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The scene which succeeds this reminds us of the last in King John. The ravings of the poisoned emperor, however, though clothed in a drapery of similar imagery, have not the intense grandeur of the death-scene of Shakspeare's monarch.

Fletcher's comedies are light, airy, fluttering, vivacious, full of diverting situations, and often sparkling with fancy and wit; but still superficial and farcical, compared with Shakspeare's and Jonson's. They have none of that intensity of humor, little of that substantial life, which we demand in English comedy. The gentleman, as understood by Fletcher, is of a different type from that indicated by old Decker. Beaumont and Fletcher, according to Dryden, understood and imitated much better than Shakspeare "the conversation of gentlemen, whose wild debaucheries, and quickness of wit in repartees, no poet can ever paint as they have done." We trust that they never will be equalled in this department of character. Their "studiously protracted" indecency, and their command of all the gibberish and slang of lust and vulgarity, make their comedies curious libels on the taste and morals of their audiences. Fletcher could not escape from the foul imp that had taken possession of his imagination, even in The Faithful Shepherdess, which, with all its poetic beauty and pastoral sweetness, is still so defiled in parts as to merit Schlegel's ironical comment, of its being an immodest defence of modesty. The tone and pitch of Fletcher's mind, as compared with Milton's, may be seen in the contrast between The Faithful Shepherdess and Comus. Milton is indebted to Fletcher for the suggestion of his subject, but this debt is paid a thousand fold in the treatment of it.

Of Massinger and Ford we have space to say but little. Hazlitt remarks, that " Massinger is harsh and crabbed, Ford, finical and fastidious "; and that he cannot find much in their works, but "a display of great strength or subtlety of understanding, inveteracy of purpose, and perversity of will." Hunt accuses them of beginning that corruption of the dramatic style into prose, which "came to its head in Shirley." Hallam, on the contrary, ranks Massinger as a tragic writer second only to Shakspeare; but Hallam is often strangely infelicitous in his judgments on the old poets. The truth seems to be, that Massinger's spirit was unimpassioned, com

pared with his great contemporaries; his imagination was not pervaded by that fiery essence which gives to their style its figurative condensation, its abrupt turns, and its quick, startling flights. His mind was more gentle, equable, and reflective. There is a majestic sadness in Massinger, an indication of great energies preyed upon and weakened by inward sorrow, a stifled anguish of spirit, which seem to point to unfortunate circumstances in his life. There is every reason to believe that he was a disappointed man, though little of his biography is known. He was born in 1584. His father was a gentleman in the service of the Earl of Pembroke. At the age of eighteen he was sent to Oxford, and, after residing there four years, left without taking a degree, and went to London, where he gained a precarious subsistence as a dramatic writer. Anthony Wood says, that while at Oxford 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, being patronized to that end." This shows that he offended a patron. Massinger's spirit was independent, though not fiery, and probably would not brook any exercise of power which controlled his disposition. There runs through his plays an almost republican hatred of arbitrary rule. As a man, Massinger seems to have been much esteemed for his virtues. The panegyrists of his plays address to him terms almost of endearment; he is their "beloved," "dear," "deserving," "long known," and "long loved friend." As a dramatist, however, though his plays appear to have been successful, and written at the rate of two or three a year, he never raised himself above the poor gentleReynolds and Morton, at the close of the last century, generally obtained five hundred pounds for their five-act farces and sentimental dramas; Massinger, in his day, could not hope to average more than fifteen for his comedies and tragedies. He is known to have written, in all, thirty-seven plays, of which sixteen and the fragment of another are extant. Eleven of them, in manuscript, were in the possession of a Mr. Warburton, whose cook found them very serviceable, as waste paper, in the prosecution of culinary operations.

Massinger died on the 17th of March, 1640, at the age of fifty-six. According to Langbaine, he went to bed in good health, and was found dead in the morning. He was buried

in the church-yard of St. Saviour's. No stone marks the place of his interment; and "the only memorial of his mortality," says Gifford, "is given with a pathetic brevity, which accords but too well with the obscure and humble passages of his life: March 20, 1639-40, buried Philip Massinger, a stranger.'"

