Philip Massinger Part 10

These words certainly remind us of Leosthenes in _The Bondman_, both in thought and style:

Nor endeavourd To make your blood run high at solemn feasts, With viands that provoke; the speeding philtres; I worked no bawds to tempt you; never practised The cunning and corrupting arts they study That wander in the wild maze of desire.(381)

I think, however, that reminiscence will suffice to account for the parallel. The man who could write the last line of this pa.s.sage has no need to b.u.t.tress up his fame with _The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_, though it is of course conceivable that he edited it for publication in 1634.

Lastly, the method of Ma.s.singer calls for a few words. It has been noticed by all the critics that he often repeats himself. As is the case with Plautus the same metaphors, thoughts, and words recur from time to time in similar situations. It is clear that this characteristic might help us to trace those parts of Fletchers plays in which Ma.s.singer collaborated.

One or two simple instances of this fact may be quoted: the characters in Ma.s.singer are very fond of blushing;(382) references to the talkativeness of women are frequent;(383) metaphors from the sea and sailing are very common;(384) people are fond of saying that they mean to do something but they do not know what;(385) the exact courtier kneels and kisses the robe of a lady or her foot, and is sometimes rebuked for doing so.(386)

As a good moralist, Ma.s.singer dislikes suicide(387) and duelling.(388) The latter practice is referred to in his plays as a new-fangled importation from abroad.

Let us now quote some of his favourite words: references need not be given for honour; wherever we find atheist for a bad man,(389) or magnificent for munificent,(390) or the Latin phrase nil ultra,(391) or the Greek words apostata(392) and embryon;(393) wherever we find frontless(394) impudence and sail-stretched wings(395) and libidinous(396) Caesars; wherever the moisture of the lips is compared to nectar,(397) wherever we read of the centre(398) or of horror,(399) or of washing an Ethiop,(400) there we are on familiar ground. Again, it is a characteristic of Ma.s.singer, which offends some of his readers more than others, that he is always ready with the obvious remark. Thus, when Marrall, after a career of tergiversation is finally kicked off the stage, he says:

This is the haven False servants still arrive at.(401)

In _The Emperor of the East_, when the complications about Paulinus apple are getting rather serious, the Princess Flaccilla makes the remark, which is certainly in the mind of the reader:

All this pother for an apple!(402)

When Leosthenes allows himself to be intolerably coa.r.s.e in his language to Cleora, we read these words:

CLEORA. You are foul-mouthd.

ARCHEDAMUS. Ill-mannerd, too.(403)

When Hilario seeks to amuse his mistress with an absurd message from the front, and she observes, This is ridiculous,(404) we feel inclined to say, Not only ridiculous, but not worth writing. When Cardenes, after lying as dead for some time, gives signs of life, the Viceroy very justly observes:

This care of his recovery, timely practisd, Would have expressed more of a father in you, Than your impetuous clamours for revenge.(405)

It will be remembered that Shakspere had used this device in his day.

Compare _Richard II_: Can sick men play so nicely with their names?(406) _Midsummer-Nights Dream_: Lord, what fools these mortals be!(407) _1 Henry VI_: Here is a silly stately style indeed!(408)

What impression do we get of Ma.s.singer from his writings? He was the intimate friend and a.s.sociate of Fletcher; how far was he a man of the same stamp? Both as a poet and a stylist Fletcher is his superior; he is more tender and more varied; in isolated scenes he attains a high degree of pathos. From time to time the bursts of lovely poetry which ill.u.s.trate his plays make us bow the head as though in the presence of an enchanter.

