PHILIP MASSINGER.

[PHILIP MASSINGER, the son of Arthur Massinger, a gentleman attached in some capacity to the family of Henry, second Earl of Pembroke, was born at Wilton, the seat of the Wiltons, in the year 1584. Massinger, in all likelihood, received the rudiments of his education at the place of his birth, although little is known of his early years, and nearly as little of the rest of his life. When the dramatist was sixteen years of age, the patron of himself and his father died; but William, the third earl, continued the latter in his service probably till his death. Massinger became a student of St. Alban's Hall, Oxford, in 1602, in the eighteenth year of his age, where he was maintained apparently at the expense of his father. While at college, Anthony-à-Wood tells us that he gave his mind more to poetry and romance, for about four years or more, than to logic and philosophy, which he ought to have done.' Gifford, however, thinks he must have applied himself to study with uncommon energy, for his literary acquisitions at this early period appear to be multifarious and extensive. He left college abruptly and without taking his degree, for which various reasons are alleged, the most likely being the death of his father, which left him entirely without the means of support, the Earl of Pembroke treating him with entire neglect. Another reason urged to account both for his abruptly leaving college and for the Earl of Pembroke's neglect is, that he had become a convert to Roman Catholicism; this, however, is a mere conjecture of Mr. Gifford's, founded on certain expressions in some of his dramas, and is in every way improbable. In all likelihood Massinger went straight to London on quitting college, and there betook himself to almost the only means then available to a friendless, penniless genius for earning a livelihood-mending and writing plays. He became connected with some of the most celebrated of his contemporaries, in conjunction with several of whom he appears to have concocted several dramas,—a practice, we have seen, then very common. We have evidence of this, as well as of Massinger's necessitous condition, in a letter written about 1612 by him, in conjunction with some others, to the well-known manager and play-broker, Henslow. It is as follows:

'To our most loving friend, Mr. Philip Hinchlow, esquire, These,

'Mr. Hinchlow,

'You understand our unfortunate extremitie, and I doe not thincke you so void of cristianitie but that you would throw so much money into the Thames as wee request now of you, rather than endanger so many innocent lives. You know there is xl. more at least to be receaved 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 bayled, nor I play any more till this be dispatch'd. It will lose you xxl. ere the end of the next weeke, besides the hinderance 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. Wee have entreated Mr. Davison to deliver this note, as well to witness your love as our promises, and alwayes acknowledgement to be ever,

'Your most thanckfull and loving friend,

NAT. FIELD.'

'The money shall be abated out of the money remayns for the play of Mr. Fletcher and ours.

ROB. DABORNE.'

'I have ever found you a true loving friend to mee, and in soe small a suite, it beeinge honest, I hope you will not fail us. PHILIP MASSINGER.'

Indorsed

'Received by mee Robert Davison of Mr. Hinchlow for the use of Mr. Daboerne, Mr. Feeld, Mr. Messenger, the sum of vl. ROB. DAVISON.'

Massinger left college about 1606, and the earliest known play of his still extant is The Virgin Martyr, which did not appear in print till 1622; but it is certain that previous to this he must have written or helped to write many others, which have been either lost or cannot now be identified. A Mr. Warburton, Somerset Herald of last century, formed an extensive collection of the writings of our old dramatists, which fell into the hands of his cook; and when Warburton 'after a lapse of years condescends to revisit his hoards, he finds they have been burnt, from an economical wish to save him the charges of more valuable brown paper.' In this sacrilegious way, it has been conjectured, were consumed about twelve of Massinger's plays, besides forty other manuscript plays of various authors. Of these lost twelve, no doubt a number must have been written previous to 1622. After this he continued industriously writing plays till his death, eighteen altogether being still extant. Although neglected by the Earl of Pembroke, he found other patrons, who appear to have added a little to the very slender income he derived from the sale of his plays; but withal, and notwithstanding that he seems to have led a more correct life than was the case with most of his contemporaries, it appears to have been one of poverty, misfortune, and sadness. He probably never married, and to all appearance, after his father's death, he had no relation of any kind alive. His death, like his life, was mysterious and lonely; it took place on the 17th of March 1640. He went to bed, says Langhaine, in good health, and was found dead in the morning in his own house on the Bankside. Such is the received account,' says Hartley Coleridge; but he seems to have had none to care for him, none to mark his symptoms, or to detect the slow decay which he might conceal, in despair of sympathy.' He was buried in the churchyard of St. Saviour's, and the comedians paid the last sad duty to his name, by attending him to the grave. No stone or inscription of any kind marked his resting-place; but, on the authority of Sir Aston Cockayne, one of Massinger's most intimate acquaintance and his warm admirer, he was buried in the grave of his brother dramatist Fletcher. His death is thus entered in the parish register:-' March 20, 1639-40, buried Philip Massinger, a stranger.' This entry has been pathetically commented on by Gifford and others; but Mr. Collier has shown that the word 'stranger' was applied to every person who was buried in a parish to which he did not belong.

