Philip Massinger Part 33

II., 2, 111: After Absolve me only can deleted; it makes no sense, but had occurred in the previous line.

II., 3, 16: But never thought: come, I must have thee mine.

First three words deleted: they had occurred in the previous line.

III., 1, 120: Blanque deleted before blanket.

III., 3, 37: A seeming courts: courts deleted before anger.

Courtship occurs at the end of the line.

V., 1, 46: Weake weake men; first weake underlined in later ink.(570)

V., 1, 190: For truth is truth is truth. All deleted. The sense requires: for truth is truth.

V., 1, 505: Neglegt deleted before neglect.

I add one or two notes of interest in correction of Cunninghams edition.

II., 2, 156 should read thus, as in MS.:

then to practise To find some means that he deserves thee best.(571)

C. reads in I., 157: he that, which makes no sense.

At III., 3, 8 (folio 8_b_) there is a considerable blank in the MS.

scrabbled over, but line 8 is completed at the top of folio 9_a_.

V., 1, 116 should read thus, as in MS.: And not to be replied to. C.

misprints: replied be.

V., 1, 129: The MS. reads thus:

For that deitie (Such our affection makes him) whose dread power Tooke forthe choicest arrows, headed with Not loose but loyall flames, who aymed at mee Ame with greedie haste to meete the shaft.

C. reads line 131: ... the choicest arrow, headed with.

line 133: Who came with greedy haste to meet the shaft.

In 131 the is obviously left out by h.o.m.oeoteleuton. The grammar of the pa.s.sage is defective. It is all cancelled in the old ink.

Similarly, 138 is cancelled: Of gold, nor of pale lead that breeds disdain.

178-185 down to the word matter are cancelled.

294-296 are cancelled in the old ink.

V., 1, 371: MS. to wh.o.r.e me. A modern hand has written above abuse.

V., 1, 531: There is an addition in the original hand which will not scan.

And gratious spectators.

Gifford in his note (II., 312) on _Parliament of Love_, V., 1, 129, refers to a corrected copy of _The Duke of Milan_, which proves the writing of the _Parliament of Love_ to be Ma.s.singers. _Cf._ also Advertis.e.m.e.nt to his second edition, Vol. I., and the facsimile of the dedication of _The Duke of Milan_ to Sir Francis Foljambe (IV., 593). Where is this copy now?

It was at one time in Giffords possession.

APPENDIX X. THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE VIRGIN MARTYR

Boyle a.s.signs to Ma.s.singer, Act I., Act III., 1, 2, Act IV., 3, Act V., 2, a total of slightly less than half the play. As far as it goes, I agree with this a.s.signation, but it does not seem to me quite satisfactory. It is true that there are serious pa.s.sages in _The Virgin Martyr_ which do not resemble the rest of Ma.s.singers work; it does not therefore follow that they are due, like the comic parts, to Dekker. In the first place, the exaltation which breathes from these pa.s.sages may be due to the rapture of youth. Why should Ma.s.singer not have shown in what must have been a youthful work an emotional brilliancy which he lost later? And secondly, it is a mistake to say that Ma.s.singers style is absolutely uniform; we could only lay this proposition down positively if we had all his works in our hands, and among those we possess I am much mistaken if differences, slight though real, cannot be detected. _A Very Woman_ and _The Bashful Lover_ stand apart from the rest of his plays by virtue of their greater degree of romantic n.o.bility. In the third place, the serious scenes a.s.signed by Boyle and others to Dekker do not seem to me to resemble the serious style of that author, except that there are certain pa.s.sages where rhymed couplets are employed. Here again we might argue that Ma.s.singer was making an experiment which he dropped in his later work. The fact is that, as is usually the case in these matters, we have not enough evidence to prove one thing or the other.

The ascription of the play to Ma.s.singer and Dekker on the t.i.tle-page of the 1622 edition might be held to prove that the lions share in it is due to the former, especially when we remember that he was the younger and presumably the less-known author of the two. I should not, however, wish to deny the possibility that Dekker contributed some of the serious parts.