The fifty plays which are currently a.s.sociated with his name, with all their faults, are a veritable fairyland. Again, there is a terse piquancy about him, which expresses itself in clear-cut, vigorous lines, such as we find rarely in our poet. And he has a real vein of humour, which makes one laugh heartily.(409) Nor is his direct and lucid prose style to be despised. On the other hand, he was not a great artist; his plots, though usually bustling, are often improbable; his character-drawing is constantly fickle and inconsequent. Thus, according to Boyle,(410) in _The Honest Mans Fortune_, Tourneur and Ma.s.singer make Montague a gentleman; in Act V. Fletcher destroys all that was good in Ma.s.singer, but makes good sport for the groundlings. He maintains that the same thing happens to Buckingham in _Henry VIII_ and to Barnavelt. Though there are many life-like characters in his works, to whom we feel attracted, such as Leon in _Rule a Wife and have a Wife_ and Valerio in _The Wife for a Month_, they are too often made to do improbable things. Again, as a moralist Fletcher falls far behind Ma.s.singer. He shows from time to time a high-flown and tainted sentimentality which is far removed from real life.

Indeed, the bad use to which he puts his great talent is often enough to make angels weep. He more than anyone is responsible for the Puritan reaction; he more than anyone is responsible for most of what was bad in the Restoration drama, and he has had his reward. Except by the student, his work is forgotten. It can hardly be doubted that the death of Fletcher was a gain to Ma.s.singer in emanc.i.p.ating him from the co-operation of a fascinating but unsafe guide.(411) In standing alone he learnt to perfect all that was best in his own gifts.

It is difficult to form a clear judgment of Beaumont. The more I read what scholars attribute to him, the more I feel disposed to agree with Sir A.

Ward that Beaumont and Fletcher were men of the same mind and tastes. It is plain that the author of _Philaster_, _The Maids Tragedy_, and _A King and No King_ had a range of pa.s.sion and pathos beyond Ma.s.singer.

_Philaster_ is incomparable, and as we read the other two plays we hurry on from scene to scene; when we put the book down we are perturbed. They have carried us away in spite of their grave faults. The glorious nonsense of _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_ is equally beyond Ma.s.singer. On the other hand, such disagreeable plays as _The c.o.xcomb_ and _Cupids Revenge_ do not invite a second perusal. I do not feel that Beaumont was cleaner in mind than Fletcher, or more balanced in judgment. When we come to the department of metre we seem to be on surer ground; the metre of Beaumont has high qualities, and his decasyllabic verse reminds me of the cold purity of a waterfall. In style his lines constantly have a marked simplicity and directness which antic.i.p.ate Wordsworth. He can write a line in which the words run in the order which they would have in prose, and hence his great strength. On the other hand, he is often careless about the length of his lines, possibly from a love of variety. He is fond of rhyme, and introduces prose freely into his scenes. His models appear to have been Marlowe for metre and Ben Jonson for treatment. He has a liking for burlesque, as witness _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, _The Woman-Hater_, and Arbaces in _A King and No King_.(412) All this is very unlike Ma.s.singer.

It may be asked, how does Ma.s.singer compare with Webster? This question naturally rises in the mind at a moment when a gifted writer, s.n.a.t.c.hed from us before his time, has left us an interesting and scholarly study of Webster. Mr. Rupert Brooke makes no secret of his contempt for Fletcher, and the second-rate magic of Ma.s.singer; he regards Webster as the last of the strong school of Elizabethan dramatists.

Are we to compare _Westward Ho!_, _Northward Ho!_, and _The Cure for a Cuckold_ with _A New Way to pay Old Debts_ and _The City Madam_? They are less refined, less skilfully constructed. The stage is more crowded, and the characters are worse drawn. The same considerations apply to the _Malcontent_(413) and _The Devils Law-case_. Mr. Brooke practically allows that he means by Webster, _The White Devil_ and _The d.u.c.h.ess of Malfi_, and these plays alone. Let it be said at once that it is an ungrateful task to magnify one poet at the expense of another. We allow that in these two plays Webster comes nearer to Shakspere than any of his compeers. He has a great, a subtle, a well-stored mind; he produces isolated tragic effects of the most poignant kind; he is a master of atmosphere; he plays with the feelings of his auditors; he can dazzle them by his miraculous touches of poetic beauty.