Massinger's best known plays are The Virgin Martyr (printed 1622); The Duke of Milan (1623); The Bondman (acted 1622, printed 1624); The Fatal Dowry (1632); The City Madam (acted 1632); A New Way to Pay Old Debts (1633).

The chief merits of Massinger's plays are their unusual earnestness and religiousness of tone, the power of deep reflection, and of depicting with a master hand the tenderer human emotions which they display, and the richness, beauty, music, and often stateliness of their language. His dramas display far more care and elaboration than those of Beaumont and Fletcher, on at least an equal level with whom we are inclined to place him. As we esteem Massinger one of the greatest and most worthy of our dramatists, we shall take the liberty of appending a somewhat minute list of the qualities displayed in his works, taken from the volume of the Cabinet Cyclopædia on the British Dramatists:—‘1. His style is natural, yet elegant; it is easy, clear, flowing, and unaffected. Its great beauty, indeed, is perspicuity; he does not rise into bombast; but he does sometimes descend lower than he ought. 2. If his plots are sometimes intricate, they are always connected; circumstances apparently of trifling import, are made the hinges of important events. 3. And he observes the unities more than the writers of his age, Ben Jonson and one or two more excepted. Of these, unity of action is always essential. He has rarely under-plots; and when he has, they are so skilfully allied with the pervading one, as not to affect the simplicity and clearness of the action. Sometimes, indeed, he has too much incident; and this hurries the piece so much that we have not leisure enough to dwell on the delineation of character. 4. Of his learning,

we can only say that it was respectable. He has many classical allusions, but these he sometimes applies with little judgment. They are proper enough in the mouth of Dorothea, the Virgin-Martyr, when she wishes to convict her pagan antagonists of folly in their monstrous creed; but they are sadly misplaced in the mouths of women and servants. He seems to have read the early fathers, or at least so much of ecclesiastical history as to be conversant with their spirit. Nor was he ignorant of general history. But he was far more conversant with the traditionary lore of the middle ages. He had read the romances of France and Italy with great attention. His plots are often founded on them. 5. Of his morals we say, as we have already said, that though he has many indecent expressions, many allusions still more so, he is generally ready to visit guilt with retribution. This is one of his distinguishing characteristics. Let us not, however, forget to condemn him for the obscenity of some among his dialogues. He had, indeed, no liking to it; he writes as if he were undergoing a painful necessity; as if he felt that, if he would have his dramas popular, he must sacrifice to the mob. For this reason, there is, we are glad to perceive, something very lifeless in such descriptions: they have no charm, they can have none, for the most prurient mind. He has not laboured to render vice attractive, and therefore he has not succeeded. In this, he is unlike most of his contemporaries. Beaumont, the son of a judge, Fletcher, the son of a bishop, were far more licentious. 6. His characters are delineated, not, indeed, with the master hand of Jonson, but with considerable felicity. They are, however, more true to nature than those of his celebrated contemporary. He drew more from history or from real life; and he has, consequently, exhibited portraits, less striking indeed, but far more just. 7. In poetic fancy he is not equal to Beaumont, or Fletcher, or Ford; but he is superior to Ben Jonson. He writes with too much ease to be studious about words; and he seldom allows a metaphor to carry him beyond the bounds of sobriety. 8. Of sublimity he has little. He did not, however, aim at it. 9. Nor can we say that he has great power over the passions. He inspires pity, indeed, but seldom terror; and he does not draw tears. Still he rivets the attention, both by the striking nature of his incidents, and by the animation of his dialogue. 10. Of wit he has absolutely none. Hence he was unfitted for comedy. On the whole, we may say of him, with Dr. Ireland, that “he does not soar to the heights of fancy: he dwells among men, and describes their business and their passions with judgment, feeling, and discrimination. He has a justness of principle which is admirably fitted to the best interests of human life."

We have selected, as giving a fair idea of Massinger's powers, The Virgin-Martyr, The Duke of Milan, and A New Way to Pay Old Debts, the last being, even at the present day, sometimes seen upon the stage.]