would not snatch a kiss of Maria, mischievous minx and forgeress as she is? "Nettle of India ;" "Youngest wren of nine." She really deserved soberer husband. But I hope Sir Toby reformed after marriage. The Nurse is not a very discreet guardianess for a Beauty in her teens; but though her principles are far from rigid, and her language sails a little too near the wind, there is no harm in her at the bottom. She is none of your ever-craving doorkeepers of the stage. She does all for the best: errs out of pure good-nature, and anile importance, and is very near, if not quite, as honest as Friar Lawrence, himself a Nurse of different sex and higher education. Emilia is the same character, in somewhat higher rank. But is not Mrs. Quickly the pleasantest hostess that ever gave short measure and long credit? How different a being from Massinger's Dame Tapwell, who spurns from her door the man who had upmade her by his ruin! Even Doll Tearsheet is a presentable personage compared to some whom Massinger has made confidantes of noble maidens.

But Shakspeare scruples not to bestow the loftiest virtues and richest poetry * on persons of menial condition. Old Adam makes servitude as venerable as grey hairs;

* Hear Timon's Under Butler:

As we do turn our backs

From our companion thrown into his grave,'

So his familiars from his buried fortunes

Slink all away; leave their false vows with him,
Like empty purses picked; and his poor self

A dedicated beggar to the air,

With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty,
Walks, like contempt, alone.-Act iv. s. 2.

Hear too, Alexander, Usher to false Cresseide:

Hector, whose patience

Is, as a virtue, fixt, to-day was moved,-
He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer;
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose he was harnessed light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower

Did, as a prophet, weep what it foresaw

In Hector's wrath!-Act i. s. 2.

It may be asked, do not these poetic speeches in the mouths of underlings violate dramatic decorum? To Suocov of Aristotle? Certainly they do. Servants in general not only do not talk thus,—but they talk nothing like it. There is no hint in their talk, and probably no germ in their thoughts, that could under any circumstances expand into such poctry; and were a plebeian character to hold such language throughout a play, it would be an impropriety, in any but a romantic-pastoral drama, which nowhere imitated the language of real life. But with Shakspeare these speeches constituted the whole character,—the persons merely appear to utter them, and then depart. He felt in truth that they were too poetical, too Shakspearian, to be entrusted to any of the active partners of the plot. The Greek dramatists, whose practice Shakspeare follows in many things, whether knowingly or unconsciously, in like manner generally distribute the apyà μépn—the reflections and retrospects, and descriptions, which suggest either a splendid or an abstruse diction, between the Chorus and the Nuntius,-who are, for the most part, no characters; the Chorus being only andEUтNS àпрAKтOS a sleeping partner, and the Nuntius a viva-voce newspaper. The restricted plan of the Greek drama, and the epic nature of many of its subjects, necessitated a great deal of narration, which it has been thought necessary to enliven by a gorgeous display of imagery, and an oriental pomp of words. But the good sense of the authors showed them that such language, uttered by interested personages, would destroy all verisimilitude ; they therefore committed it to the Nuntius, whose only business was to talk. The English reader may form a good idea of this part from the choruses to Henry V.

Timon's steward and household remain steadfast when all the "summer flies" have flown. Their loyalty is a holy relic of antique faith, an amulet against the infection of their master's X misanthropy. Shakspeare seems to have disliked nobody-but constables and jobbing justices, and deals very leniently with them. He was in perfect good-humour with court, city, and country, and spared none of them when a joke came into his head. But again be it remembered, Shakspeare was a prosperous man, of a happy complexion, and could take an excursion when he chose into Warwickshire or Faëry land. We are naturally curious to inquire whether Massinger was known to Shakspeare; and whether they liked one another; and what they thought of each other; and whether they ever took a cup of sack together at the Mitre or the Mermaid; and whether Massinger was ever umpire or bottle-holder (he was too grave to be a partaker) at those wit-combats, so happily described by Old Fuller;* which nevertheless I shrewdly suspect, if taken down after the manner of the Noctes Ambrosianæ,† would not have much enhanced the fame either of Shakspeare or Jonson, whatever they might say for their conviviality. The wit-combats in their plays, are the dullest sins of which they are ever guilty. Repartee is the accomplishment of lighter thinkers and a less earnest age. Besides, Mio μvýμova Evμñoτýv. Most likely Shakspeare and Massinger met, but we have no ground to conjecture the amount of their acquaintAs dramatists, they were hardly contemporary—at least, Shakspeare retired some years before Massinger produced his earliest extant play; though no less than nine, exclusive of the "Old Law" (his share in which is doubtful), are placed, in the lists of Malone and Gifford, before the "Virgin Martyr."‡ Let us take it for

ance.