On the other hand, he is not a clear thinker, nor are his plays skilfully planned. I should imagine that they read better than they act. For instance, the scene in _The d.u.c.h.ess of Malfi_, where Ferdinand gives the heroine the dead hand, fills us with horror. I doubt if it would be effective on the stage. Websters rhymes are poor, and his prose worse than Ma.s.singers. Sir Sidney Lee(414) says his blank verse is vigorous and musical; to me it seems too often ragged and halting. But the chief objection to Webster is that he lives in a world of repulsive themes and fantastic crimes. He revels in the sinister suggestions aroused by skulls, dead hands, ghosts, echoes, and madmen. His mind was morbid, and his successes are like lightning flashes of splendid power piercing a gloomy and sullen background.

The fact that he was not a productive writer may weigh less with some critics than with others; more important is it to remember that Ma.s.singers plays held the stage much longer than Websters. This fact may fairly be taken to prove the appeal which the former has successfully made to the human heart. Webster, in short, compared with Shakspere, reminds us somewhat of the contrast between Mantegna and Raphael.

In one or two respects Webster has affinities with Ma.s.singer. Both frequently imitate Shakspere; and both repeat themselves continually, though in different ways. Whereas Ma.s.singer used the same vocabulary and terms of thought again and again, Webster quotes whole sentences from one of his plays in another, as if he felt, like some of the Greek writers of antiquity, that when he had said a thing as it should be said, he had the right to use it again.(415)

It is difficult to compare Ma.s.singer with Ben Jonson: both wrote Roman plays and domestic comedies; but Ben Jonson has at once a greater mind and a wider range of experiment. He was a learned man, a great figure in society, the dictator of a circle of wits, the centre of many friendships and enmities. He would probably regard Ma.s.singer as a pale-featured, gentle hack. We know more about his full-blooded personality than about any other writer of the period, and while there is much in him to offend, there is more to inspire our respect.

Our immediate object is to compare the two writers as dramatists. It is at once clear that they work on different lines. Ma.s.singer is a follower of Shakspere and Fletcher, though we can trace in some of his tragedies the influence of Webster and Tourneur. In his comedies, we see some approximation to Ben Jonson; it is instructive to compare _Eastward Ho!_ with _The City Madam_. A fundamental difference of method is at once seen; Ma.s.singer deliberately eschews the use of prose. It must at once be conceded that he has left nothing on so colossal a scale as _Every Man in his Humour_, _Volpone_, _Epicoene_, _The Alchemist_, and _Bartholomew Fair_. Here we find skilful plot, masterly characterization, and ludicrous combinations. How heartily we laugh over the Plautine scene before Cobs house in _Every Man in his Humour_,(416) or at the intrusion of unbidden guests at Moroses wedding, or at the deception practised on the two knights in the gallery.(417) How dazzled we are with the kaleidoscopic vapours of the great Fair. On the other hand, in what Dryden calls the dotages, we find a great falling off. Ben Jonson can be very dull. Still even in _The Devil is an a.s.s_ and _The Staple of News_ there is a vein of original fancy, which reminds us that we are dealing with no imitator, but with an original and poetical mind. Nor must we forget the splendid series of Masques, into which Ben Jonson put some of his best work; to this Ma.s.singer has but little to oppose. And then, as we all know, Ben Jonson bursts out from time to time with a great lyric, whereas Ma.s.singers songs are commonplace. Lastly, in _The Case is Altered_, we have a plot in the manner of Fletcher which is so successful as to make us regret that Jonson did not try this type of play again. Though it has not the atmosphere of Ma.s.singer, it has something of the mellow graciousness at which he, like Fletcher, aimed.

