VIMASSINGER AND FORD

Philip Massingerwas born in 1584, the son of Arthur Massinger, a gentleman who held some position of trust in the household of Henry, Earl of Pembroke, who married the sister of Sir Philip Sidney. It was for her that the “Arcadia” was written. And for her Ben Jonson wrote the famousepitaph:—

“Underneath this sable hearseLies the subject of all verse.Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother.Death! ere thou hast slain another,Learn’d and fair and good as she,Time shall throw a dart at thee.”

“Underneath this sable hearse

Lies the subject of all verse.

Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother.

Death! ere thou hast slain another,

Learn’d and fair and good as she,

Time shall throw a dart at thee.”

It would be pleasant to think that Massinger’s boyhood had been spent in the pure atmosphere that would have surrounded such a woman, but it should seem that he could not have been brought up in her household. Otherwise it is hard to understand why, in dedicating his “Bondman” to Philip, Earl of Montgomery, one of her sons, he should say, “However, I could never arrive at the happiness to be made known to your lordship, yet a desire, born with me, to make a tender of all duties and service to the noble family of the Herberts descended to me as an inheritance from my dead father, Arthur Massinger.” All that weknow of his early life is that he entered a commoner at St. Alban’s Hall, Oxford, in 1602. At the University he remained four years, but left it without taking a degree.

From the year 1606, until his name appears in an undated document which the late Mr. John Payne Collier decides to be not later than 1614, we know nothing of him. This document is so illustrative of the haphazard lives of most of the dramatists and actors of the time as to be worth reading. It was written by Nathaniel Field, the actor who played the part of Bussy d’Ambois in Chapman’s play of that name, and who afterwards became prosperous and one of the shareholders in the Globe Theatre. Here itis:—

“To our most loving friend, Mr. Philip Hinchlow, Esq., These:“Mr. Hinchlow,—You understand our unfortunate extremity, and I do not think you so void of Christianity, but you would throw so much money into the Thames as we request now of you rather than endanger so many innocent lives. You know there is Xl.more at least to be received of you for the play. We desire you to lend us Vl.of that, which shall be allowed to you, without which we cannot be bailed, nor I play any more till this be despatched. It will lose you XXl.ere the end of the next week, besides the hindrance of the next new play. Pray, sir, consider our cases with humanity, and now give us cause to acknowledge you our true friend in time of need. We have entreated Mr. Davison to deliver this note, as well to witness your love as our promises and always acknowledgment to be your most thankful and loving friend,Nat Field.”

“To our most loving friend, Mr. Philip Hinchlow, Esq., These:

“Mr. Hinchlow,—You understand our unfortunate extremity, and I do not think you so void of Christianity, but you would throw so much money into the Thames as we request now of you rather than endanger so many innocent lives. You know there is Xl.more at least to be received of you for the play. We desire you to lend us Vl.of that, which shall be allowed to you, without which we cannot be bailed, nor I play any more till this be despatched. It will lose you XXl.ere the end of the next week, besides the hindrance of the next new play. Pray, sir, consider our cases with humanity, and now give us cause to acknowledge you our true friend in time of need. We have entreated Mr. Davison to deliver this note, as well to witness your love as our promises and always acknowledgment to be your most thankful and loving friend,

Nat Field.”

Under this iswritten:—

“The money shall be abated out of the money [that] remains for the play of Mr. Fletcher and ours.Rob Daborne.”“I have always found you a true loving friend to me, and, in so small a suit, it being honest, I hope you will not fail us.Philip Massinger.”

“The money shall be abated out of the money [that] remains for the play of Mr. Fletcher and ours.

Rob Daborne.”

“I have always found you a true loving friend to me, and, in so small a suit, it being honest, I hope you will not fail us.

Philip Massinger.”

The endorsement on this appeal shows that Hinchlow sent the money. No doubt Field was selected to write it as the person most necessary to Hinchlow, who could much more easily get along without a new play than without a popular actor. It is plain from the document itself that the signers of it were all under arrest, probably for some tavern bill, or it would not otherwise be easy to account for their being involved in a common calamity. Davison was doubtless released as being the least valuable. It is amusing to see how Hinchlow’s humanity and Christianity are briefly appealed to first as a matter of courtesy, and how the real arguments are addressed to his self-interest as more likely to prevail. Massinger’s words are of some value as showing that he had probably for some time been connected with the stage.

There are two other allusions to Massinger in the registers of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels. Both are to plays of his now lost. Of one of them even the name has not survived. On the 11th of January, 1631, Sir Henry refused to license this nameless performance “because it did contain dangerous matter—as the deposing ofSebastian King of Portugal by Philip II., there being peace sworn between England and Spain.” He adds, amusingly enough, “I had my fee notwithstanding, which belongs to me for reading it over, and ought always to be brought with a book.” Again, in 1638, at the time of the dispute between Charles I. and his subjects about ship-money, Sir Henry quotes from a manuscript play of Massinger submitted to him for censure the followingpassage:—

“Monies? We’ll raise supplies which way we please,And force you to subscribe to blanks in whichWe’ll mulct you as we shall think fit. The CæsarsIn Rome were wise, acknowledging no lawsBut what their swords did ratify, the wivesAnd daughters of the senators bowing toTheir wills as deities,” etc.

“Monies? We’ll raise supplies which way we please,

And force you to subscribe to blanks in which

We’ll mulct you as we shall think fit. The Cæsars

In Rome were wise, acknowledging no laws

But what their swords did ratify, the wives

And daughters of the senators bowing to

Their wills as deities,” etc.

Sir Henry then adds, “This is a piece taken out of Philip Massinger’s play called ‘The King and the Subject,’ and entered here forever to be remembered by my son and those that cast their eyes upon it, in honor of King Charles, my master, who, reading the play over at Newmarket, set his mark upon the place with his own hand and in these words: ‘This is too insolent, and to be changed.’ Note that the poet makes it the speech of Don Pedro, King of Spain, and spoken to his subjects.” Coleridge rather hastily calls Massinger a democrat. But I find no evidence of it in his plays. He certainly was no advocate of the slavish doctrine of passive obedience, or of what Pope calls the right divine of kings to govern wrong, as Beaumont and Fletcher often were, buthe could not have been a democrat without being an anachronism, and that no man can be.

The license of the stage at that time went much farther than this; nay, it was as great as it ever was at Athens. From a letter of the Privy Council to certain justices of the peace of the County of Middlesex in 1601, we learn that “certain players who use to recite their plays at the Curtain in Moorfields do represent upon the stage in their interludes the persons of some gentlemen of good desert and quality, that are yet alive, under obscure manner, but yet in such sort as all the hearers may take notice both of the matter and the persons that are meant thereby.” And again it appears that in 1605 the Corporation of the City of London memorialized the Privy Council, informing them that “Kemp Armyn and other players at the Black Friars have again not forborne to bring upon their stage one or more of the Worshipful Company of Aldermen, to their great scandal and the lessening of their authority,” and praying that “order may be taken to remedy the abuse, either by putting down or removing the said Theatre.” Aristophanes brought Socrates and Euripides upon the stage,—but neither of these was an Alderman.

Massinger committed no offences of this kind, unless Sir Giles Overreach be meant for some special usurer whom he wished to make hateful, of which there is no evidence. He does indeed express his own opinions, his likes and dislikes, very freely. Nor were these such as he need beashamed to avow. It may be inferred, on the strength of some of the sentiments put by him into the mouths of his characters, that he would have sympathized rather with Hampden and Pym than with Charles I. But nothing more than this can be conjectured as to his probable politics. He disliked cruel creditors, grinders of the poor, enclosers of commons, and forestallers, as they were called; for corners in wheat and other commodities were not unknown to our ancestors, nor did they think better of the men that made them than we. There is a curious passage in his play of “The Guardian” which shows that his way of thinking on some points was not unlike Mr. Ruskin’s. Severino, who has been outlawed, draws up a code of laws for the banditti of whom he has become captain, defining who might be properly plundered and who not. Among those belonging to the former class he places the

“Builders of iron-mills that grub up forestsWith timber trees for shipping;”

“Builders of iron-mills that grub up forests

With timber trees for shipping;”

and in the latter, scholars, soldiers, rack-rented farmers, needy market folks, sweaty laborers, carriers, and women. All that we can fairly say is that he was a man of large and humane sympathies.