Many were the wit-combats betwixt him (Shakspeare) and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a Sarah great galleon and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson, like the former, was built higher in rang-solid but slow in his performances. Shakspeare, with an English man-of-war,-lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and vention."-Fuller's Worthies.

+ A collection of the genuine NOCTES (for there are some spurious, in which the real Christopher had little no concern) would not only afford to future historians a true feeling of the spirit of the times, and to all readers a shoeing-horn to thought or to laughter, but would form a valuable addition to dramatic literature. Earring an occasional irregularity of plot, they are perfect specimens of comedy. Indeed, I know not any tutudy in which actual conversation is so naturally imitated, without ever stiffening into debate or amœbæan oratory, or slipping into morning-call twaddle. Whatever the strain,-whether wit, or fun, or pathos, or phy,it arises spontaneously, as the tones of an aolian harp; you never feel that the party are met to decuss anything. One topic succeeds another, with the same apparent casualty, and the same under current of gestion, as in the Odes of Pindar. The characters are sustained with consummate skill and consistency. Cbratopher North himself is, perhaps, the happiest speaking mask since My Father Shandy and My Uncle Tady were silent (for Elia is Charles himself). To be sure, the compotators have no bowels for Cockneys Why Yet I like their Toryism, because it is of the old, hearty, cavalier, fox-hunting, beef and port yurh as Ben, and Shakspeare, and Dick Corbet (pride of the lawn), would have chimed in with. Tras, of the Ambrosial sect, understood, that in order to be a gentleman it is necessary to be a man. pd Conservatism of the present day is no more like genuine old Toryism, than Milton's Republicanism like stern Radicalism. Let all Blues, of either sex, or none,-liberal or conservative,-high church, charch, or no church,-water drinkers or liqueur sippers,-keep in good company, out of the reach of (Instopher's crutch.

The

The titles are, "The Forced Lady," "The Secretary," "The Noble Choice," "The Wandering Lara," Phienzo and Hippolyta," "Antonio and Vallia," "The Tyrant," "Fast and Welcome" (a 14 that dres not sound popish), and "The Woman's Plot," which last was acted at Court in 1621. All

granted that the old Bard encouraged the young aspirant (for he knew the fatalities of the human will too well to dissuade), and prognosticated his future greatness; though the prognostics of poets with regard to each other are as fallible as their political vaticinations. There can be no doubt that Massinger admired and studied Shakspeare. In the haste of composition, his mind turned up many thoughts and phrases of the elder writer, in a more or less perfect state of preservation, but he was neither a plagiarist nor an imitator. His style, conduct, characterisation, and metre, are perfectly distinct. No serious dramatist of the age owed Shakspeare so little. Yet in a mock romance called "Wit and Fancy in a Maze, or Don Zara del Fogo,” 1656, where an uproar of the poets is described, Massinger is introduced as one of Shakspeare's body-guard. Hence, and from an ambiguous expression or two in his prologues, seeming to glance at the impatience of Ben at the ill-usage of his "New