Massinger did not write so closely to the heart of things as some of his contemporaries. His sweet and serious mind was better fitted for description and contemplation than for representation. Possessing neither wit nor humor in any eminent degree, he had not that quick, joyous sympathy with external things, which sent the souls of many of his brethren running genially out to animate other forms of being. His characters are framed rather in the region of the understanding and the moral sentiments, than conceived by the imagination; and though often morally beautiful, have not the free, flowing, substantial life which we require in dramatic representation. The resistance of virtue to all temptations is bis favorite theme; but the temptations are often contrived out of the natural course of things, and exist rather as possibilities to the intellect than realities to the imagination. Had he possessed a little more of spontaneous creative energy, he would have been a great dramatist. His reflective habit of mind tended at once to restrain his passionateness within the bounds of a preconceived order, and to dim that keen vision by which the poet penetrates into the inmost recesses of the soul, and lays open the finest veins of thought and sentiment. Still, Massinger is one of the most original of the old dramatists, and his plays, though they do not reach the heights nor strike the depths of some others, are sustained throughout with more skill and level power. His style has been long celebrated for its sweetness and majesty of march, and its freedom from "violent metaphors and harsh constructions." "He is read," says Lamb, "with composure and placid delight." His plays exhibit a more pervading religious feeling than those of his contemporaries; and, strange to add, a coarseness of expression, in some parts, more vulgar and disgusting than the same quality in others, because utterly wanting in wit and fancy. His indecencies seem coldly and atrociously contrived in the understanding, without the concurrence of his other powers, and only introduced in obedience to "the spirit of the age." "They are

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most essentially of the mud, muddy. They affect us like lewdness muttered from the lips of age; and his jests must be considered, on the whole, more tragical than his pathos. We never gaze on his fine serious face, as it looks out so mournfully from the canvass, without feeling how sad and degrading, how replete with that self-contempt "bitterer to drink than blood" must have been to him the task of coining vile indecencies, and bespattering his creations with the phraseology of the fish-market. It is due to Massinger to say, that his coarseness is introduced, rather than woven, into his dramas, and that the string which binds the seraph to the corpse can be easily severed.

Massinger's most powerful male characters are Sforza, in The Duke of Milan, Sir Giles Overreach, in the New Way to pay Old Debts, and Luke, in The City Madam. The second of these still keeps the stage, and the third sometimes appears in a modern version, called Riches. Luke is a fine villain, forcibly conceived and strongly sustained. As we have but little space for extracts from Massinger, we can hardly do better than give Luke's soliloquy on taking a survey of his new wealth.

"Luke. "T was no fantastic object, but a truth,
A real truth, no dream. I did not slumber;
And could wake ever with a brooding eye
To gaze upon 't! it did endure the touch;
I saw and felt it. Yet what I beheld
And handled oft did so transcend belief
(My wonder and astonishment pass'd o'er),
I faintly could give credit to my senses.
Thou dumb magician,

That without a charm

Didst make my entrance easy to possess

[To the Key.

What wise men wish and toil for! Hermes' Moly,
Sybilla's golden bough, the great elixir

Imagin'd only by the alchemist,

Compar'd with thee, are shadows, thou the substance

And guardian of felicity. No marvel,

My brother made thy place of rest his bosom,
Thou being the keeper of his heart, a mistress
To be hugg'd ever. In by-corners of
This sacred room, silver, in bags heap'd up
Like billets saw'd and ready for the fire,
Unworthy to hold fellowship with bright gold,

That flow'd about the room, conceal'd itself.
There needs no artificial light, the splendor
Makes a perpetual day there, night and darkness
By that still-burning lamp for ever banish'd.
But when, guided by that, my eyes had made
Discovery of the caskets, and they open'd,
Each sparkling diamond from itself shot forth
A pyramid of flames, and in the roof
Fix'd it a glorious star, and made the place
Heaven's abstract, or epitome. Rubies, sapphires,
And robes of orient pearl, these seen, I could not
But look on gold with contempt. And yet I found,
What weak credulity could have no faith in,
A treasure far exceeding these. Here lay
A manor bound fast in a skin of parchment;
The wax continuing hard, the acres melting.
Here a sure deed of gift for a market-town,
If not redeem'd this day; which is not in

The unthrift's power. There being scarce one shire
In Wales or England, where my moneys are not
Lent out at usury, the certain hook
To draw in more.'

Lamb, Vol. 11., pp. 172, 173.

John Ford, a scholar and gentleman, occupies a prominent place in English dramatic literature, as a poet of pathos and sentiment. His most splendid successes are in the handling of subjects which are, in themselves, unwritten tragedies, the deepest distresses of the heart and the terrible aberrations of the passions. His works make a sad, deep, and abiding impression on the mind, though hardly one that is pleasing or healthy. He had little of that stalwart strength of mind, and heedless daring, which characterize the earlier dramatists. Like Massinger, he is deficient in wit and humor, and like Massinger resorts to dull indecencies as substitutes. His sentiment is soft, rich, and sensuous, informed by a mild, melancholy heroism, often inexpressibly touching, and expressed in a fine, fluent diction, which melts into the mind like music. We give below the celebrated contention of a bird and a musician, described in The Lover's Melancholy, as a specimen of his grace and sweetness of mind. In Lamb's opinion, it almost equals the strife it celebrates.

"Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales

Which poets of an elder time have feign'd

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