prey upon the rich. The crisis of _The Duke of Milan_(284) owes much to the action of doctors. The plot of _A Very Woman_ hinges largely on the skill of the doctor Paulo, to whom we have referred above. In this play we have two victims of melancholy, Almira and Cardenes; the former is cured by falling in love with the disguised John Antonio; the latter is Paulo’s patient. The recovery of the avaricious father in _The Roman Actor_(285) is due to Paris acting in the part of a doctor. The physician Dinant in _The Parliament of Love_ gives the gallants a good lesson (IV., 5). And in _The Picture_(286) we find an elaborate simile, in which soldiers are said to be the surgeons of the State. In the same play Hilario,(287) when on starvation fare, is accosted by a surgeon, who invites him to sell himself for “a living anatomy to be set up in the surgeons’ hall.” Such passages,(288) and the zest with which Massinger refers to potatoes, eringos, and the like,(289) together with the rather wearisome allusions which he makes to “caudles” and “cullises,”(290) lead us to wonder whether at one time of his life he may have seriously studied medicine. There is a significant passage in _The Parliament of Love_,(291) where Chamont says to the doctor Dinant,

Good master doctor, when your leisure serves,
Visit my house; when we least need their art,
Physicians look most lovely.

And close intercourse with doctors may have suggested the lines immediately below:

NOVALL. The knave is jealous.

PERIGOT. ’Tis a disease few doctors cure themselves of.

At the same time, let us not forget the passages where he shows a knowledge of the law;(292) nor the fact that books have been written to prove that Shakspere must have had a training in this or that profession.(293) The really interesting point about the doctors in Massinger is that they are so often praised as the healers of the mind; the dramatist who delights in drawing gloomy, passionate characters seems to have a high opinion for the profession which undertook to cure “melancholy.”(294) In _A Very Woman_ he takes care to praise and reward the doctor more highly than the surgeons. On the other hand, like most of his contemporaries, he naturally makes the physician a part of the machinery rather than an individual character. Even the doctor in _A Fair Quarrel_, who takes an unusually large part in the plot, can hardly be said to be more than a carefully drawn lay figure. The same remark applies to the friars of Shakspere.

The chief question about Massinger which interests the student of English is the authorship of _Henry VIII_. Did he take part in writing that play with Fletcher? There is a great mass of literature on this subject. As one who has read the undoubted plays of Massinger many times, I am bound to say that while there is much in the play which reminds one of Shakspere and Fletcher, I find little trace of Massinger’s style. I do not deny that there are one or two slight reminiscences; thus the word “file”(295) is a favourite one with Massinger. We find blushing in the play once or twice,(296) but then we find it elsewhere in Shakspere. Anne’s remark to the old lady, “Come, you are pleasant,”(297) is in Massinger’s manner, but he may have taken the turn from Shakspere. The strict metre of such a line as this is like Massinger;(298) the same remark applies again:

SURREY. Has the King this?

SUFFOLK. Believe it.

SURREY. Will this work?

The fourth scene of the second act is a great law-court Scene, and Massinger has several such, in which he may be copying Shakspere. The combination of courtiers in dialogue which we get in various parts of _Henry VIII_ is like Massinger;(299) but, to my mind, the scenes are more clumsy than their parallels in Massinger. Sudden changes of mind are found in _Henry VIII_;(300) and this is probably the strongest bit of evidence in favour of Massinger’s authorship. The characters are not harmoniously rounded off: Buckingham’s prayers for the King(301) do not please us; the King’s scruples of conscience are not convincing;(302) Wolsey’s meekness(303) and piety(304) do not ring true, though they anticipate the picture of his last year which we get in Cavendish’s Life—but all these blemishes may be due to hasty work or dual authorship. Failure in representing vacillation and complexity of character is, as we have seen above, a note of Massinger, but the failures of this kind in _Henry VIII_ are marked by a sentimentality which reminds us of Fletcher.

Let us see now what there is in the play unlike Massinger. To begin with, there are many passages in Shakspere’s difficult later style,(305) and there is a complete absence of Massinger’s sinuous sentences and frequent parentheses, as also of his peculiar vocabulary; there are many flights of high and tender poetry which are beyond his compass; there are brilliant γνῶμαι, such as—

GRIFFITH. Noble madam,
Men’s evil manners live in brass, their virtues
We write in water,(306)

or,

CHANCELLOR. But we are all men,
In our own natures frail, and capable
Of our flesh; few are angels,(307)

which are quite out of his range of power.

Again, there is a curious series of links in the play, by which characters who are to come on later are introduced; it seems to be an attempt to give unity to a disconnected work. Thus, the King’s belief in Cranmer is early indicated;(308) Cromwell’s future success is foreshadowed by Wolsey;(309) Gardiner’s dislike of Cranmer is brought before us.(310) This is a method of which I can recall no instance in Massinger’s undoubted plays.