It would be silly to deny Jonsons superiority of intellect, and of attainment when at his best. His faults are, however, very serious. Though he can draw a man of good breeding, his women are very ordinary. He is too fond of incorporating long pa.s.sages from the cla.s.sical authors whom he knew so well; he would have been more attractive if he had used Aristophanes and Plautus, Ovid and Libanius, as inspirations rather than as materials. The notes on Seja.n.u.s are a liberal education, but after all, the plays the thing. The use of humour and vapours, though at first brilliant and captivating, even becomes artificial and tedious; no one is the embodiment of one pa.s.sion or weakness. Let us be thankful that human nature is not so simple or consistent, for in that case it would cease to interest. More serious still, Jonson has no sense of proportion; we read Knowells soliloquy in _Every Man in his Humour_,(418) and we say, Fine!

but too long; and we say this again and again as we read his works. The great length of the fifth act of Seja.n.u.s is a good instance of this fault.

Indeed, it is impossible that the play was acted in the form which we now haveit would have emptied the house, like Burkes speeches. When Jonson gets on to some subject of which he knows the technical terms, such as fucuses(419) or alchemy, he is almost as tedious as Kiplings Macandrew. His plots are at times too skilful; thus, even Brainworm in time gets on our nerves. His coa.r.s.eness is that of a common soldier, and his puns are bad.

Are there any points of contact between the two authors? I do not wish to suggest that Ma.s.singer owed nothing to the older writer, though parallels of diction may mean little but the simultaneous use of the idioms of the day. Thus in _The Staple of News_ we find, I do write man,(420) blacks,(421) kiss close,(422) nectar,(423) magnificent(424); tossing in a blanket is referred to,(425) and the saints(426) at Amsterdam, while the cooks fortifications(427) remind us of a pa.s.sage in _A New Way to pay Old Debts_. In Seja.n.u.s we find pa.s.sive fort.i.tude commended.(428) He puts them to their whisper,(429) reminds us of _The Roman Actor_. Seja.n.u.s change of temper to his satellites(430) when he fancies danger is past resembles that of Domitian in the same play. _The City Madam_ has touches of plot and style which recall Volpone.

There is, however, little contact between Ben Jonson and Ma.s.singer. Their births were separated by only ten years, but a much longer period than that seems to divide them. Friend of the great as he was, Ben Jonson was yet an Aristophanic, nay, a Rabelaisian democrat; Ma.s.singer 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. On the one side is _vis consili expers_; on the other, a more limited intellect with a surer artistic sense. If I may venture to say so, they differ from one another as an apple from a pear. I do not deny that Ben Jonson was the greater man, but I find him more archaic and more difficult to read than Ma.s.singer. Much of the interest of his plays is dead for us, his local colour and topical allusions, which require so many notes, are more tedious; his personal likes and dislikes, his egotism, his vanity, are wearisome; and though his blank verse is strong and manly, it is not so melodious as Ma.s.singers. The older man stands foursquare and solitary; the younger man reaches forward to posterity, and we feel him to be linked by his art and grace to ourselves. Though Dryden never mentions Ma.s.singer, there is a dignified capacity which is common to the two authors.

Ma.s.singers chief rival in the latter part of his life was Shirley.

Shirleys plays are full of interest; his graceful style rises occasionally into poetry, at which the author himself seems to smile; his plots are full of ingenious turns; his female characters are more confidently developed than Ma.s.singers, nor is he unable to draw a lifelike man, as we see from Lorenzo in _The Traitor_ and Columbo in _The Cardinal_. He excels in the battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k of love-making; he tells us far more of the manner of well-bred contemporary society than Ma.s.singer. Indeed, it is probable that he had a greater success in his day than his rival, and was more in touch with Court circles, though even the loyal Shirley discreetly satirizes from time to time the government of Charles I. He is not devoid of humour and epigram; his dialogue is light and sprightly. He reaches back to Fletcher and forward to Dryden; we seem, as we read his plays, to be a long way removed from the labour of Jonson, the pomp of Chapman, the vernal simplicity of Heywood. On the other hand, we miss in him the breadth and strength, the dignity, the n.o.bility, and the fire of Ma.s.singer. He is more of a photographer than a painter. Though his style has eloquence, the thought is often far from clear, and the long sentences are clumsy. There is something slight and unsubstantial about the whole thing, while the metre is continually careless and lame.

