Philip Massinger

by Alfred Hamilton Cruickshank

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 Massinger's. Cf. also Advertisement 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 Gifford's possession.

Appendix X. The Authorship Of “The Virgin Martyr”

Boyle assigns to Massinger, 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 assignation, but it does not seem to me quite satisfactory. It is true that there are serious passages in The Virgin Martyr which do not resemble the rest of Massinger's 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 passages may be due to the rapture of youth. Why should Massinger not have shown in what must have been a youthful work an emotional brilliancy [pg 199] which he lost later? And secondly, it is a mistake to say that Massinger's 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 nobility. In the third place, the serious scenes assigned by Boyle and others to Dekker do not seem to me to resemble the serious style of that author, except that there are certain passages where rhymed couplets are employed. Here again we might argue that Massinger 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 Massinger and Dekker on the title-page of the 1622 edition might be held to prove that the lion's 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 Massinger, I do not think he had poetical enthusiasm capable of furnishing them. His associate Dekker, who wrote Old Fortunatus, had poetry enough for anything.” This is one of Lamb's 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 assign II., 2, to Massinger; great [pg 200] 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 Massinger. The structure of II., 3, reminds one of several similar incidents in Massinger, 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 passage (ibid., 131-136). Perhaps the scene is composite.

The same remark applies to IV., 1. The first sixty lines are certainly Massinger's, 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 Dekker's work.