these, except "The Secretary," which seems to have been printed, though now lost, with "The Spanish Viceroy" (acted 1624), “Minerva's Sacrifice" (Nov. 3, 1629), and "Believe as You List" (May 7, 1631), perished in Mr. Herald Warburton's kitchen, by a more ignominious combustion than the Alexandrian library, though that was twice consumed,-first by Christian zeal, and then by Saracenic fanaticism. Mr. Warburton should have walked barefoot over the ashes of Herculaneum for a penance; but he did no penance: and I am afraid he did scold his cook, who was not to blame. Yet I would commend this incident to the serious reflection of those persons who would not have domestics able to write, or to read writing. Only consider,— they might have been sermons instead of plays. Fifty-two sermons,-warranted original! We need not, however, utterly despair of recovering some of these sybilline books. The "Parliament of Love" came to light very opportunely for Mr. Gifford, by whom it was first printed (though with some unavoidable lacunæ) from a MS. in the possession of Mr. Malone, and supposed to be Massinger's autograph, with sundry oblite rations and interpolations by the officious-I mean official-Sir H. Herbert. A lucky discovery put the fact beyond doubt. Mr. Gifford, in the interval between his first and second edition, received a letter from Mr. Octavius Gilchrist, announcing that Mr. Blore, in collecting materials for a History of Derbyshire, had discovered, among the papers of the late Mr. Gell of Hopton, a copy of the original edition of the “Duke of Milan,"-presented by the author to Sir Francis Foljambe, a Derbyshire gentleman, to whom he afterwards dedicated his Maid of Honour,"-interlined and corrected throughout with his own hand, and preceded by a copy of verses addressed to Sir Francis himself. The acquisition of this treasure must have brightened at least one day in Gifford's painful existence. It established Massinger's claim to the Parliament of Love," sometime attributed to Rowley,-a play in which the Editor had the interest of a foster-father, though, as seems to me, of no very gracious child. It decided the orthography of Massinger's name,-which Mr. Malone would have to be Messenger,-as it is spelt in Davison's endorsement. A man who makes a name has an undoubted right to spell it as he chooses. But, above all, Mr. Gifford ascertained from Massinger's own hand the correctness of several of his conjectural emendations! His triumph must have been as great as Bentley's when he found that his conjectural restoration of a Greek inscription was the actual reading of the stone. These statements, derived from the advertisement to the second edition (in which Mr. Gifford takes a great deal more pains to chastise an Edinburgh reviewer than the cur was worth), may give us hope, that in some forgotten hiding-place of some old Catholic or Royalist mansion, redolent of foisty antiquity-where countless generations of the genus Blatta have wrought their winding catacombs for centuries,—some unknown labour of Massinger, Fletcher, or Shakspeare himself, may now be crumbling. . . . . Were it but a note or a memorandum . . . . . While speaking of Mr. Gifford, I must take leave gently to complain of him, and other investigators of curious literature, for referring, with the most provoking bibliographical accuracy, to books and manuscripts which, to all but one out of ten thousand, might as well be in the lost Pleiad as where they are; instead of transcribing the passages required to establish the point in question. I am sorely puzzled about Don Zara del Fogo, with whom I have no acquaintance, and no chance of an introduction. I cannot tell what he implies by making Massinger a satellite of Shakspeare.

.....

* He submits

To the grave censure of those abler wits

1

Ian, and other senilia, it has been surmised, I hope erroneously, that he was illaffected towards Jonson. It is an unwise thing in an author to show that he is burt, and a vain attempt to appeal against the decrees of such an irresponsible despot as an audience. It is only for a Coriolanus, Shakspeare's Coriolanus, to say to the people, "I banish you." But it is worse than unwise to reproach an aged genius with the decay of his powers, and if Massinger joined with the "stinkards in the twopenny rooms," or the gallants who took tobacco on the stage, to insult the infirmities of poor old Ben, not all our admiration of the Dramatist ought to save the man from contempt. But I do not, I cannot believe it. Genius may be vicious, may be mad, but can it be base?

Massinger himself was not tame to censure.

It appears that his "Emperor of the East" was opposed on its first appearance. The dishonour was fairly wiped off when the play was commanded at court. A court bespeak * was the highest favour a drama

His weakness, nor dares he profess that when

The critics laugh, he'll laugh at them again.

Strange self-love in a writer !-Prologue to Guardian.

Let others, building on their merit, say

You're in the wrong, if you move not that way

Which they prescribe you; as you were bound to learn

Their maxims, but incapable to discern

"Twixt truth and falsehood. Ours had rather be

Censured by some for too much obsequy

Than tax'd of self-opinion.-Prologue to Bashful Lover.

I cannot positively affirm that Massinger did not write this mob-adulation, for everything he has written in rayme is exceedingly clumsy, but there is no proof whatever that he did write it. Prologues were then, as in later times, after-thoughts, and in general not composed by the author of the play. No one can think, for instance, that the prologue to "King Henry VIII." was written by Shakspeare,— -or Ben Jonson either. Such Juba were generally committed to the operatives of the play-house. Dryden seems to have been the first who fary set his wits to work at a prologue or epilogue. I believe Mr. Miles Peter Andrews was the last who acquired a reputation in this line. Epilogue writers in particular have applied the experimentum crucis, to in how much doggrel, vulgarity, and impudence, they could get an actress to speak, or a gallery to endure. Nothing short of demonstration shall make me believe that Massinger curried favour by insulting Jonson. There were hands enough about any play-house for such dirty work, and I beg leave to propose that the obroxious lines be attributed to Swanston, the "wretched player," as Gifford calls him, who, while his inilow-actors either fought for their royal patron, or were content to beg, steal, or starve, as best they could, sak over to the prevailing party, and professed that "he had always been a presbyterian in his heart." I nfes, I can bring no evidence of this, only Swanston was an actor at the theatres where Massinger's plays were produced, very famous in Chapman's Bussy d'Ambois, and the only one of the quality that ratted; and what a little additional soot to a chimney-sweeper?