In spite of his roughness and ferocity, Henry is more of a man than any of Massinger’s tyrants; there is no parallel in Massinger to Anne Boleyn, slight as her portrait is; while Katherine and Wolsey are alike far superior to anything of his. Lastly, the pageantry and processions of the play do not appear in Massinger’s simple designs.

The authors of _Henry VIII_ were essaying an impossible task. They were trying to construct an historical play out of materials which were too various to make artistic unity feasible, and they had to make an unattractive character the centre of the piece. Consequently, they decided to end the play at the christening of Elizabeth, and to cover their retreat with gorgeous rhetoric about the Virgin Queen(311) and her Stuart successor. It would have been quite impossible to introduce the death of Anne Boleyn, or any further incident of the reign, without harrowing the feelings of the spectator and losing all sense of proportion. But they do make a desperate effort to centre our attention on the King as a commanding figure; he comes before us as “the first gentleman in Europe,” and as the anxious lover of his people; he is represented as torn by conflicting emotions about the divorce, and as badly treated by Rome; all we can say is, these facts are true, however unskilfully the play brings them before us. Whatever the King does, we are meant to like him. His victims all conspire to invoke the blessings of Heaven on his head; Buckingham,(312) Wolsey,(313) Katherine,(314) all agree in this, reminding us of John Stubbs the Puritan, who, when his right hand was cut off for writing a book against Elizabeth’s proposed marriage, put off his hat with his left, and said with a loud voice, “God save the Queen.” The christening scene in Act V. is skilfully constructed so as to concentrate our interest on Henry; we feel that he is a royal and heroic figure, whose faults may in the last resort be palliated by the consideration that he is the father of Elizabeth.

I agree with the critics who regard the play as a failure from the artistic point of view; it lacks unity, and it moves awkwardly. It might even be called a spectacular experiment. But I rate it higher than they seem to do; its faults are largely due to the subject; it has much of Shakspere in it, as for example, the conscientious way in which the historical details are introduced.(315) It is full of superb and moving passages, and it uses the eleven-syllable line with skill and tenderness. If some of its defects remind us faintly of Massinger, its excellences are altogether beyond his abilities. Doubtless, it is natural to wish that each play of Shakspere should excel its predecessor, and to be unwilling to confess that he ended his career with something that was not supremely excellent. In the same way we may be sorry that one of Mozart’s last works, _Titus_, was a failure. But it is better to take things as we find them than to seek to twist them into something else on inadequate grounds.

Boyle’s attribution of _Henry VIII_ to Fletcher and Massinger(316) was coldly received by the New Shakspere Society.(317) Let us look at his arguments. I trust that condensation will do them no injustice.

1. There is a change in the conception of the character of Buckingham. Such changes constantly occur in the plays which Fletcher and Massinger wrote together, notably in the character of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt. Therefore Massinger wrote part of _Henry VIII_. This line of argument, even if valid, would only prove collaboration by Fletcher with someone else.

2. The Shakspere play _All is True_ may have perished in the “Globe” fire of 1613. _Henry VIII_ was written to take its place, but not produced before 1616. The evidence quoted for the date 1616-17 is very weak, and does nothing to prove Massinger’s co-operation.

3. If it be urged that the reputed authors of the play were alive in 1623, when it was published as Shakspere’s work in the Folio, Boyle replies,(318) “that, with the exception perhaps of Ben Jonson, it would never have occurred to a dramatist of that age to claim as his property what was published under another’s name.” This is a bold statement. Can an instance of such indifference be quoted? Or are we merely bidden to remember that Massinger was poor?

4. Boyle then works through the scenes which he ascribes to Massinger.

I., 1.—The opening is like _The Emperor of the East_, III., 1. “An untimely ague” corresponds to “a sudden fever.” The resemblance of the scenes is undoubted, and the parallel phrases are remarkable. Note, however, that the writer says the same thing twice (lines 4 and 13), while lines 9-12 are not like Massinger.

I., 4.—Lines 1-18, and 60 to the end. I find no trace of Massinger’s style in these passages. He never wrote lines 75-6:

The fairest hand I ever touch’d! O beauty,
Till now I never knew thee!

or such a phrase as “let the music knock it” _ad finem_.

II., 1.—Lines 1-54, and 136 to the end. I find no trace of Massinger’s style in these passages. Boyle has to allow that Fletcher altered several lines in 1-54; this is precarious and subjective reasoning.

II., 3.—Lines 1-11 are in the parenthetic manner, but quite unlike Massinger’s. “Soft cheveril conscience” in line 31, and “you’d venture an emballing” in line 47, are instances of the strong vocabulary which marks the play.(319) Picturesque phrases of this kind are not characteristic of Massinger’s style.

