Philip Massinger Part 19

_Guardian_, V., 1, 44:

These woods, Severino, Shall more than seem to me a populous city.

_Oth.e.l.lo_, I., 1, 77:

The fire is spied In populous cities.

(_Cf._ also IV., 1, 64.)

We may infer that Ma.s.singer studied the Folio of 1623 carefully.

APPENDIX V. WARBURTONS LIST

(_Lansdowne MSS., B. M., 807._)

This volume contains three plays, the only survivors of Warburtons collection: _The Queen of Corsica_, by Fran. Jaques, _The Second Maidens Tragedy_, and _The Bugbears_, together with a fragment of a fourth, R.

Wilds _Benefice_.

On the back of the first leaf of this volume is attached the list of Warburtons collection, in his own hand. The entries referring to Ma.s.singer are as follows: I preserve the spelling.

_Minervas Sacrifice._ Phill. Masenger.

_The Forcd Lady a T._ Phill. Ma.s.singer.

_Antonio & Vallia_, by Phill. Ma.s.singer.

_The Womans Plott._ Phill. Ma.s.singer.

_The Tyrant_, a tragedy, by Phill. Ma.s.senger.

_Philenzo and Hipolito_, a C. by Phill. Ma.s.senger.

_The Judge_, a C. by Phill. Ma.s.senger.

_Fast and Welcome_, by Phill. Ma.s.singer.

_Believe as You List_, C. by Phill. Ma.s.singer.

_The Honour of Women_, a C. by P. Ma.s.singer.

_Alexius or the Chaste Gallant_, T. P. Ma.s.singer.

_The n.o.ble Choise_, T.C. P. Ma.s.singer.

_The Parliament of Love_ is attributed to Wm. Rowley. The versification of the play which we have under that name is far above Rowleys powers, nor are there signs of collaboration in the play, as far as we can tell.

The list has been carefully discussed by Mr. W. W. Greg in his article, The Bakings of Betsy, in _The Library_ (July, 1911).

He puts the matter thus: Warburton enters _Minervas Sacrifice_ and _The Forcd Lady_ as above. In the _Stationers Register_, Sept. 9, 1653, these t.i.tles are given as alternatives for the same play. This might mean that Moseley was trying to smuggle through two plays for a single fee. Mr. Greg is inclined to give Moseley the benefit of the doubt, and to suppose that there were plays existing in divergent versions, which would justify the double t.i.tles. If, however, Moseley was honest, Warburton cannot be correct. Mr. Greg suggests that Warburton, being interested in old plays, and having access to the _Stationers Register_, drew up for his own use a list, mainly based on Moseleys entries, containing the t.i.tles of such pieces as he thought it might be possible to recover, and added the names of those in his possession. The cook destroyed some of the plays, and Warburton, discovering his loss, added the famous memorandum to the text without remembering that it contained the names of plays which he did not possess. In this case the damage done by Betsy would not be so extensive as has been believed.

APPENDIX VI. A METRICAL PECULIARITY IN Ma.s.sINGER

Our dramatic writers must have often felt that their metre required variety to relieve it from the dangers of facility and monotony. No doubt the same problem suggested itself to Homer and the Greek dramatists. In the former, the frequent pauses after the first foot or in the middle of the second foot, in the latter, the much-discussed pauses after the first foot, are as likely to be due to a desire for variety as to any special emphasis on the particular words thus singled out.(542)

In what ways did the Elizabethans secure variety?(543)

1. By the use of rhyme. This was the early solution. Ma.s.singer does not often resort to rhyme, though in some of his plays, notably in _The Roman Actor_, he several times employs the well-known couplet at the end of a scene.

2. By the free use of the eleven-syllable line. This was Fletchers solution. It is astonishing how the pleasure which the occasional use of this licence gives us turns to a feeling of satiety and weakness when it is too freely employed, so that many pa.s.sages in Fletcher sound like a horse with a fit of roaring.

3. In the free use of trisyllabic feet. This fact has been recently brought before the public by Mr. Bayfield in connexion with Shakspere.

There is no need to quote instances of this common and easy expedient.

4. By the occasional use of short lines. As has been pointed out above,(544) Ma.s.singer is a strict metrist, and does not often resort to this liberty, even in rapid conversation.

5. By skilful variation of pauses, such as we find in Milton, Tennyson, and most of our modern writers of blank verse. Ma.s.singers flexible and meandering sentences contain many examples of such variation.

I believe that he had another shaft in his quiver. He occasionally suppressed a short syllable at the close of the line, and more rarely in the early part, with the result that an anapaestic lilt of some effectiveness makes its appearance. An example from _The Emperor of the East_ will make this clear.

PULCHERIA. What s thy nme?

ATHENAIS. The forlorn thenis (I., 1, 342).

If the stresses are placed as above, it is clear that there is a syllable suppressed after the word forlorn, a three-syllable foot in the third place, and an anapaestic lilt, the forlorn.

Nor is Ma.s.singer alone in this device; instances from other poets are quoted below. This theory conflicts with the dictum of Schmidt in his Shaksperian lexicon, that words like forlorn, complete, supreme, conceald, can be stressed either on the first or second syllable, the stress being on the first syllable when the stress in the following word falls on the first syllable. Presumably Schmidt would have scanned the line in question thus:

What s thy nme? The frlorn thenis.

Schmidts dictum, however, will not explain all the cases quoted below, and it is worth considering whether it is not a simpler solution of the problem to suppose that our Elizabethan poets combined uniformity of accent with variety in the metre, sometimes applied more than once in the same line. It is clear that lines which contain a past participle like condemned cannot be used for the purposes of this argument, as such words may have been scanned as two syllables or three.

The following cases will support my suggestion. The list does not profess to be a complete summary of the evidence.

1. _The Emperor of the East_, III., 4, 139:

To bild me p a complte^prnce, tis grnted.

2. _The Duke of Milan_, III., 1, 32:

Mnkeys and praquttos consme^thusands.