But though Massinger did not, so far as we know, indulge in as great licenses of scenic satire as some of his contemporaries, there is in his “Roman Actor” so spirited a defence of the freedom of the stage and of its usefulness as a guardianand reformer of morals that I will quoteit:—

“Aretinus.Are you on the stage,You talk so boldly?Paris.The whole world being one,This place is not exempted; and I amSo confident in the justice of our causeThat I could wish Cæsar, in whose great nameAll kings are comprehended, sat as judgeTo hear our plea, and then determine of us.If, to express a man sold to his lusts,Wasting the treasure of his time and fortunesIn wanton dalliance, and to what sad endA wretch that’s so given over does arrive at;Deterring careless youth, by his example,From such licentious courses; laying openThe snares of bawds, and the consuming artsOf prodigal strumpets, can deserve reproof,Why are not all your golden principles,Writ down by grave philosophers to instruct usTo choose fair virtue for our guide, not pleasure,Condemned unto the fire?Sura.There’s spirit in this.Paris.Or if desire of honor was the baseOn which the building of the Roman EmpireWas raised up to this height; if, to inflameThe noble youth with an ambitious heatT’ endure the frosts of danger, nay, of death,To be thought worthy the triumphal wreathBy glorious undertakings, may deserveReward or favor from the commonwealth,Actors may put in for as large a shareAs all the sects of the philosophers.They with cold precepts (perhaps seldom read)Deliver what an honorable thingThe active virtue is; but does that fireThe blood, or swell the veins with emulationTo be both good and great, equal to thatWhich is presented on our theatres?Let a good actor, in a lofty scene,Shew great Alcides honour’d in the sweatOf his twelve labours; or a bold CamillusForbidding Rome to be redeem’d with goldFrom the insulting Gauls; or Scipio,After his victories, imposing tributeOn conquer’d Carthage; if done to the life,As if they saw their dangers, and their glories,And did partake with them in their rewards,All that have any spark of Roman in them,The slothful arts laid by, contend to beLike those they see presented.Rusticus.He has putThe consuls to their whisper.Paris.But ’t is urgedThat we corrupt youth, and traduce superiors.When do we bring a vice upon the stageThat does go off unpunish’d? Do we teach,By the success of wicked undertakings,Others to tread in their forbidden steps?We shew no arts of Lydian panderism,Corinthian poisons, Persian flatteries,But mulcted so in the conclusion, thatEven those spectators that were so inclined,Go home changed men. And, for traducing suchThat are above us, publishing to the worldTheir secret crimes, we are as innocentAs such as are born dumb. When we presentAn heir that does conspire against the lifeOf his dear parent, numbering every hourHe lives as tedious to him, if there beAmong the auditors one whose conscience tells himHe is of the same mould,—WE CANNOT HELP IT.Or, bringing on the stage a loose adulteress,That does maintain the riotous expenseOf him that feeds her greedy lust, yet suffersThe lawful pledges of a former bedTo starve the while for hunger; if a matron,However great in fortune, birth, or titles,Guilty of such a foul, unnatural sin,Cry out, ’T is writ for me,—WE CANNOT HELP IT.Or, when a covetous man’s express’d, whose wealthArithmetic cannot number, and whose lordshipsA falcon in one day cannot fly over,Yet he so sordid in his mind, so griping,As not to afford himself the necessariesTo maintain life; if a patrician(Though honour’d with a consulship) find himselfTouch’d to the quick in this,—WE CANNOT HELP IT.Or, when we show a judge that is corrupt,And will give up his sentence as he favoursThe person, not the cause, saving the guilty,If of his faction, and as oft condemningThe innocent, out of particular spleen;If any in this reverend assembly,Nay, even yourself, my lord, that are the imageOf absent Cæsar, feel something in your bosomThat puts you in remembrance of things past,Or things intended,—’T IS NOT IN US TO HELP IT.I have said, my lord: and now, as you find cause,Or censure us, or free us with applause.”

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

“Aretinus.Are you on the stage,

You talk so boldly?

Paris.The whole world being one,This place is not exempted; and I amSo confident in the justice of our causeThat I could wish Cæsar, in whose great nameAll kings are comprehended, sat as judgeTo hear our plea, and then determine of us.If, to express a man sold to his lusts,Wasting the treasure of his time and fortunesIn wanton dalliance, and to what sad endA wretch that’s so given over does arrive at;Deterring careless youth, by his example,From such licentious courses; laying openThe snares of bawds, and the consuming artsOf prodigal strumpets, can deserve reproof,Why are not all your golden principles,Writ down by grave philosophers to instruct usTo choose fair virtue for our guide, not pleasure,Condemned unto the fire?

