Twelve plays of Massinger are said to be lost, but the titles of some of these may be duplicates of those of existing plays. Five of these lost plays were MSS. used by John Warburton’s cook for pie-covers. The numerous plays in which Massinger’s co-operation with John Fletcher is generally assumed are dealt with under [Beaumont and Fletcher]. But it may be here noted that Mr R. Boyle has constructed an ingenious case for the joint authorship by Fletcher and Massinger of the two “Shakespearian” plays, Henry VIII. and Two Noble Kinsmen (see the New Shakspere Society’s Transactions, 1884 and 1882). Mr Boyle sees the touch of Massinger in the first two acts of the Second Maiden’s Tragedy (Lansdowne MS., lic. 1611), a play with which the names of Fletcher and Tourneur are also associated by different critics. The Fatall Dowry, a Tragedy (c. 1619, pr. 1632), which was adapted without acknowledgment by Nicholas Rowe in his Fair Penitent, was written in conjunction with Nathaniel Field; and The Virgin Martir, a Tragedie (lic. 1620, pr. 1621), with Thomas Dekker.
Massinger’s independent works were collected by Coxeter (4 vols., 1759, revised edition with introduction by Thomas Davies, 1779), by J. Monck Mason (4 vols., 1779), by William Gifford (4 vols., 1805, 1813), by Hartley Coleridge (1840), by Lieut.-Colonel Cunningham (1867), and selections by Mr Arthur Symons in the Mermaid Series (1887-1889). Gifford’s remains the standard edition, and formed the basis of Cunningham’s text. It contains “An Essay on the Dramatic Writings of Massinger” by Dr John Ferriar.
Massinger has been the object of a good deal of criticism. A metrical examination of the plays in which Massinger was concerned is given in Englische Studien (Halle, v. 74, vii. 66, viii. 39, ix. 209 and x. 383), by Mr R. Boyle, who also contributed the life of the poet in the Dictionary of National Biography. The sources of his plays are dealt with by E. Koeppel in Quellen Studien zu den Dramen Chapman’s, Massinger’s und Ford’s (Strassburg, 1897). For detailed criticism, beside the introductions to the editions quoted, see A. W. Ward, Hist. of Eng. Dram. Lit. (1899), iii. 1-47, and F. G. Fleay, Biog. Chron. of the Eng. Drama (1891), under Fletcher; a general estimate of Massinger, dealing especially with his moral standpoint, is given in Sir Leslie Stephen’s Hours in a Library (3rd series, 1879); Swinburne, in the Fortnightly Review (July 1889), while acknowledging the justice of Sir L. Stephen’s main strictures, found much to say in praise of the poet.
MASSINISSA (c. 238-149 B.C.), king of Massylian or eastern Numidia. He was educated, like many of the Numidian chiefs, at Carthage, learnt Latin and Greek, and was an accomplished as well as a naturally clever man. Although his kingdom was nominally independent of Carthage, it really stood to it in a relation of vassalage; it was directly under Carthaginian influences, and was imbued to a very considerable extent with Carthaginian civilization. It was to this that Massinissa owed his fame and success; he was a barbarian at heart, but he had a varnish of culture, and to this he added the craft and cunning in which Carthaginian statesmen were supposed to excel. While yet a young man (212) he forced his neighbour Syphax, prince of western Numidia, who had recently entered into an alliance with Rome, to fly to the Moors in the extreme west of Africa. Soon afterwards he appeared in Spain, fighting for Carthage with a large force of Numidian cavalry against the Romans under the two Scipios. The defeat of the Carthaginian army in 206 led him to cast in his lot with Rome. Scipio Africanus is said to have cultivated his friendship. Massinissa now quitted Spain for a while for Africa, and was again engaged in a war with Syphax in which he was decidedly worsted. Scipio’s arrival in Africa in 204 gave him another chance, and no sooner had he joined the Roman general than he crushed his old enemy Syphax, and captured his capital Cirta (Constantine). Here occurs the romantic story of Sophonisba, daughter of the Carthaginian Hasdrubal, who had been promised in marriage to Massinissa, but had subsequently become the wife of Syphax. Massinissa, according to the story, married Sophonisba immediately after his victory, but was required by Scipio to dismiss her as a Carthaginian, and consequently an enemy to Rome. To save her from such humiliation he sent her poison, with which she destroyed herself. Massinissa was now accepted as a loyal ally of Rome, and was confirmed by Scipio in the possession of his kingdom. In the battle of Zama (202) (see [Punic Wars]), he commanded the cavalry on Scipio’s right wing, and materially assisted the Roman victory. For his services he received the kingdom of Syphax, and thus under Roman protection he became master of the whole of Numidia, and his dominions completely enclosed the Carthaginian territories, now straitened and reduced at the close of the Second Punic War. It would seem that he had thoughts of annexing Carthage itself with the connivance of Rome. In a war which soon followed he was successful; the remonstrances of Carthage with Rome on the behaviour of her ally were answered by the appointment of Scipio as arbitrator; but, as though intentionally on the part of Rome, no definite settlement was arrived at, and thus the relations between Massinissa and the Carthaginians continued strained. Rome, it is certain, deliberately favoured her ally’s unjust claims with the view of keeping Carthage weak, and Massinissa on his part was cunning enough to retain the friendship of the Roman people by helping them with liberal supplies in their wars against Perseus of Macedon and Antiochus. As soon as Carthage seemed to be recovering herself, and some of Massinissa’s partisans were driven from the city into exile, his policy was to excite the fears of Rome, till at last in 149 war was declared—the Third Punic War, which ended in the final overthrow of Carthage. The king took some part in the negotiations which preceded the war, but died soon after its commencement in the ninetieth year of his age and the sixtieth of his reign.