In a.s.signing Ma.s.singers place in the drama of his age, we have to remember that the period falls into two well-defined parts. He has very little in common with Marlowe, Greene, and Peele, and still less with the charming Dresden china of Lyly. Marlowes generation breathes the freshness and vehemence of the spring, while Ma.s.singer reflects the silver lights of September. So rapid was the development of fifty years, that to pa.s.s from the one to the other is like going from the lancet windows of Salisbury Cathedral to the tracery of William of Wykeham. While we miss the purity and simplicity of Early English, it would be foolish to ignore the strength of design and proportion that maturity and experience brought. The towers and battlements, the lierne vaulting, the large windows, and generous clerestories of Perpendicular do much to atone for the spiritless detail and mechanical wall-panelling. A similar consideration applies to the Jacobean dramatists when compared with their Elizabethan predecessors.

Shall I be thought presumptuous in setting Ma.s.singer against Shakspere?

The attempt may, at any rate, help to elicit a true estimate; the suggestion has often been made before. Shakspere seems to have been from his writings a man of great receptivity, unerring knowledge of human nature, profound wisdom, and infinite sweetness, the master of all the arts which we a.s.sociate with a good poet. Ma.s.singer reminds us of Ben Jonson, though he is less consciously clever, less c.u.mbered with learning, less combative.(432) He is modest,(433) manly, lucid, sane, and sensible, capable of just indignation, one who respects himself, a faithful friend,(434) and a wide reader; he knows a gentleman when he sees him; he can pay compliments with good breeding; he has had his ups and downs in life;(435) he is one who understood men better than women, and who, like Sir Thomas Browne, loved a soldier;(436) a vigorous and business-like artist, he is never worsted by his theme, but makes it lifelike and interesting, with an unerring instinct for what is effective on the stage, his very faults being largely due to this useful knowledge. That there was a strain of n.o.ble melancholy in his mind can hardly be denied.(437) The character which seems to me to embody Ma.s.singer himself is Charalois in _The Fatal __ Dowry_. Whether he was musical I should doubt after the perfunctory reference to the art in _The Fatal Dowry_.(438) We find nothing in his plays like the famous idyllic description in Fords _Lovers Melancholy_.(439) On the other hand, he knew that vocal and instrumental music were effective in a play; we need go no farther than the end of Act IV. in _The Virgin Martyr_ for proof of this.(440) And Cario uses the terms of music with great precision in _The Guardian_.(441) On the whole we get the impression that he was an example of a rare combination, modesty with independence of mind, a fact which, considering what the circ.u.mstances of the literary life then were, is quite enough to explain the hard struggle he seems to have undergone.

It may be said that I am comparing a mighty genius with a second-rate intellect. Are there any points in which Ma.s.singer can hold his own against Shakspere? Granted that he falls short in pa.s.sion, imagination,(442) wit, diction, rhythm, lyric rapture, where does he shine?

It may at first hearing sound sn.o.bbish to point out that he was a University man, but a good deal of truth lies hidden in that simple phrase. Shaksperes plays are marked by many faults of construction, taste, and detail; he who never blotted a line should certainly, as Ben Jonson remarked, have blotted a good many. It always seems to me that this is a line of thought which is too much ignored by those who believe that Shakspere wrote his own plays, and that Bacon had nothing to do with them.

The Baco-Shaksperians point, and very justly, to the surprising knowledge and culture shown in the plays; they refuse to believe that all this can have come from the brain of a Warwickshire rustic, forgetting the faults which are so glaring, faults which are precisely those which a learned and accurate scholar like Bacon would have avoided.

