John Massinger

“ It is a large honor to Massinger that of all the dramas I have named—outside some few of Shakespeare’s—no one is so well known to modern play-goers as the “New Way to Pay Old Debts.” The character of Sir Giles Overreach does not lose its terrible significance. In our times, as in the old times,
“He frights men out of their estates,
And breaks through all law-nets—made to curb ill men—
As they were cobwebs.”
When Massinger died tradition says that he was thrust into the same grave which had been opened [95] shortly before for John Fletcher ”

“ No student of our comic drama can ignore the brilliant vigour of The City Madam.481 The characters one and all contribute to an harmonious unity, the most lifelike perhaps being Sir John Frugal, the bluff, successful British merchant, tender-hearted, yet ashamed of being unbusinesslike, and a good judge of men. The plot moves easily, not overloaded with satire. The women remind us of Ben Jonson's women, but with less strength there is a greater art shown here than Ben Jonson had at his command. The great triumph of the play is the hypocrite Luke, to whom some splendid rhetoric is assigned. ”

“ Next to the grace and dignity of sentiment in Massinger, we must praise those qualities in his style. Every modern critic has been struck by the peculiar beauty of his language. In his harmonious swell of numbers, in his pure and genuine idiom, which a text, by good fortune and the diligence of its last editor, far less corrupt than that of Fletcher, enables us to enjoy, we find an unceasing charm. The poetical talents of Massinger were very considerable; his taste superior to that of his contemporaries; the colouring of his imagery is rarely over-charged ”

“ Massinger had great qualities. He was religious, and of rare honesty and independence; yet his religion did not purify his thoughts, nor tend, consequently, to chasten his productions--and his circumstances wore away his real independence, as his dedications testify. His conceptions of what was noble, of what was virtuous, are beautifully expressed in those plays, which are yet so full of coarseness as to be unpresentable; and whilst he never loses any opportunity of exalting virtue, he seizes every occasion of depraving the taste, if not the mind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Friend of the great as he was, Ben Jonson was yet an Aristophanic, nay, a Rabelaisian democrat; Massinger is a gentleman and a courtier. The one has the vigour and immaturity of the Elizabethan age, and in him we feel in contact with the obsolete Mystery and Morality plays;431 the other has the refinement and romance of the Caroline era. The one is a powerful satirist and a pugnacious fighter; the other lives in an ideal world. ”

“ Did sit triumphant.132 But there is another characteristic of Massinger's style and that perhaps more obvious still; it is full of courtliness and grace. A perusal of The City Madam, where the subject is the absurdity of the ladies of the Mansion House who ape the manners of the West End, suggests the question whether Massinger was ever attached to the Court. We do not know. He must, at any rate, have moved amongst refined and educated people. ”

“ True love is vehement--but it is delicate; and it would have elevated his thoughts, and purified his expressions. Massinger may have done justice to the intellect and companionship of his countrywomen, but he had no reverence for the most beautiful part of their nature; and in this, as in other respects, is far below Shakspeare.
The obscurity which overshadowed all Massinger’s career has rendered any communication, as we have seen, between him and Buckingham, doubtful ”

“ To honour her with a visit.
Page. 'Tis a favour
Will make her proud.
Ful. I know it.
Page. I am gone, sir. [Exit.
[Pg 326] Ful. Entreaties fit not me; a man in grace
May challenge awe and privilege, by his place.
[Exit.
SCENE II. The same. A Room in Camiola's House.
Enter Adorni, Sylli, and Clarinda.
Ador. So melancholy, say you!
Clar. Never given
To such retirement.
Ador. Can you guess the cause?
Clar. If it hath not its birth and being from
The brave Bertoldo's absence, I confess
'Tis past my apprehension.
Syl. You are wide,
The whole field wide [147] . ”

“ Whether Massinger ever acted or not, is as doubtful as every other incident of his early life. It was not until 1614 that a glimmering of his actual condition in life is seen through the darkness, and the disclosure is melancholy and discouraging. There is something touching, as well as dreary, in the gloom that one can only diversify with scenes of penury and imprisonment for debt. ”

“ The world yields not his equal.
Artem. Yet I have heard,
Encountering him alone in the head of his troop,
You took him prisoner.
K. of Epire. 'Tis a truth, great princess:
I'll not detract from valour.
Anton. 'Twas mere fortune;
Courage had no hand in it.
Theoph. Did ever man
Strive so against his own good?
Sap. Spiritless villain!
How I am tortured! By the immortal gods,
I now could kill him.
Diocle. Hold, Sapritius, hold,
On our displeasure, hold!
Harp. Why, this would make
A father mad; 'tis not to be endured;
[Pg 45] Your honour's tainted in 't. ”

“ The oracles of the gods, than question what
Your innocence delivers; and, as far
As justice and mine honour can give way,
He shall have favour. Bring him in unbound:
[Exeunt Officers.
And though Leosthenes may challenge from me,
For his late worthy service, credit to
All things he can allege in his own cause,
Marullo, so, I think, you call his name,
Shall find I do reserve one ear for him,
Enter Cleon, Asotus, Diphilus, Olympia, and Corisca.
To let in mercy. Sit, and take your places;
The right of this fair virgin first determined,
Your bondmen shall be censured [129] . ”

“ Thy excellencies: thou, as beauty's queen,
Shalt censure [92] the detractors. Let my nephew
Be led in triumph under her command;
[Pg 194] We'll have it so; and Sanazarro tremble
To think whom he hath slander'd. We'll retire
Ourselves a little, and prepare to meet
A blessing, which imagination tells us
We are not worthy of: and then come forth,
But with such reverence, as if I were
Myself the priest, the sacrifice my heart,
To offer at the altar of that goodness
That must or kill or save me. ”