Massinissa was an able ruler and a decided benefactor to Numidia. He converted a plundering tribe into a settled and civilized population, and out of robbers and marauders made efficient and disciplined soldiers. To his sons he bequeathed a well-stored treasury, a formidable army, and even a fleet. Cirta (q.v.), his capital, became a famous centre of Phoenician civilization. In fact Massinissa changed for the better the whole aspect of a great part of northern Africa. He had much of the Arab nature, was singularly temperate, and equal to any amount of fatigue. His fidelity to Rome was merely that of temporary expediency. He espoused now one side, and now the other, but on the whole supported Rome, so that orators and historians could speak of him as “a most faithful ally of the Roman people.”
See Livy xxiv. 49, xxviii. 11, 35, 42, xxix. 27, xxx. 3, 12, 28, 37, xlii. 23, 29, xliii. 3; Polybius iii. 5, ix. 42, xiv. 1, xxxii. 2, xxxvii. 3; Appian, Hisp. 37, Punica, 11, 27, 105; Justin xxxiii. 1; A. H. J. Greenidge, Hist. of Rome (London, 1904).
MASSON, DAVID (1822-1907), Scottish man of letters, was born at Aberdeen on the 2nd of December 1822, and educated at the grammar school there and at Marischal College. Intending to enter the Church, he proceeded to Edinburgh University, where he studied theology under Dr Chalmers, whose friendship he enjoyed until the divine’s death in 1847. However, abandoning his project of the ministry, he returned to his native city to undertake the editorship of the Banner, a weekly paper devoted to the advocacy of Free Kirk principles. After two years he resigned this post and went back to the capital, bent upon pursuing a purely literary career. There he wrote a great deal, contributing to Fraser’s Magazine, Dublin University Magazine (in which appeared his essays on Chatterton) and other periodicals. In 1847 he went to London, where he found wider scope for his energy and knowledge. He was secretary (1851-1852) of the “Society of the Friends of Italy.” In a famous interview with Mrs Browning at Florence he contested her admiration for Napoleon III. He had known De Quincey, whose biography he contributed in 1878 to the “English Men of Letters” series, and he was an enthusiastic friend and admirer of Carlyle. In 1852 he was appointed professor of English literature at University College, London, in succession to A. H. Clough, and from 1858 to 1865 he edited the newly established Macmillan’s Magazine. In 1865 he was selected for the chair of rhetoric and English literature at Edinburgh, and during the early years of his professorship actively promoted the movement for the university education of women. In 1879 he became editor of the Register of the Scottish Privy Council, and in 1893 was appointed Historiographer Royal for Scotland. Two years later he resigned his professorship. His magnum opus in his Life of Milton in Connexion with the History of His Own Time in six volumes, the first of which appeared in 1858 and the last in 1880. He also edited the library edition of Milton’s Poetical Works (3 vols., 1874), and De Quincey’s Collected Works (14 vols., 1889-1890). Among his other publications are Essays, Biographical and Critical (1856, reprinted with additions, 3 vols., 1874), British Novelists and their Styles (1859), Drummond of Hawthornden (1873), Chatterton (1873) and Edinburgh Sketches (1892). He died on the 6th of October 1907. A bust of Masson was presented to the senate of the university of Edinburgh in 1897. Professor Masson had married Rosaline Orme. His son Orme Masson became professor of chemistry in the university of Melbourne, and his daughter Rosaline is known as a writer and novelist.