Paris.The whole world being one,

This place is not exempted; and I am

So confident in the justice of our cause

That I could wish Cæsar, in whose great name

All kings are comprehended, sat as judge

To hear our plea, and then determine of us.

If, to express a man sold to his lusts,

Wasting the treasure of his time and fortunes

In wanton dalliance, and to what sad end

A wretch that’s so given over does arrive at;

Deterring careless youth, by his example,

From such licentious courses; laying open

The snares of bawds, and the consuming arts

Of prodigal strumpets, can deserve reproof,

Why are not all your golden principles,

Writ down by grave philosophers to instruct us

To choose fair virtue for our guide, not pleasure,

Condemned unto the fire?

Sura.There’s spirit in this.

Paris.Or if desire of honor was the baseOn which the building of the Roman EmpireWas raised up to this height; if, to inflameThe noble youth with an ambitious heatT’ endure the frosts of danger, nay, of death,To be thought worthy the triumphal wreathBy glorious undertakings, may deserveReward or favor from the commonwealth,Actors may put in for as large a shareAs all the sects of the philosophers.They with cold precepts (perhaps seldom read)Deliver what an honorable thingThe active virtue is; but does that fireThe blood, or swell the veins with emulationTo be both good and great, equal to thatWhich is presented on our theatres?Let a good actor, in a lofty scene,Shew great Alcides honour’d in the sweatOf his twelve labours; or a bold CamillusForbidding Rome to be redeem’d with goldFrom the insulting Gauls; or Scipio,After his victories, imposing tributeOn conquer’d Carthage; if done to the life,As if they saw their dangers, and their glories,And did partake with them in their rewards,All that have any spark of Roman in them,The slothful arts laid by, contend to beLike those they see presented.

Paris.Or if desire of honor was the base

On which the building of the Roman Empire

Was raised up to this height; if, to inflame

The noble youth with an ambitious heat

T’ endure the frosts of danger, nay, of death,

To be thought worthy the triumphal wreath

By glorious undertakings, may deserve

Reward or favor from the commonwealth,

Actors may put in for as large a share

As all the sects of the philosophers.

They with cold precepts (perhaps seldom read)

Deliver what an honorable thing

The active virtue is; but does that fire

The blood, or swell the veins with emulation

To be both good and great, equal to that

Which is presented on our theatres?

Let a good actor, in a lofty scene,

Shew great Alcides honour’d in the sweat

Of his twelve labours; or a bold Camillus

Forbidding Rome to be redeem’d with gold

From the insulting Gauls; or Scipio,

After his victories, imposing tribute

On conquer’d Carthage; if done to the life,

As if they saw their dangers, and their glories,

And did partake with them in their rewards,

All that have any spark of Roman in them,

The slothful arts laid by, contend to be

Like those they see presented.

Rusticus.He has putThe consuls to their whisper.

Rusticus.He has put

The consuls to their whisper.

Paris.But ’t is urgedThat we corrupt youth, and traduce superiors.When do we bring a vice upon the stageThat does go off unpunish’d? Do we teach,By the success of wicked undertakings,Others to tread in their forbidden steps?We shew no arts of Lydian panderism,Corinthian poisons, Persian flatteries,But mulcted so in the conclusion, thatEven those spectators that were so inclined,Go home changed men. And, for traducing suchThat are above us, publishing to the worldTheir secret crimes, we are as innocentAs such as are born dumb. When we presentAn heir that does conspire against the lifeOf his dear parent, numbering every hourHe lives as tedious to him, if there beAmong the auditors one whose conscience tells himHe is of the same mould,—WE CANNOT HELP IT.Or, bringing on the stage a loose adulteress,That does maintain the riotous expenseOf him that feeds her greedy lust, yet suffersThe lawful pledges of a former bedTo starve the while for hunger; if a matron,However great in fortune, birth, or titles,Guilty of such a foul, unnatural sin,Cry out, ’T is writ for me,—WE CANNOT HELP IT.Or, when a covetous man’s express’d, whose wealthArithmetic cannot number, and whose lordshipsA falcon in one day cannot fly over,Yet he so sordid in his mind, so griping,As not to afford himself the necessariesTo maintain life; if a patrician(Though honour’d with a consulship) find himselfTouch’d to the quick in this,—WE CANNOT HELP IT.Or, when we show a judge that is corrupt,And will give up his sentence as he favoursThe person, not the cause, saving the guilty,If of his faction, and as oft condemningThe innocent, out of particular spleen;If any in this reverend assembly,Nay, even yourself, my lord, that are the imageOf absent Cæsar, feel something in your bosomThat puts you in remembrance of things past,Or things intended,—’T IS NOT IN US TO HELP IT.I have said, my lord: and now, as you find cause,Or censure us, or free us with applause.”