I feel rather disposed to suggest that in one or two of the scenes in question both authors were at work. There is nothing impossible or improbable in this hypothesis.

Charles Lamb says about the scene between Dorothea and Angelo, beginning Act II., 1, line 224, that it has beauties of so very high an order, that with all my respect for Ma.s.singer, I do not think he had poetical enthusiasm capable of furnishing them. His a.s.sociate Dekker, who wrote _Old Fortunatus_, had poetry enough for anything. This is one of Lambs many unfair remarks about our author; he had discovered so many treasures in the Elizabethan goldfield that he was disposed to underrate the favourite of the eighteenth century. One rises from a perusal of the works of Dekker with a feeling that he was in many respects an engaging, child-like mind, with a gift for drawing character, but with an imperfect sense of technique and structure. If he had written anything in his undoubted works as good as this scene, it would be natural to adjudge it to him.

I should be inclined to a.s.sign II., 2, to Ma.s.singer; great stress is laid in it on the lack of courtesy shown in scanty greetings, which is a familiar line of thought in our author. Theophilus speech, Have I invented tortures, sounds to me like Ma.s.singer. The structure of II., 3, reminds one of several similar incidents in Ma.s.singer, though it is clear that no poet can claim the monopoly of introducing auditors of love-scenes in the gallery above the stage. On the other hand, the ravings of Theophilus (_ibid._, 116-123) read like Dekker; as does the rhymed pa.s.sage (_ibid._, 131-136). Perhaps the scene is composite.

The same remark applies to IV., 1. The first sixty lines are certainly Ma.s.singers, and much of the rest; notice especially Antoninus sudden change of mind at line 102. On the other hand, the speech of the British slave (_ibid._, 136-147) might be Dekkers work.

If Ma.s.singer can be accredited with Dorotheas farewell speech in IV., 3, 69-92, I do not see why he should not have written the famous pa.s.sage in II., 1. They seem to me to have the same thrill of emotion.

Lastly, V., 1, seems to be constructed on the lines of a Ma.s.singer scene, and to contain traces of his vocabulary; _cf._ the use of horror in line 41, and of to thy centre in line 146. The conversion of Theophilus, like that of Antoninus in a previous scene, is effected rapidly, in Ma.s.singers manner.

To sum up, I should be inclined to say that Ma.s.singer had, at any rate, a considerable share in the following scenes: II., 1, II., 2, II., 3, IV., 1, V., 1.

APPENDIX XI. THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FATAL DOWRY

Boyle a.s.signs to Ma.s.singer, Act I.; Act III. as far as line 315 (enter Novall, junr.); Act IV., 2, 3, 4; Act V. This amounts to about three-fifths of the play. On metrical grounds I reluctantly concede that Field wrote the famous funeral scene, Act II., 1. But there are clear traces of Ma.s.singers style in the part of Act II., 2, which follows the prose pa.s.sage. Thus, Romonts speech, beginning at line 201, seems to show traces of Ma.s.singer; likewise Pontaliers, beginning at line 370. It is probable that Field wrote the prose scenes in the play, and possibly the songs; nor would I deny that the regular ten-syllable blank verse of such pa.s.sages as Act II., 2, 178-187 (ROCHFORT. Why, how now, Beaumelle? ...

nothing but good and fit), and Act II., 2, 318-328 (This is my only child ... were multiplied tenfold), is Fields work. In the two plays which have come down to us from Field there is much pa.s.sable blank verse. It is important to remember, however, that we have so little of Field left that it is hazardous to base material tests on it; and secondly, the authors may have collaborated in individual scenes in such a way as to escape a.n.a.lysis. This is what probably has taken place in Act II., 2. Nor do I feel certain that the latter part of Act III. is wholly due to Field; lines 438-478 contain much that is like Ma.s.singer, though the ugly line 464 is not in his style.

I not accuse thy wife of act, but would Prevent her precipice to thy dishonour.

On the other hand, the rhymed couplet (lines 375-6) is probably Fields.