Nor did Massinger ever sink so low as line 64:

A thousand pound a year, annual support.(320)

II., 4.—No doubt Massinger loves a forensic scene, but this one leads to nothing and leaves the mind in confusion. Now, Massinger was too good an artist to do that. The things the people say in this scene must have passed through their minds in real life, but they are combined in such a way as to be true to history rather than to dramatic propriety. The author aims at telling what happened, and what happened does not always make a good play. It might even be urged from what we know of Massinger that he was too good a “stage-poet” to undertake an English historical play with its necessary limitations.

III., 2, 1-203.—The scene, like so much else in the play, lacks the refinement and courtliness which Massinger always has at his command. It may be noted that the bluff, coarse atmosphere of the “Shaksperian” scenes is very suitable to the central figure of the play.(321) Henry VIII infects his surroundings with himself, and this might be quoted as an indication of Shaksperian skill.

IV., 1.—The prosaic details of this scene are unlike anything in Massinger.(322)

V., 1.—The point of this scene is to concentrate our attention on Elizabeth’s birth. The scene “sprawls” sadly, to use Boyle’s description of Fletcher’s method. First we have Gardiner and Lovell, then Henry and Suffolk, then Henry and Cranmer, then Henry and the old lady. Massinger constructed better than this.

V., 3, 1-113.—Such a speech as Cranmer makes (lines 58-69) is too short for Massinger’s ample method, and its terse, broken style is singularly unlike his.

5. The few parallels of diction which Boyle brings forward are either from plays which are not certainly by Massinger, or may be explained as due to reminiscence or common phraseology.

6. Boyle has much of value to say in his criticisms of the characters. But again and again he seems to forget that the author is hampered by the story. He could not treat Henry VIII as Schiller treated Mary Stuart; to idealize the events would have been an act of _lèse-majesté_.

It is true that Anne Boleyn is not a creation of the same order as Shakspere’s later heroines—Imogen, Miranda, Marina, Perdita. Though beautiful and charming, she is shallow and commonplace. Is not this, however, the Anne Boleyn of real life?

“Katherine is inferior to Hermione in _The Winter’s Tale_.” But why should not her portrait be drawn on different lines? Is she not a proud Spanish princess? She is certainly one of the great figures of English Tragedy.

Wolsey is meant to be great but is really vulgar, while “his utter collapse after disgrace is unnatural.” The reply is that Wolsey is a mixed character, and none the worse dramatically for that; very able, very unscrupulous in his use of the courtier’s tricks, very fond of power; but not wholly bad. His repentance is true at once to human nature and to history.

“The king is unintelligible.” The fact is, it was impossible to make a hero of Henry VIII; it does not, therefore, follow that Massinger helped to write the play! Boyle is correct when he says that it is with Henry as it is with Wolsey: “we receive our impressions of the characters from the opinions formed of them by others.” In other words, the characterization of the play is faulty. Some critics have supposed that this fact is due to loss of mental power by Shakspere; it is simpler to hold the collaboration with Fletcher as responsible for the jolts and jars which the play gives the reader. If anyone still holds that Shakspere wrote the whole play, he might plausibly take the line that Shakspere was experimenting in the new style and metre of his popular young rival Fletcher. If, however, Shakspere in his retreat at Stratford, in days when posts were infrequent and locomotion slow, forwarded scenes and suggestions for Fletcher to work up at his own sweet will, something like what we have would be the result. Fletcher was evidently on his mettle on this occasion. I cannot prove that Fletcher did not invite Massinger to help him in such an enterprise, and I know how fond Massinger was of studying Shakspere. The latter argument, however, cuts both ways. Again, Massinger may have had an earlier Shaksperian style, very unlike his mature style; but this is pure hypothesis. The evidence which we have does not justify us in saying more than this, that he knew the play of _Henry VIII_ well.(323)

It would take me too far from my purpose to discuss the authorship of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ in detail, interesting as the problem is, but as many critics have assigned the “un-Fletcherian” parts of the play to Massinger, I have, as in duty bound, read the play carefully several times. There is very little trace of his style, or method, or metre. The only passage which reads to me like Massinger is assigned by Boyle to Fletcher.(324) Mr. Dugdale Sykes, in an acute article,(325) has produced some parallels between Massinger and _The Two Noble Kinsmen_; but though one or two of them are striking, they do not prove his case when they are looked at in connexion with the context.

Take, for example:

3RD QUEEN. He that will all the treasure know o’ th’ earth
Must know the centre too.(326)

Mr. Sykes compares these lines in _The Parliament of Love_:

CLEREMOND. And I should gild my misery with false comforts,
If I compared it with an Indian slave’s,
That with incessant labour to search out
Some unknown mine, dives almost to the centre.(327)

On this passage I make two remarks: first, such similarity of thought as is found here may be due to imitation or unconscious reminiscence of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_. A man who constantly repeats himself is surely the sort of person who would delight to borrow thoughts and phrases from other writers, and to imitate whole scenes and incidents. Are we to suppose that Massinger confined his studies to Shakspere?

Secondly, let us judge the passage as a whole; it runs thus:

He that will all the treasure know o’ th’ earth
Must know the centre too; he that will fish
For my least minnow, let him lead his line
To catch one at my heart.

Anything more unlike Massinger than this fishing for minnows cannot be imagined.

Take again the parallel,(328) “which alone should be conclusive of Massinger’s authorship”:

PIRITHOUS. Though I know
His ocean needs not my poor drops, yet they
Must yield their tribute there. My precious maid,
Those best affections, that the heavens infuse
In their best temper’d pieces, keep enthroned
In your dear heart.(329)

In _Believe as You List_ we have:

Though I know
The ocean of your apprehensions needs not
The rivulet of my poor cautions, yet,
Bold from my long experience, I presume, etc.(330)

Though the similarity of thought and expression in the first three lines is manifest, the archaic simplicity of the first passage differs greatly from the mature flow of the second.

What is Mr. Sykes’ theory? “If we admit Massinger’s collaboration in this play, at the very outset of his literary career, before his style was definitely formed, and when the influence of the foremost dramatist of the age was strongest upon him, the apparently ‘Shaksperian’ quality of its verse can readily be explained.” On this proposition I make two remarks; first, that as we have none of Massinger’s early works, I cannot prove that he never wrote in the style of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_; I can only assert with absolute certainty that none of his extant works has the least resemblance to it. Secondly, as to the supposed “Shaksperian” colour of the play, this is a point on which one’s judgment varies each time one reads it. There is a great deal in the “un-Fletcherian” parts which reminds one of Shakspere; some of it is so like his later style that it is not surprising to find that many great critics have assigned it to him; many other passages, however, seem just not to ring true; they are obscure because they have little meaning. For let not the fact be disguised, in spite of one great lyric, several splendid scenes, and some fine speeches, there is much poor stuff in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.

The simplest explanation of the double ascription in the quarto of 1634 is to suppose that Shakspere helped Fletcher in some way. He may even have written the un-Fletcherian parts,(331) though, personally, I find traces of Fletcher in them also; he may have left material which Fletcher worked up; he may have merely suggested the construction of the plot, a department in which Fletcher is weak.

If, however, the “Shaksperian” parts be deemed unworthy of Shakspere, why assign them to Massinger, whose work they do not resemble? Could no one else have imitated Shakspere except Massinger? Why should not Fletcher himself for once have caught the Shaksperian manner? Why should he not have confided the execution of a part to someone else who was soaked in Shakspere’s style? Why should not Beaumont have helped him here as elsewhere,(332) or possibly Heywood?

The archaic flavour of the play is to me the outstanding fact about it; we know that plays on this subject were acted in 1566 and 1594. The archaic flavour may be due to the influence of Chaucer on the writers; it is more likely to be due to an earlier play having been taken and altered. It might also be due to the collaboration of someone like Heywood, who, though late in time, is surprisingly simple and early in style. The rustic scenes are an instance of this very early manner.(333) If Shakspere and Fletcher took an old play, and the former contributed a few turns to the revised edition, then everything would be accounted for.(334) It will be said that there are scenes which remind us of Lady Macbeth and Ophelia; why should not an already existing play have suggested to Shakspere something which he worked up in those two characters into a far finer result? We know for a fact that much of his best work is based on older plays. This random hypothesis is quite as probable as the supposition that Massinger had anything to do with _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.

Let us next consider Mr. Tucker Brooke’s position.(335) After a searching and masterly analysis of the merits and defects of the play, he ends with a guarded tendency towards assigning the “un-Fletcherian” parts to Massinger on the following grounds: “The metrical tests give him an even better title than his master [_i.e._, Shakspere] to the doubtful parts of our play.” To this I reply that style is a more important test than metre. There are, secondly, “the structural and psychological imperfections of the work”; thirdly, “the tendency to unnecessary coarseness of language”; fourthly, “the feeble imitation of Shakspere”; fifthly, “the frequent similarity to Massinger’s acknowledged writings.” The only serious argument against the assumption is that there is nothing in Massinger to compare with “the magnificent poetry of the un-Fletcherian part.”

Let us briefly look at these arguments. The work is “structurally and psychologically imperfect.” True, and this point might be quoted to support the theory that the play is based on an old and immature tragedy. As far as concerns structure, Massinger’s plays are always strong; so that part of the argument falls to the ground. No doubt his psychology is his weak point, but its weakness is of a different kind from that which we find in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_. There are no violent emotions of the sort in which he rejoices in it. There are no characters in Massinger resembling Palamon and Arcite. Mr. Brooke refers to their “spinelessness,” and it is true that they are not much differentiated. I suppose, however, that he would allow that they start by being a romantic pair of friends, that their quarrel when they first see Emilia is lifelike, and that their subsequent behaviour is chivalrous. When he refers to “the really revolting wishy-washiness and ingrained sensuality of Emilia” he uses exaggerated language. The fact is, that Emilia is in a very difficult position, and if her character is ambiguous it is the fault of the story rather than of the author.

“The tendency to unnecessary coarseness of language.” This is based in the main on Hippolyta’s language,(336) with which Mr. Sykes compares a passage in _The Unnatural Combat_.(337) I have discussed the supposed coarseness of Massinger’s heroines elsewhere. In spite of everything that Boyle can say, with his catalogue of twenty-two passages, I wonder who is right about Massinger’s women, Boyle or Courthope, who says that “his portraits of women show more delicacy of feeling and imagination than those of any English dramatist with the exception of Shakspere.”(338) I, at any rate, feel that Courthope is nearer the truth than Boyle and his followers.

“Feeble imitation of Shakspere.” That there is imitation of Shakspere in Massinger we all know; but I deny that it is feeble, and we know that others of the same age, like Fletcher, Webster, and Tourneur, have delighted to imitate him.

“The frequent similarity to Massinger’s writings.” In the first place, I do not feel that the similarity is frequent; and secondly, as has already been pointed out, what similarity there is may be due to imitation of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ by Massinger. Are we to suppose that the only author he imitated or borrowed from was Shakspere?

The final reservation raises mixed feelings. I am tired of those writers who grudgingly attribute to Massinger the leavings of other playwrights, making him the whipping boy of his age, and who proceed to qualify their theories by doubts as to his ability to attain to the excellences which they perforce discover in them. I will be so far generous to Mr. Brooke as to allow that “the magnificent poetry of the un-Fletcherian parts” is unlike Massinger, because there is no reason for supposing that he wrote any of these parts. Massinger’s fame can stand on its own merits without these churlishly conceded ascriptions of doubtful work.

And now let us pass to Boyle’s notable article on this subject.(339) Much as I admire his learning and zeal, I am amazed at the perversity of his judgment and the thinness of his arguments. Let us take them in order. “There is a want of development in the dramatic character”(340) of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_. This Boyle ascribes to the fact that, as elsewhere, Massinger’s conceptions were blurred by Fletcher’s co-operation in other parts of the play. As this argument begs the question it has no weight. “Allusions to Shakspere are characteristic both of Massinger and _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.”(341) Are we to suppose that no one imitated Shakspere except Massinger? “The metrical structure of the play corresponds closely with Massinger’s general style.”(342) Here, however, Boyle has to allow that the percentages for double endings are not what you would expect. And I look with suspicion on a writer who professes to be so certain of these tests that he can assign I., 1-40, and V., 1-19, to Fletcher. “Massinger is fond of classical allusions, as is the author of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.”(343) This argument deserves no consideration when we remember that the fact is true of other Elizabethan writers. For example, we find “the helmeted Bellona,”(344) and Massinger is fond of the sonorous word.(345) Yes, but Bellona is not unknown in Shakspere. M. Arnold has pointed out that she occurs in a weak passage of Macbeth.(346) “Medical and surgical similes occur in both.”(347) When we come to investigate these we find that the remarks in question are of a commonplace kind. “The characters of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ resemble those of Massinger.”(348) Theseus, for example, resembles Lorenzo in _The Bashful Lover_. I see no resemblance. “Palamon and Arcite may be met with in many of Massinger’s plays.”(349) I fail to find them anywhere. “The three ladies are grossly sensual in their remarks.”(350) I have dealt with this point before, and it really amounts to a mischievous obsession in Boyle’s mind. Let us take the passages seriatim; Emilia is talking privately to Hippolyta(351) about a dead girl friend to whom she was devoted when young. In the course of this beautiful passage she says:

The flower that I would pluck
And put between my breasts, then but beginning
To swell about the blossom, oh! she would long
Till she had such another, and commit it
To the like innocent cradle, where phœnix-like
They died in perfume.

I am ashamed to waste words in vindicating this passage, which Boyle sets by the language of Iachimo in Cymbeline in describing the mole on Imogen’s breast(352) to a company of gentlemen.

The next one is “decisive of the question of the authorship of our play.”

1ST QUEEN. When her arms,
Able to lock Jove from a synod, shall
By warranting moonlight corslet thee, O when
Her twinning cherries shall their sweetness fall(353)
Upon thy tasteful lips, what wilt thou think
Of rotten kings and blubbered queens? What care
For what thou feel’st not, what thou feel’st being able
To make Mars spurn his drum? O, if thou covet
But one night with her, every hour in’t will
Take hostage of thee for a hundred, and
Thou shalt remember nothing more than what
That banquet bids thee to.(354)

Though there are passages in Massinger of which the thought is similar to that presented here, I do not judge it or them as severely as Boyle. The point, however, which I wish to make is this: these lines are typical of what I have called the archaic flavour of the play. Where in Massinger’s works will you find “warranting moonlight,” “tasteful lips,” “twinning cherries,” “rotten kings and blubbered queens,” or “Mars’ drum”? The idea that Massinger wrote this passage is quite preposterous; the only thing in it which reminds one of him is the “and” at the end of line 204.