Paris.But ’t is urged

That we corrupt youth, and traduce superiors.

When do we bring a vice upon the stage

That does go off unpunish’d? Do we teach,

By the success of wicked undertakings,

Others to tread in their forbidden steps?

We shew no arts of Lydian panderism,

Corinthian poisons, Persian flatteries,

But mulcted so in the conclusion, that

Even those spectators that were so inclined,

Go home changed men. And, for traducing such

That are above us, publishing to the world

Their secret crimes, we are as innocent

As such as are born dumb. When we present

An heir that does conspire against the life

Of his dear parent, numbering every hour

He lives as tedious to him, if there be

Among the auditors one whose conscience tells him

He is of the same mould,—WE CANNOT HELP IT.

Or, bringing on the stage a loose adulteress,

That does maintain the riotous expense

Of him that feeds her greedy lust, yet suffers

The lawful pledges of a former bed

To starve the while for hunger; if a matron,

However great in fortune, birth, or titles,

Guilty of such a foul, unnatural sin,

Cry out, ’T is writ for me,—WE CANNOT HELP IT.

Or, when a covetous man’s express’d, whose wealth

Arithmetic cannot number, and whose lordships

A falcon in one day cannot fly over,

Yet he so sordid in his mind, so griping,

As not to afford himself the necessaries

To maintain life; if a patrician

(Though honour’d with a consulship) find himself

Touch’d to the quick in this,—WE CANNOT HELP IT.

Or, when we show a judge that is corrupt,

And will give up his sentence as he favours

The person, not the cause, saving the guilty,

If of his faction, and as oft condemning

The innocent, out of particular spleen;

If any in this reverend assembly,

Nay, even yourself, my lord, that are the image

Of absent Cæsar, feel something in your bosom

That puts you in remembrance of things past,

Or things intended,—’T IS NOT IN US TO HELP IT.

I have said, my lord: and now, as you find cause,

Or censure us, or free us with applause.”

We know nothing else of Massinger’s personal history beyond what has been told, except that the parish register of St. Saviour’s contains this entry: “March 20, 1639–40, buried Philip Massinger, a stranger.” A pathos has been felt by some in the words “a stranger,” as if they implied poverty and desertion. But they merely meant that Massinger did not belong to that parish. John Aubrey is spoken of in the same way in the register of St. Mary Magdalen at Oxford, and for the same reason.

Massinger wrote thirty-seven plays, of which only eighteen have come down to us. The name of one of these non-extant plays, “The Noble Choice,” gives a keen pang to a lover of the poet, for it seems to indicate a subject peculiarly fitted to bring out his best qualities as a dramatist.Four of the lost plays were used to kindle fires by that servant of Mr. Warburton who made such tragic havoc in our earlier dramatic literature, a vulgar Omar without the pious motive of the Commander of the Faithful, if, as is very doubtful, he did indeed order the burning of the Alexandrian Library.

