These instances may serve to show how hard it is to dissect the play satisfactorily.
Appendix XII. The Tragedy Of “Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt”
This play is to be found in Bullen's Old Plays, vol. ii. It was printed from B.M. Add. MSS. 18653, a folio of thirty-one leaves in a small clear hand.
Mr. Bullen thinks that Massinger wrote III., 2; III., 6; IV. (the trial scene); V., 1. He ascribes the concluding scene [pg 202] to Fletcher. These ascriptions seem to me correct. There is much fine poetry in the play, notably in the Leidenberg scene. But Fleay goes too far when he calls the play “magnificent.” It is a “piece of occasion,”[572] written shortly after the tragic death of Barnavelt, in such a way, however, that it would not interest a later generation, who had forgotten the sensation of the time. In the second place, it has no unity, a fact no doubt partly due to the dual authorship. We do not know if we are intended to sympathise with Orange or Barnavelt. Such a specimen of the historical drama pure and simple makes us feel that more than a mere narrative of events is needed in a play; we look to the author to guide our sympathies, and have a view of his own about his theme.[573]
Appendix XIII. “The Second Maiden's Tragedy”
This play was reprinted by the Malone Society in 1909.[574] The writing of the original MS. in the British Museum is remarkably good. It is No. 807 in the Lansdowne Collection, and comes to us from the famous Warburton MSS. The play was licensed by Sir George Buck, October 31st, 1611, and acted by the King's men. At the end is inscribed: “by Thomas Goffe,[575] George Chapman, by Will Shakspear. A tragedy indeed!”
The last phrase is true. The first two names are erased; the third name has been added by a late seventeenth or eighteenth century hand.
The underplot, according to Boyle, is derived from Cervantes' Curious Impertinent, and in Acts I. and II. passages “are literally taken from that novel.” There is an incident at the end of the play which reminds us of The Duke of Milan. The “Tyrant” removes the body of the heroine from her tomb, and sends for a painter to give colour to her face and lips. Govianus, her husband, comes in disguise to do the deed, and the Tyrant is killed by the poison which Govianus has put on the lips of the corpse.