“ Enter at one door Leosthenes and Timagoras; at the other, Officers with Marullo, and Timandra.
Timol. Your hand, Leosthenes: I cannot doubt,
You, that have been victorious in the war,
Should, in a combat fought with words, come off
But with assured triumph.
[Pg 291] Leost. My deserts, sir,
If, without arrogance, I may style them such,
Arm me from doubt and fear.
Timol. 'Tis nobly spoken.
Nor be thou daunted (howsoe'er thy fortune
Has mark'd thee out a slave) to speak thy merits:
For virtue, though in rags, may challenge more
Than vice, set off with all the trim of greatness. ”

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

“ Philip Massinger was the son of Arthur Massinger, a retainer in the household of the Earl of Pembroke. A retainer was often a gentleman of good birth but small means, and this was probably the condition of Arthur Massinger, who, from his carrying letters from his master, the Earl, to Queen Elizabeth, could not have been a man of low origin, else he would not have been admitted to the honour of conveying any dispatch to one who placed so much importance on lineage in those who entered her presence. ”

“ Mortal man surely never looked upon so strange a scene—so crowded with all the elements of beauty, terror, and sublimity.
"Well worth the voyage," thought Massinger—"the dissevering of familiar ties and associations—but to have enjoyed this intoxicating experience!" How poor, how narrow the life which contented his compatriots!—which contented him before the Great Disaster, when his flight to this Ultima Thule appeared the welcome resort of a man careless of the future, if only relief might be gained from the intolerable anguish of the present. ”

“ Beaumont and Fletcher, "Valentinian, Thierry and Theodoret." See Massinger's "Picture," which resembles Musset's "Barberine." Its crudity, the extraordinary repulsive energy, will show the difference of the two ages.
[460] Massinger's Works, ed. H. Coleridge, 1859, "Duke of Milan," II. 1.
[461] Ibid. V. 2.
[462] Massinger, "The Fatal Dowry"; Webster and Ford, "A late Murther of the Sonne upon the Mother" (a play not extant) ; "'Tis pity she's a Whore." See also Ford's "Broken Heart," with its sublime scenes of agony and madness. ”

“ I have before me several letters from him to persons of note and consequence, all signed "Arthur Massinger;" and to show his importance in the family to which he was attached, I need only mention, that in 1597, when a match was proposed between the son of Lord Pembroke and the daughter of Lord Burghley, Massinger, the poet's father, was the confidential agent employed between the parties. My purpose at present is to advert to a matter which occurred ten years earlier, and to which the note I am about to transcribe relates. ”

“ 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 guardian119 and reformer of morals that I will quote it:—
“Aretinus. ”

“ Mr. Gilchrist thinks (and I believe rightly) that Massinger, who evidently regarded the Duke of Buckingham with no favourable eye, here reflects on the use of sedan-chairs, which his grace first introduced, from Spain, about this period. They were carried, as Massinger says, "on men's shoulders," and the novelty provoked no small displeasure against the favourite, who, in thus employing his servants, was charged, by the writers of those times, with "degrading Englishmen into slaves and beasts of burden, to gratify his inordinate vanity."—Gifford. ”

“ When the march was less difficult, and there was leisure for conversation, Mannering beguiled the way with tales and reminiscences which caused Massinger to wonder unceasingly that a man so variously gifted, possessed of such social charm, so wide an experience of men and books, should have elected to wear out his life amid a barbaric race. ”

“ Here Massinger is more successful than his great model in the case of Shylock and Jessica. I cannot agree that it is inconsistent with the character of Sir Giles that he should be anxious for his daughter to marry a lord—there are several passages in the earlier part of the play which show that he is not only a bully but a base-born snob.452
Where so much is admirable it is difficult to make selection, but we may point out that Wellborn's character is a fine piece of work; we pity his disgrace, we rejoice in his success, we believe in his desire to do better in the future. ”

“ Such, for example, is Massinger's, who always reminds me of Schiller. Both wrote plays, but in both writers the faculty of losing themselves in their characters is wanting. The nobleness of Schiller appears in all his works, and constitutes a large part of their charm. So in Massinger all tends to generosity and elevation. His worst villains are ready to be converted and turn saints at the least provocation. Their wickedness is in a condition of unstable equilibrium; it topples over, and goodness becomes supreme in a single moment. Massinger could not create really wicked people ”

“ Mason constantly suffered from pains in the head, and was frequently so sensitive to noise that he retired to an empty house, where even the sound of his own footsteps and his low voice when he prayed caused him pain. He was liable to vivid and terrifying dreams, and subject to visual hallucination. The parish register of Water Stratford records the baptisms of four sons and one daughter of 'John Mason and Mary his wife ' between 1677 and 1684. John (born 1677) became a dissenting minister at Daventry, Northamptonshire, at Dunmow, Essex, and at Spaldwick, Huntingdonshire, successively. ”

“ Whom they have injured, they may faint with horror
Of my revenge, which, wretched men! expect,
As sure as fate, to suffer.
Leost. Ha! Pisander!
Timag. 'Tis the bold Theban!
Asot. There's no hope for me then:
I thought I should have put in for a share,
And borne Cleora from them both; but now,
This stranger looks so terrible, that I dare not
So much as look on her.
Pisan. Now as myself,
Thy equal at thy best, Leosthenes.
For you, Timagoras, praise heaven you were born
Cleora's brother; 'tis your safest armour. ”

“ Borachia, the lady who loves wine, is drawn with a lighter hand than Massinger's; yet I feel that Fletcher, unassisted or unpruned, would have made the scenes in which she appears grosser than they are. Antonio, the Prince of Tarent, reminds us of a clean-limbed, honest English public-school boy; he is slow to take offence, but brave when provoked, sorry for the mischance of which he is the innocent cause, courteous, and ready on all occasions. ”