To me Massinger is one of the most interesting as well as one of the most delightful of the old dramatists, not so much for his passion or power, though at times he reaches both, as for the love he shows for those things that are lovely and of good report in human nature, for his sympathy with what is generous and high-minded and honorable, and for his equable flow of a good every-day kind of poetry with few rapids or cataracts, but singularly soothing and companionable. The Latin adjective for gentleman,generosus, fits him aptly. His plots are generally excellent; his versification masterly, with skilful breaks and pauses, capable of every needful variety of emotion; and his dialogue easy, natural, and sprightly, subsiding in the proper places to a refreshing conversational tone. This graceful art was one seldom learned by any of those who may be fairly put in comparison with him. Even when it has put on the sock, their blank verse cannot forget the stride and strut it had caught of the cothurnus. Massinger never mouths or rants, because he seems never to have written merely to fill up an empty space. He is therefore never bombastic, for bombast gets its metaphorical name from its original physical useas padding. Indeed, there are very few empty spaces in his works. His plays are interesting alike from their story and the way it is told. I doubt if there are so many salient short passages, striking images, or pregnant sayings to be found in his works as may be found in those of very inferior men. But we feel always that we are in the company of a serious and thoughtful man, if not in that of a great thinker. Great thinkers, indeed, are seldom so entertaining as he. If he does not tax the mind of his reader, nor call out all its forces with profound problems of psychology, he is infinitely suggestive of not unprofitable reflection, and of agreeable nor altogether purposeless meditation. His is “a world whose course is equable,” where “calm pleasures abide,” if no “majestic pains.” I never could understand Lamb’s putting Middleton and Rowley above him, unless, perhaps, because he was less at home on the humbler levels of humanity, less genial than they, or, at least, than Rowley. But there were no proper æsthetic grounds of comparison, if I am right in thinking, as I do, that he differed from them in kind, and that his kind was the higher.

In quoting from Wordsworth’s “Laodamia” just now, I stopped short of the word “pure,” and said only that Massinger’s world was “equable.” I did this because in some of his lower characters there is a coarseness, nay, a foulness, of thought and sometimes of phrase for which I find it hard to account. There is nothing in it that could possibly corrupt the imagination, for it is altogetherrepulsive. In this case, as in Chapman’s, I should say that it indicated more ignorance of what is debasingly called Life than knowledge of it. With all this he gives frequent evidence of a higher conception of love than was then common. The region in which his mind seems most naturally to dwell is one of honor, courage, devotion, and ethereal sentiment.

I cannot help asking myself, did such a world ever exist? Perhaps not; yet one is inclined to say that it is such a world as might exist, and, if possible, ought to exist. It is a world of noble purpose not always inadequately fulfilled; a world whose terms are easily accepted by the intellect as well as by the imagination. By this I mean that there is nothing violently improbable in it. Some men, and, I believe, more women, live habitually in such a world when they commune with their own minds. It is a world which we visit in thought as we go abroad to renew and invigorate the ideal part of us. The canopy of its heaven is wide enough to stretch over Boston also. I heard, the other day, the story of a Boston merchant which convinces me of it. The late Mr. Samuel Appleton was anxious about a ship of his which was overdue, and was not insured. Every day added to his anxiety, till at last he began to be more troubled about that than about his ship. “Is it possible,” he said to himself, “that I am getting to love money for itself, and not for its noble uses?” He added together the value of the ship and the estimated profit on her cargo, found it tobe $40,000, and at once devoted that amount to charities in which he was interested. This kind of thingmayhappen, and sometimesdoeshappen, in the actual world; italwayshappens in the world where Massinger lays his scene. That is the difference, and it is by reason of this difference that I like to be there. I move more freely and breathe more inspiring air among those encouraging possibilities. As I just said, we find no difficulty in reconciling ourselves with its conditions. We find no difficulty even where there is an absolute disengagement from all responsibility to the matter-of-fact, as in the “Arabian Nights,” which I read through again a few years ago with as much pleasure as when a boy, perhaps with more. For it appears to me that it is the business of all imaginative literature to offer us a sanctuary from the world of the newspapers, in which we have to live, whether we will or no. As in looking at a picture we must place ourselves at the proper distance to harmonize all its particulars into an effective whole, I am not sure that life is not seen in a truer perspective when it is seen in the fairer prospect of an ideal remoteness. Perhaps we must always go a little way back in order to get into the land of romance, as Scott and Hawthorne did. And yet it is within us too. An unskilful story-teller always raises our suspicion by putting a foot-note to any improbable occurrence, to say “This is a fact,” and the so-called realist raises doubts in my mind when he assures me that he, and he alone, gives me the facts of life. Toooften all I can say is, if these are the facts, I don’t want them. The police reports give me more than I care for every day. But are they the facts? I had much rather believe them to be the accidental and transitory phenomena of our existence here. The real and abiding facts are those that are recognized as such by the soul when it is in that upper chamber of our being which is farthest removed from the senses, and commerces with its truer self. I very much prefer “King Lear” to Balzac’s bourgeois version of it in “Le Père Goriot,” as I do thenaïvetéof Miranda to that of Voltaire’s Ingénu, and, when I look about me in the Fortunate Islands of the poet, would fain exclaim with her:

“O! wonder!How many goodly creatures are there here!How beauteous mankind is! O, brave new world,That has such people in ’t!”