Massinger had his share of bespeaks. It may surprise some of our sabbatarian high-church-men that the ww-anonized Charles ordered "The Guardian,"- -no very Hannah Morisco drama-to be performed at to it on SUNDAY, 12th January, 1633, just after the appearance of Prynne's Histriomastyx. This looks like free, and to say the best of it, was in bad taste. For the Book of Sports there was at least a plausible the inhibition of healthful exercises in the open air does not induce the labouring class to keep the ath holy. But there is a wide difference between out-of-door recreation, permitted to the poor on their say day of leisure, and a play performed for lucre, in a crowded room, before persons who may see plays any day in the week. But it was by no means the only instance in which Charles, partly from opposition to the pandans, and partly in complaisance to his wife, outraged the religious feelings of his best friends. It is perhaps well that Mr. T. Duncombe did not remember that he actually gave leave to a French company to play on

tist could look for; and Massinger took the occasion to express his vexation in an occasional prologue, as follows:

As ever, sir, you lent a gracious ear

To oppressed innocence, now vouchsafe to hear

A short petition. At your feet, in me

The poet kneels, and to your Majesty
Appeals for justice. What we now present,
When first conceived, in his vote and intent

sermon-days during Lent. How came it that Laud did not remonstrate against acts, which, whether criminal or not, were certainly mali exempli, and superfluously unpopular? Perhaps he did-and was disregarded; perhaps his devotion to the king, as head of the church, closed his lips. Yet St. Ambrose did not scruple to put an emperor to open penance. Loyalty is the bounden duty of a Christian, but ultra-royalism is the Achillesheel of the Church of England, which has suffered more by the reign of Charles II. than by the temporary domination of its enemies. Sir Henry Herbert, who knew well enough who was at the bottom of the Lent business, refused ten pounds from the French players "because he wished to render the Queen, his mistress, an acceptable service." Yet he made Massinger pay twenty shillings for a play he would not permit to be performed. Sneak!

Queen Henrietta paid Massinger a more unusual compliment than ordering his plays at court. She attended the performance of his "Cleander" (a lost tragedy), at the Blackfriars' Theatre. Considering what theatres then were, when the young gallants were in the habit of displaying their bravery and tobacco pipes on stools upon the stage (a nuisance which Charles II. thought necessary to abate by an order in council), and when there were twopenny rooms where ale and tobacco were sold, I cannot think this a very queenly or prudent condescension. On another occasion, February, 1636, when Davenant's "Triumphs of the Prince d'Amour" was presented at the Middle Temple, the daughter of Henri Quatre with her ladies sat on the platform with the promiscuous assemblage, in the dress of citizens' wives, then far more distinct from court habiliments than at present. Charles should not have permitted these vagaries. Unseemly condescension never atones for habitual hauteur: and unpopular personages, by hunting popularity, only add contempt to hatred. Popular characters, while their day lasts, may do anything; their vices are only proofs of a good heart; their illhumours are dulces Amaryllidis iræ-pretty Fanny's way-their grossest absurdity is perfume in the public nostrils.

Decipiunt cæcum vitia, aut etiam hæc
Delectant, veluti Balbinum polypus Agnæ.

But every man that squinted was not a Wilkes, even in the heyday of Wilkes and liberty. Kemble's cough and Kean's “damnable faces" were only admired in Kemble and Kean. Desdemona might not have fancied Ignatius Sancho, though she fell in love with Othello. The very peculiarities, which as symbols of individuality, serve as pegs for love to hang upon, are just as liable to arrest the burs of hatred. Every one must have felt this in their own case. A lisp a stammer-a provincial accent-a cast of the eye-un petit nez retroussé, how amiable in the amiable,-in the disagreeable how odious.

A popular person can do nothing wrong: an unpopular person, especially if of high rank, can do nothing right. The French never affected puritanical rigour. Yet the levities into which Marie Antoinette was seduced by the over-confidence of virtue, were served up as a bonne-bouche for jacobin malice. But what with the common unthinking vulgar is merely prejudice, becomes deadly rancour when vulgarity is intensified by fanaticism. Poor Henrietta and her royal husband were sorely mistaken if they thought that by publicity and splendour they could appease a hatred which had usurped the throne of duty.

I know not whether Massinger received any pecuniary bounty from the king beyond the customary honorarium, which he might share with the players. Charles gave Cartwright forty pounds for his "Royal Slave," perhaps from some mysterious presentiment connected with the name. His interest in theatricals was more than consistent with the gravity of his character. He furnished Shirley with the plot of his "Gamester," and desired Sir H. Herbert to inform him that it was the best play he had seen for seven years. I like Charles all the better for these things, but the puritans did not. His expenses in masques and pageants would have paid and armed many loyal soldiers, and perhaps might have bought off a patriot or two,