Lastly, we have Hippolyta’s words in the same scene:

Yet I think
Did I not by the abstaining of my joy,
Which breeds a deeper longing, cure their surfeit
That craves a present medicine, I should pluck
All ladies’ scandal on me.(355)

Hippolyta agrees in these lines to postpone her wedding in order that the Queens should be avenged on Creon. No doubt the lines are crude, but Boyle goes too far with his “cloven hoof,” his “effluvia of social corruption,” his “thick miasma.”

“There is a close parallel between _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ and _A Very Woman_ in the treatment of madness.”(356) I do not see much similarity between the prose of the one play and the poetry of the other, but so far as any exists it is due to the common ideas of the age as to the way in which to treat the mad. “The reflections in the dialogue of Palamon and Arcite,(357) on the corruptions of Thebes, the neglect of soldiers, the extravagance of fashion, are allusions such as Massinger makes to contemporary English life.”(358) The allusions are such as any moralist might make, and if the rough and immature style in which they are expressed is not like Massinger’s the argument falls to the ground.

“There are a good many expressions in common between _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ and Massinger.”(359) This is the really serious argument; but let me repeat that similarity of thought and expression in isolated phrases does not prove unity of authorship. Let us, however, look at some of these parallels.

Reference is twice made in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ to “the wheaten garland” of brides.(360) Massinger refers to “the garland” of a bridegroom in three passages.(361) I fail to see the connexion. Notice also that Massinger does not use the epithet “wheaten” in these passages.

Theseus says, “Troubled I am,” and turns away.(362) It was quite natural that he should think twice before postponing his wedding. Boyle compares a passage where Ladislas is in uncertainty(363):

I am much troubled,
And do begin to stagger.

People in Massinger’s plays are often perplexed, and so they are in real life. Note that Theseus ends his remark with these words at the beginning of a line. When Massinger’s characters are in perplexity their way of expressing themselves is quite different; it is more full and rounded off.

Theseus says: “Forward to the temple,”(364) being anxious to be married. “Similar words in similar situations occur in Massinger.”(365) In neither case, however, is it a bridegroom who speaks.

_The Two Noble Kinsmen_, I., 165, 166:

1ST QUEEN. And that work presents itself to th’ doing;
Now ’twill take form, the heats are gone to-morrow.

Boyle says this is obscure, but can be explained by _Empress of the East_:

That resolution which grows cold to-day
Will freeze to-morrow.(366)

The thought is a familiar one; and can anyone suppose that Massinger wrote line 165?

The expression “our undertaker”(367) recalls a word used by Shakspere.(368) Massinger also has it twice;(369) the parallel is interesting, but the word was a cant political term of Jacobean times.

The fact that apes imitate is referred to in these lines:(370)

’Tis in our own power—
Unless we fear that apes can tutor’s—to
Be masters of our manners.

In _The Emperor of the East_ we find:

You are master of the manners and the habit,
Rather the scorn of such as would live men,
And not, like apes, with servile imitation
Study prodigious fashions.(371)

Surely there is no need to assume common authorship here. The imitative ape has been common property for a long time.

A peculiarity of a sick man is referred to, thus:

I must no more believe thee in this point
Than I will trust a sickly appetite,
That loathes even as it longs.(372)

Massinger in _A Very Woman_ has:

No more of Love, good father,
It was my surfeit, and I loathe it now,
As men in fevers meat they fall sick on.(373)

The simile is a part of ordinary experience and literary convention. You might as well argue that Massinger wrote _Euphues_.

The jailer’s daughter leaves the scene with this remark:

It is a holiday to look on them; Lord, the difference of men.(374)

Lidia, in _The Great Duke of Florence_, when Sanazarro seems to be treating her rudely, exclaims:

Oh, the difference of natures!(375)

But she does not leave the stage.

We might say: Oh, the difference of styles! In the one case we have a rustic maiden of low birth; in the other, a lady justly offended.

I do not deny that some of the parallels are remarkable, but they may be due to imitation or reminiscence. Take the words:

Thou, O jewel,
O’ th’ wood, o’ th’ world, hast likewise blest a place
With thy sole presence.(376)

In _The Great Duke of Florence_ we find:

And what place
Does he now bless with his presence?(377)

The phrase is one which Massinger’s courtly mind would treasure and delight to use.

Theseus, addressing Artesius, says:

Forth and levy
Our worthiest instruments, whilst we despatch
This grand act of our life, this daring deed
Of fate in wedlock.(378)

Phrases like this are found in Massinger; thus in _The Maid of Honour_, Roberto says of the wedding of Bertoldo and Aurelia:

And rest assur’d that, this great work despatch’d,
You shall have audience.(379)

They may be due to reminiscence, though it is simpler to regard them as the current English of the day.

