Footnotes

[1.]It is much to be wished that someone would essay the same task for Beaumont and Fletcher, though there the work would be less easy, partly from the looseness of the metres, partly from the corruption of the text, but chiefly from the presence of prose-passages bordering on verse.[2.]A. à Wood's Fasti Oxonienses, p. 313.[3.]Herein he resembled F. Beaumont. G. Langbaine, on the other hand, says that the Earl sent Massinger to Oxford, where he “closely pursued his studies.” But we must be careful how we believe Langbaine; his account of our poet begins thus: “This author was born at Salisbury, in the reign of King Charles the First, being son to Philip Massinger, a gentleman belonging to the Earl of Montgomery.” Here are three gross blunders at once.[4.]Boyle (N. S. S., xxi., p. 472) says that “Massinger's inveterate habit of repeating himself arose probably from his profession as an actor.” I know of no evidence for this hypothesis. Cf., however, p. 6, note 1.[5.]Cf. Mommsen's History of Rome, English translation, vol. ii., p. 440.[6.]Thus in the play of Lady Jane, of which The Famous History of Sir T. Wyatt is a fragment, we find five authors concerned. It will be remembered that Eupolis contributed to the Knights of Aristophanes.[7.]For some account of Field see Appendix XI.[8.]Daborne's letters bulk large in the Henslowe Correspondence. We have two plays of his: A Christian turn'd Turke, based on the story of the pirate Ward; and The Poor Man's Comfort, a tragi-comedy. Like Marston, he abandoned the stage in middle life and took orders, before 1618. It is therefore unlikely that he collaborated with Massinger in any of the plays which we possess.[9.]

Such a reference to Acta Sanctorum as is contained in these lines might be made by an Anglican:

Antoninus. It may be, the duty
And loyal service, with which I pursued her,
And sealed it with my death, will be remember'd
Among her blessed actions.—V. M., IV., 3, 28.

More stress might be laid on the metaphor contained in these lines: