sue of some less serious hours," from which it would seem that Ford did not rely for support upon the stage solely, but that his profession occupied the principal part of his time.

The Lady's Trial cannot be ranked with some of its predecessors, such as The Broken Heart; but, while it affects the passions in a less degree, it is well calculated to afford pleasure both upon the stage and in the closet. There are scenes which may be read by the most sagacious critic, and defy the severest scrutiny. The characters of the noble Auria, the precise and scrupulous Aurelio, the discontented Malfato, and the gay Adurni are well contrasted with the strutting Guzman, the conceited Fulgoso, and the_roaring Benatzi. In Castanna and Spinella, Ford evinces that his skill in the delineation of the female character had not deserted him to the last. The parting scene of Auria and his wife in the first act, his altercation with the friend of his heart in the third; the arraignment of Adurni in the fourth, and the reconciliation of Spinella and Auria in the last, would not disgrace the pages of any of his dramatic contemporaries.

Besides the plays now collected, Ford was the author of several others, now irrecoverably lost, having perished by the never-to-be-sufficiently reprobated negligence of Mr Warburton, the Somerset herald, and the unfortunate paper-sparing propensity of his cook. These were four in number, and their titles may be found in the table of our poet's plays at the d

VOL. I.

end of this memoir. They were entered on the books of Stationers' Hall in 1653 and 1660, but never printed *.

66

Besides Fame's Memorial" our poet is not known to have published any poens excepting a few copies of verses prefixed to some plays of Massinger, Brome, &c. the revival of which would not contribute to recommend his dramatic works to notice..

The period of the death of our poet has never been ascertained, but it is very probable that he did not long survive the publication of his last play, in the year 1639, when he was in his fifty-fourth year; as it is not likely that he should so suddenly relinquish the stage, having just produced two plays in so short a period...

Respecting the personal character of any of the dramatic authors of the age, we have few data upon which we can decide with any degree of certainty. Of that of Ford the only document we can produce, besides the general tenor of his works, is the following distich,

* "Mr Winstanley says that our author was very beneficial to the Red Bull and Fortune playhouses, as may appear by the plays which he wrote; though the reader may see, by the foregoing account, that he takes his information upon trust, or else the plays he has seen are of different editions from those I have by me; but I rather believe the former, as I have found him subject to several mistakes of this nature."-Langbaine's Account of Dramatic Authors. There were certainly no second editions of any of our author's plays in the seventeenth century. Most of them were represented at the Phoenix in Drury-Lane.

quoted by Langbaine from a contemporary poet :

"Deep in a dump John Ford was alone got,
With folded arms, and melancholy hat *.”

From some expressions in the dedications to his plays, and in the prologues and epilogues, it would appear that our author was of rather an irritable, if not somewhat discontented, temper; and the countenance and admonition of his peculiar friends seems to have been requisite to induce him to continue the cultivaion of his dramatic talents, which were probably invidiously slighted by some of his contemporaries. The same temperament seems to have led him to assume a degree of independent carelessness and indifference of fame, which was possibly far from being really the case. In the epilogue to The Lover's Melancholy, for instance :

We must submit to censure; so doth he

Whose hours begot this issue; yet, being free.
For his part, if he have not pleas'd you, then
In this kind he'll not trouble you again.

Ford, like every man of genius, had his enemies as well as friends. The former he defies in several places: among the latter, which seem to have been peculiarly attached to him,

Account of Dramatic Poets, p. 219.

+ See the Dedication to Love's Sacrifice, and the Prologue to Perkin Warbeck.

were Dr Donne, the dramatic poets Dekkar, and Rowley, (his coadjutors in two of his early plays), Massinger and Shirley; with others who have expressed their esteem for him in commendatory verses prefixed to his works *.

These scanty notices are all which the Editor has been able to collect respecting the life of a poet to whom he should be proud to restore at least some portion of the popularity which he enjoyed so deservedly in his time, while he feels himself inadequate in these pages to point out forcibly the very uncommon beauties which merit the attention of the readers of this, as well as of every subsequent age. Mr Lambe+, who seems to be an enthusiastic admirer of our author, makes the following general observations on his poetical character, and it were to be wished that he had extended them to a greater length, and not confined himself to a kind of metaphysical definition of the genius of his favourite poet: "Ford was of the first order of poets. He sought for sublimity, not by parcels in metaphors or visible images from nature, but directly where she has her full residence, in the heart of man; in the actions and sufferings of the greatest minds. There is a grandeur of the soul above mountains, seas and the elements. Even in the poor perverted reason of Giovanni and Anna

* Thomas Ford, who wrote the tragi-comedy of Love's Labyrinth, was our poet's contemporary, but probably not related to him, as he seems to have been an Essex man.

+ Specimens of Dramatic Authors, 1808, 8.

bella we discern traces of that fiery particle, which, in the irregular starting from out of the road of beaten action, discovers something of a right-line, even in obliquity, and shews hints of an improvable greatness in the lowest descents and degradations of our nature.”

It were in vain to claim a rank for our author equal to that which his contemporaries Fletcher, Jonson, and Massinger so justly deserve, and as to his predecessor Shakspeare, his name is sufficient to preclude any competition. The inimitable humour of Ben Jonson; the picturesque and romantic sweetness of Fletcher, with the highly-ludicrous quaintness of his comedies; lastly, the eloquence of Massinger, with the superior interest of his plots, the reader will not frequently meet with in the plays of Ford. But while the superior merit of these authors, in the qualifications just enumerated, is fully and liberally conceded, our author may perhaps challenge a superiority over them all in point of pathetic effect. This peculiar and truly tragic talent is so much his own that he sometimes pains the mind of his reader by stimulating his feelings to an excess of passion. While we peruse the plays of Fletcher and Massinger we are generally at full liberty to scrutinize their merits and reflect upon their excellencies and defects; but the reader of The Broken Heart is too much interested (sometimes perhaps harassed) by the deep and heart-rending sorrows and misfortunes of the principal characters, to institute any de