The strongest evidence for Boyle’s theory is contained in Palamon’s invocation to Venus:(380)

I never practised
Upon man’s wife, nor would the libels read
Of liberal wits; I never at great feasts
Sought to betray a beauty.

These words certainly remind us of Leosthenes in _The Bondman_, both in thought and style:

Nor endeavour’d
To make your blood run high at solemn feasts,
With viands that provoke; the speeding philtres;
I worked no bawds to tempt you; never practised
The cunning and corrupting arts they study
That wander in the wild maze of desire.(381)

I think, however, that reminiscence will suffice to account for the parallel. The man who could write the last line of this passage has no need to buttress up his fame with _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, though it is of course conceivable that he edited it for publication in 1634.

Lastly, the method of Massinger calls for a few words. It has been noticed by all the critics that he often repeats himself. As is the case with Plautus the same metaphors, thoughts, and words recur from time to time in similar situations. It is clear that this characteristic might help us to trace those parts of Fletcher’s plays in which Massinger collaborated.

One or two simple instances of this fact may be quoted: the characters in Massinger are very fond of blushing;(382) references to the talkativeness of women are frequent;(383) metaphors from the sea and sailing are very common;(384) people are fond of saying that they mean to do something but they do not know what;(385) the exact courtier kneels and kisses the robe of a lady or her foot, and is sometimes rebuked for doing so.(386)

As a good moralist, Massinger dislikes suicide(387) and duelling.(388) The latter practice is referred to in his plays as a new-fangled importation from abroad.

Let us now quote some of his favourite words: references need not be given for “honour”; wherever we find “atheist” for a bad man,(389) or “magnificent” for munificent,(390) or the Latin phrase “nil ultra,”(391) or the Greek words “apostata”(392) and “embryon”;(393) wherever we find “frontless”(394) impudence and “sail-stretched” wings(395) and “libidinous”(396) Caesars; wherever the moisture of the lips is compared to nectar,(397) wherever we read of “the centre”(398) or of “horror,”(399) or of washing an Ethiop,(400) there we are on familiar ground. Again, it is a characteristic of Massinger, which offends some of his readers more than others, that he is always ready with the obvious remark. Thus, when Marrall, after a career of tergiversation is finally kicked off the stage, he says:

This is the haven
False servants still arrive at.(401)

In _The Emperor of the East_, when the complications about Paulinus’ apple are getting rather serious, the Princess Flaccilla makes the remark, which is certainly in the mind of the reader:

All this pother for an apple!(402)

When Leosthenes allows himself to be intolerably coarse in his language to Cleora, we read these words:

CLEORA. You are foul-mouth’d.

ARCHEDAMUS. Ill-manner’d, too.(403)

When Hilario seeks to amuse his mistress with an absurd message from the front, and she observes, “This is ridiculous,”(404) we feel inclined to say, “Not only ridiculous, but not worth writing.” When Cardenes, after lying as dead for some time, gives signs of life, the Viceroy very justly observes:

This care of his recovery, timely practis’d,
Would have expressed more of a father in you,
Than your impetuous clamours for revenge.(405)

It will be remembered that Shakspere had used this device in his day. Compare _Richard II_: “Can sick men play so nicely with their names?”(406) _Midsummer-Night’s Dream_: “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”(407) _1 Henry VI_: “Here is a silly stately style indeed!”(408)

What impression do we get of Massinger from his writings? He was the intimate friend and associate of Fletcher; how far was he a man of the same stamp? Both as a poet and a stylist Fletcher is his superior; he is more tender and more varied; in isolated scenes he attains a high degree of pathos. From time to time the bursts of lovely poetry which illustrate his plays make us bow the head as though in the presence of an enchanter. The fifty plays which are currently associated with his name, with all their faults, are a veritable fairyland. Again, there is a terse piquancy about him, which expresses itself in clear-cut, vigorous lines, such as we find rarely in our poet. And he has a real vein of humour, which makes one laugh heartily.(409) Nor is his direct and lucid prose style to be despised. On the other hand, he was not a great artist; his plots, though usually bustling, are often improbable; his character-drawing is constantly fickle and inconsequent. Thus, according to Boyle,(410) in _The Honest Man’s Fortune_, Tourneur and Massinger make Montague a gentleman; in Act V. Fletcher destroys all that was good in Massinger, but makes good sport for the groundlings. He maintains that the same thing happens to Buckingham in _Henry VIII_ and to Barnavelt. Though there are many life-like characters in his works, to whom we feel attracted, such as Leon in _Rule a Wife and have a Wife_ and Valerio in _The Wife for a Month_, they are too often made to do improbable things. Again, as a moralist Fletcher falls far behind Massinger. He shows from time to time a high-flown and tainted sentimentality which is far removed from real life. Indeed, the bad use to which he puts his great talent is often enough to make angels weep. He more than anyone is responsible for the Puritan reaction; he more than anyone is responsible for most of what was bad in the Restoration drama, and he has had his reward. Except by the student, his work is forgotten. It can hardly be doubted that the death of Fletcher was a gain to Massinger in emancipating him from the co-operation of a fascinating but unsafe guide.(411) In standing alone he learnt to perfect all that was best in his own gifts.