“O! wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O, brave new world,

That has such people in ’t!”

Those old poets had a very lordly contempt for probability when improbability would serve their purpose better. But Massinger taxes our credulity less than most of them, for his improbabilities are never moral; that is, are never impossibilities. I do not recall any of those sudden conversions in his works from baseness to loftiness of mind, and from vice to virtue, which trip up all our expectations so startlingly in many an old play. As to what may be called material improbabilities, we should remember that two hundred and fifty years ago many things were possible, with great advantage to complication of plot, which are no longer so. The hand of an absolute prince could givea very sudden impulse to the wheel of Fortune, whether to lift a minion from the dust or hurl him back again; men might be taken by Barbary corsairs and sold for slaves, or turn Turks, as occasion required. The world was fuller of chances and changes than now, and the boundaries of the possible, if not of the probable, far wider. Massinger was discreet in the use of these privileges, and does not abuse them, as his contemporaries and predecessors so often do. His is a possible world, though it be in some ways the best of all possible worlds. He puts no strain upon our imaginations.

As a poet he is inferior to many others, and this follows inevitably from the admission we feel bound to make that good sense and good feeling are his leading qualities—yet ready to forget their sobriety in the exhilaration of romantic feeling. When Nature makes a poet, she seems willing to sacrifice all other considerations. Yet this very good sense of Massinger’s has made him excellent as a dramatist. His “New Way to pay Old Debts” is a very effective play, though in the reading far less interesting and pleasing than most of the others. Yet there are power and passion in it, even if the power be somewhat melodramatic, and the passion of an ignoble type. In one respect he was truly a poet—his conceptions of character were ideal; but his diction, though full of dignity and never commonplace, lacks the charm of the inspired and inspiring word, the relief of the picturesque image that comes so naturallyto the help of Fletcher. Where he is most fanciful, indeed, the influence of Fletcher is only too apparent both in his thought and diction. I should praise him chiefly for the atmosphere of magnanimity which invests his finer scenes, and which it is wholesome to breathe. In Massinger’s plays people behave generously, as if that were the natural thing to do, and give us a comfortable feeling that the world is not so bad a place, after all, and that perhaps Schopenhauer was right in enduring for seventy-two years a life that wasn’t worth living. He impresses one as a manly kind of person, and the amount of man in a poet, though it may not add to his purely poetical quality, adds much, I think, to our pleasure in reading his works.

* * * * *

I have left myself little space in which to speak of Ford, but it will suffice. In reading him again after a long interval, with elements of wider comparison, and provided with more trustworthy tests, I find that the greater part of what I once took on trust as precious is really paste and pinchbeck. His plays seem to me now to be chiefly remarkable for that filigree-work of sentiment which we call sentimentality. The word “alchemy” once had a double meaning. It was used to signify both the process by which lead could be transmuted into gold, and the alloy of baser metal by which gold could be adulterated without losing so much of its specious semblance as to be readily detected. The ring of the true metal can be partially imitated,and for a while its glow, but the counterfeit grows duller as the genuine grows brighter with wear. The greater poets have found out the ennobling secret, the lesser ones the trick of falsification. Ford seems to me to have been a master in it. He abounds especially in mock pathos. I remember when he thoroughly imposed on me. A youth, unacquainted with grief and its incommunicable reserve, sees nothing unnatural or indecent in those expansive sorrows precious only because they can be confided to the first comer, and finds a pleasing titillation in the fresh-water tears with which they cool his eyelids. But having once come to know the jealous secretiveness of real sorrow, we resent these conspiracies to waylay our sympathy,—conspiracies of the opera plotted at the top of the lungs. It is joy that is wont to over-flow, but grief shrinks back to its sources. I suspect the anguish that confides its loss to the town-crier. Even in that single play of Ford’s which comes nearest to the true pathetic, “The Broken Heart,” there is too much apparent artifice, and Charles Lamb’s comment on its closing scene is worth more than all Ford ever wrote. But a critic must look at itminusCharles Lamb. We may read as much of ourselves into a great poet as we will; we shall never cancel our debt to him. In the interests of true literature we should not honor fraudulent drafts upon our imagination.

