Hung up, or our unrigg'd Armada make us
Ridiculous to the late poor snakes, our neighbours,
Warm'd in our bosoms, and to whom again
We may be terrible.[77]
Here, at any rate, Massinger differs from Shakspere, who makes no reference to the exploits of our sailors; indeed, it would seem that, like Trafalgar, the defeat of the Armada had no significance for its own generation.[78] But we must not forget that Massinger was the bosom [pg 019] friend of Fletcher, in whose plays sailors occur again and again.[79]
The fact that Massinger was a Cavalier “Radical,” a free lance and grumbler of the Opposition, may in part explain his struggles and his poverty. His natural patrons may have looked askance at his independent attitude, so alien to the passive obedience preached by Fletcher. But, whatever were his politics, it is clear that he was no Puritan. Brought up in close contact with a noble house, educated at Oxford, and well versed in the classics,[80] as many allusions in his works testify, he shows alike in his merits and his faults the Cavalier mind. To this extent he may be judged “felix opportunitate mortis,” for of all sections of the nation those whose hearts were with the King, and their reason with the Opposition, had the hardest part to play after 1640.
In the department of literature the talent of the country had concentrated itself more and more on play-writing. Among Massinger's contemporaries we note Jonson, Chapman, Fletcher, Beaumont, Webster, Middleton, Dekker, Heywood, Rowley, Tourneur, Shirley—all keen and able dramatists. Massinger, in his grasp of stagecraft, his flexible metre, his desire in the sphere of ethics to exploit both vice and virtue, is typical of an age which had much culture, but which, without being exactly corrupt, lacked moral fibre.
His plays may be divided into three classes: first, those which have come down to us under his name; secondly, [pg 020] those which he wrote with Fletcher or other authors; and, thirdly, those which have disappeared. It is not easy to draw the border-line between the first and second classes. In the last forty years the students of English literature have devoted much attention to verse and other tests, and there are those who profess themselves competent to decide which parts of a composite play were written by the various collaborators. It is clear that the use of these tests requires caution. An author may sometimes experiment in the style of somebody else; it has been held that Shakspere wrote Henry VIII in the manner of Fletcher, his younger rival; and Delius was of opinion that The Two Noble Kinsmen is due to two imitators, one of Shakspere and one of Fletcher. Boyle speaks confidently as follows:[81] “Mr. Fleay used almost exclusively versification to distinguish author from author. Nor is this by any means so bold an undertaking as it seems. I have used other tests apart from the versification, and have almost uniformly found the impressions derived from the latter correct.” Our confidence in Boyle is shaken when he attributes[82] the first two acts of A New Way to pay Old Debts to Fletcher on the evidence of the double endings. He points out that the allusion to the taking of Breda on July 1st, 1625,[83] is just possible, as Fletcher was buried on August 29th, 1625. This is clearly a case where we must take other than metrical considerations into account. Has the comedy the sparkle, the bustle, and the improbability of Fletcher?
Again, it is not too much to say that it is a waste of time to apply verse tests to Tourneur; a great part of the Atheist's Tragedy is not poetry at all, but prose measured off in lengths.
The Virgin Martyr states on its title-page that Dekker was part author. Similarly, The Fatal Dowry was partly [pg 021] due to Field. Part of A Very Woman[84] is held by many critics to be written by Fletcher; certainly the style of the play is in places more tender and more racy than we should expect from Massinger. The Old Law is said to have been written by Massinger, Middleton, and Rowley. It was a popular play, and often revived; its first appearance was in 1599,[85] when our poet was but fifteen years old. His share in it must therefore consist of additions or modifications at a later date. Certainly there is little in the play which reminds one of him; original as is its plot, and tender its pathos, both its tragedy and comedy are in a simpler manner than his.[86]