Now Ma.s.singer is a correct and artistic writer. The little tricks of style which were so dear to his mighty predecessor, the pun, the alliteration,(443) the conceit, the verbal quibble,(444) are far less obtrusive; he is free from that affectation and precious obscurity which are so marked in Shaksperes later style. And one small point may be noticed in pa.s.sing here, as an indication of good breeding: the characters in Ma.s.singer very seldom address one another by name. It is significant that Greedy and Overreach both offend in this way.(445)

Though it is true that these faults were common to the age, they are so marked in Shakspere that it is impossible to ignore them in any estimate of the man. In the details of style, then, Ma.s.singer can claim credit for being more correct. In a word, what he lacks in genius and poetry he supplies to a certain extent by good taste and education. He shares this advantage with his age, which was learning to correct the errors of the past; the English language was advancing rapidly to more maturity and balance than it had in the previous generation.

I have already pointed out the careful study of Shakspere which we find in Ma.s.singer, and the copious use of his imperial vocabulary. When we take into account all the elements of the problem, when we make allowance for quant.i.ty of work done, as well as for quality, would it be too much to say that Ma.s.singer is as the pupil to the master, and that, though separated by a long interval, he comes second?(446) This may seem a hard saying, unless it is explained. I allow that Ben Jonson had a greater intellect; that Beaumont and Fletcher had more genius, more pathos, more humour; that Marlowe, Webster, and Ford, each in his own way, were greater poets. I put Ma.s.singer next to Shakspere as a dramatist pure and simple, because his best work is well-constructed and interesting, his style and metre entrancing, his atmosphere charming and easy, yet ideal, his morality mature and sane. And in praising his morality, I do not lay stress on the benefits to be derived from the use of his plays as a school-book, though that consideration is not to be despised but rather maintain that in avoiding abnormal, tainted, and morbid themes he is in advance of his age; consequently he is easier for us to read and understand than other writers whose gifts were greater than his; he makes a successful and enduring appeal to the _communis sensus_ of mankind.

I now proceed to a short critical estimate of Ma.s.singers plays. The most famous are _The Virgin Martyr_ in tragedy, and _A New Way to pay Old Debts_ in comedy. Opinions have differed strangely about _The Virgin Martyr_. It went through four editions in quarto in the seventeenth century, a fact which testifies to its immediate popularity. Davies(447) considered it far inferior to any of his other productions, and Mason was equally severe. Even Hallam confessed that parts of it were far from pleasing. There can be no doubt that these parts of the play, which the critics now unanimously ascribe to Dekker, are responsible for giving Ma.s.singer a bad name for coa.r.s.eness. It is hard to carry supernatural machinery through, as Fletchers _Prophetess_ shows, and we have here an Angel, and a Devil, but they are on the whole managed successfully. The first act is admirably proportioned; the fourth and fifth also are masterly. There are a thrill and a glamour in the style of this play unlike anything else in Ma.s.singer, due perhaps to the religious problem dealt with.(448) The only fault of Dorothea is that, like other good people, she is a bad judge of character. It gives us a shock to find Spungius and Hircius members of her household, and at least we feel she should not have put her charities in their hands, but should have attended to the poor herself.(449) The Princess Artemia is a type common in Ma.s.singer.(450)

In _A New Way to pay Old Debts_ we have an ingenious plot which never flags, adequate comedy, and characters which are appropriately, if not very carefully, drawn. The style is strong and natural; it is not far from this play to Goldsmith, and indeed the eighteenth century must have owed much to it. In its atmosphere of ease and propriety there are no harsh lights or discordant tints.

The central idea of the plot was probably borrowed from a play of admirable vivacity and dexterity, Middletons _Trick to catch the Old One_, which appeared in 1607. What has Ma.s.singer added to Middleton? He has made the plot more probable, refining the characters, and raising the whole thing from prose to poetry. We laugh less, but we admire more, for we feel that we are seeing something transacted which might have happened.