It is difficult to form a clear judgment of Beaumont. The more I read what scholars attribute to him, the more I feel disposed to agree with Sir A. Ward that Beaumont and Fletcher were men of the same mind and tastes. It is plain that the author of _Philaster_, _The Maid’s Tragedy_, and _A King and No King_ had a range of passion and pathos beyond Massinger. _Philaster_ is incomparable, and as we read the other two plays we hurry on from scene to scene; when we put the book down we are perturbed. They have carried us away in spite of their grave faults. The glorious nonsense of _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_ is equally beyond Massinger. On the other hand, such disagreeable plays as _The Coxcomb_ and _Cupid’s Revenge_ do not invite a second perusal. I do not feel that Beaumont was cleaner in mind than Fletcher, or more balanced in judgment. When we come to the department of metre we seem to be on surer ground; the metre of Beaumont has high qualities, and his decasyllabic verse reminds me of the cold purity of a waterfall. In style his lines constantly have a marked simplicity and directness which anticipate Wordsworth. He can write a line in which the words run in the order which they would have in prose, and hence his great strength. On the other hand, he is often careless about the length of his lines, possibly from a love of variety. He is fond of rhyme, and introduces prose freely into his scenes. His models appear to have been Marlowe for metre and Ben Jonson for treatment. He has a liking for burlesque, as witness _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, _The Woman-Hater_, and Arbaces in _A King and No King_.(412) All this is very unlike Massinger.

It may be asked, how does Massinger compare with Webster? This question naturally rises in the mind at a moment when a gifted writer, snatched from us before his time, has left us an interesting and scholarly study of Webster. Mr. Rupert Brooke makes no secret of his contempt for Fletcher, and “the second-rate magic” of Massinger; he regards Webster as the last of the strong school of Elizabethan dramatists.

Are we to compare _Westward Ho!_, _Northward Ho!_, and _The Cure for a Cuckold_ with _A New Way to pay Old Debts_ and _The City Madam_? They are less refined, less skilfully constructed. The stage is more crowded, and the characters are worse drawn. The same considerations apply to the _Malcontent_(413) and _The Devil’s Law-case_. Mr. Brooke practically allows that he means by Webster, _The White Devil_ and _The Duchess of Malfi_, and these plays alone. Let it be said at once that it is an ungrateful task to magnify one poet at the expense of another. We allow that in these two plays Webster comes nearer to Shakspere than any of his compeers. He has a great, a subtle, a well-stored mind; he produces isolated tragic effects of the most poignant kind; he is a master of atmosphere; he plays with the feelings of his auditors; he can dazzle them by “his miraculous touches of poetic beauty.”

On the other hand, he is not a clear thinker, nor are his plays skilfully planned. I should imagine that they read better than they act. For instance, the scene in _The Duchess of Malfi_, where Ferdinand gives the heroine the dead hand, fills us with horror. I doubt if it would be effective on the stage. Webster’s rhymes are poor, and his prose worse than Massinger’s. Sir Sidney Lee(414) says his blank verse is “vigorous and musical”; to me it seems too often ragged and halting. But the chief objection to Webster is that he lives in “a world of repulsive themes and fantastic crimes.” He revels in the sinister suggestions aroused by skulls, dead hands, ghosts, echoes, and madmen. His mind was morbid, and his successes are like lightning flashes of splendid power piercing a gloomy and sullen background.

The fact that he was not a productive writer may weigh less with some critics than with others; more important is it to remember that Massinger’s plays held the stage much longer than Webster’s. This fact may fairly be taken to prove the appeal which the former has successfully made to the human heart. Webster, in short, compared with Shakspere, reminds us somewhat of the contrast between Mantegna and Raphael.

In one or two respects Webster has affinities with Massinger. Both frequently imitate Shakspere; and both repeat themselves continually, though in different ways. Whereas Massinger used the same vocabulary and terms of thought again and again, Webster quotes whole sentences from one of his plays in another, as if he felt, like some of the Greek writers of antiquity, that when he had said a thing as it should be said, he had the right to use it again.(415)

It is difficult to compare Massinger with Ben Jonson: both wrote Roman plays and domestic comedies; but Ben Jonson has at once a greater mind and a wider range of experiment. He was a learned man, a great figure in society, the dictator of a circle of wits, the centre of many friendships and enmities. He would probably regard Massinger as a pale-featured, gentle hack. We know more about his full-blooded personality than about any other writer of the period, and while there is much in him to offend, there is more to inspire our respect.