Ford has an air of saying something without ever saying it that is peculiarly distressing to a man who values his time. His diction is hackneyedand commonplace, and has seldom the charm of unexpected felicity, so much a matter of course with the elder poets. Especially does his want of imagination show itself in his metaphors. The strong direct thrust of phrase which we cannot parry, sometimes because of very artlessness, is never his.

Compare, for example, this passage with one of similar content fromShakespeare:—

“Keep in,Bright angel, that severer breath to coolThe heat of cruelty which sways the templeOf your too stony breast; you cannot urgeOne reason to rebuke my trembling pleaWhich I have not, with many nights’ expense,Examined; but, oh Madam, still I findNo physic strong to cure a tortured mindBut freedom from the torture it sustains.”

“Keep in,

Bright angel, that severer breath to cool

The heat of cruelty which sways the temple

Of your too stony breast; you cannot urge

One reason to rebuke my trembling plea

Which I have not, with many nights’ expense,

Examined; but, oh Madam, still I find

No physic strong to cure a tortured mind

But freedom from the torture it sustains.”

Now hearShakespeare:—

“Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,Raze out the written troubles of the brain,And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of the perilous stuffWhich weighs upon the heart?”

“Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

Raze out the written troubles of the brain,

And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,

Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of the perilous stuff

Which weighs upon the heart?”

Ford lingers-out his heart-breaks too much. He recalls to my mind a speech of Calianax in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Maid’s Tragedy:” “You have all fine new tricks to grieve. But I ne’er knew any but direct crying.” One is tempted to prefer the peremptory way in which the old ballad-mongers dealt with suchmatters:—

“She turned her face unto the wa’,And there her very heart it brak.”

“She turned her face unto the wa’,

And there her very heart it brak.”

I cannot bid you farewell without thanking you for the patience with which you have followed me to the end. I may have seemed sometimes to be talking to you of things that would weigh but as thistle-down in the great business-scales of life. But I have an old opinion, strengthening with years, that it is as important to keep the soul alive as the body: nay, that it is the life of the soul which gives all its value to that of the body. Poetry is a criticism of life only in the sense that it furnishes us with the standard of a more ideal felicity, of calmer pleasures and more majestic pains. I am glad to see that what the understanding would stigmatize as useless is coming back into books written for children, which at one time threatened to become more and more drearily practical and didactic. The fairies are permitted once more to imprint their rings on the tender sward of the child’s fancy, and it is the child’s fancy that often lives obscurely on to minister solace to the lonelier and less sociable mind of the man. Our nature resents the closing up of the windows on its emotional and imaginative side, and revenges itself as it can. I have observed that many who deny the inspiration of Scripture hasten to redress their balance by giving a reverent credit to the revelations of inspired tables and camp-stools. In a last analysis it may be said that it is to the sense of Wonder that all literature of the Fancy and of the Imagination appeals. I am told that this sense is the survival in us of some savage ancestor of theage of flint. If so, I am thankful to him for his longevity, or his transmitted nature, whichever it may be. But I have my own suspicion sometimes that the true age of flint is before, and not behind us, an age hardening itself more and more to those subtle influences which ransom our lives from the captivity of the actual, from that dungeon whose warder is the Giant Despair. Yet I am consoled by thinking that the siege of Troy will be remembered when those of Vicksburg and Paris are forgotten. One of the old dramatists, Thomas Heywood, has, without meaning it, set down for us the uses of thepoets:—

“They cover us with counsel to defend usFrom storms without; they polish us withinWith learning, knowledge, arts, and disciplines;All that is nought and vicious they sweep from usLike dust and cobwebs; our rooms concealedHang with the costliest hangings ’bout the walls,Emblems and beauteous symbols pictured round.”

“They cover us with counsel to defend us

From storms without; they polish us within

With learning, knowledge, arts, and disciplines;

All that is nought and vicious they sweep from us

Like dust and cobwebs; our rooms concealed

Hang with the costliest hangings ’bout the walls,

Emblems and beauteous symbols pictured round.”

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