of accepting too literally what Ben Jonson says of his "little Latin and less Greek." However that may be, and I am inclined to think Shakespeare had more learning even, not to say knowledge, than is commonly allowed him, it is singular that the man whose works show him to have meditated deeply on whatever interests human thought, should have been supposed never to have given his mind to the processes of his own craft. But this comparison of him with Beaumont and Fletcher suggests one remark of some interest, namely, that not only are his works by far more cleanly in thought and phrase than those of any of his important contemporaries, except Marlowe, not only are his men more manly and his women more womanly than theirs, but that his types also of gentlemen and ladies are altogether beyond any they seem to have been capable of conceiving.

Of the later dramatists, I think Beaumont and Fletcher rank next to Shakespeare in the amount of pleasure they give, though not in the quality of it, and in fanciful charm of expression. In spite of all their coarseness, there is a delicacy, a sensibility, an air of romance, and above all a grace, in their best work that make them forever attractive to the young, and to all those who have learned to grow old amiably. Imagination, as Shakespeare teaches us to know it, we can hardly allow them, but they are the absolute lords of some of the fairest provinces in the domain of fancy. Their poetry is genuine, spontaneous, and at first hand. As I turn over the leaves of an

edition which I read forty-five years ago, and see, by the passages underscored, how much I enjoyed, and remember with whom, so many happy memories revive, so many vanished faces lean over the volume with me, that I am prone to suspect myself of yielding to an enchantment that is not in the book itself. But no, I read Beaumont and Fletcher through again last autumn, and the eleven volumes of Dyce's edition show even more pencil marks than the two of Darley had gathered in repeated readings. The delight they give, the gayety they inspire, are all their own. Perhaps one cause of this is their lavishness, their lightsome ease, their happy confidence in resources that never failed them. Their minds work without that reluctant break which pains us in most of the later dramatists. They had that pleasure in writing which gives pleasure in reading, and deserve our gratitude because they promote cheerfulness, or, even when gravest, a pensive melancholy that, if it does not play with sadness, never takes it too seriously.

VI

MASSINGER AND FORD

PHILIP MASSINGER was born in 1584, the son of Arthur Massinger, a gentleman who held some position of trust in the household of Henry, Earl of Pembroke, who married the sister of Sir Philip Sidney. It was for her that the "Arcadia" was written. And for her Ben Jonson wrote the famous epitaph:

up

"Underneath this sable hearse

Lies the subject of all verse.

Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death! ere thou hast slain another,
Learn'd and fair and good as she,

Time shall throw a dart at thee."

It would be pleasant to think that Massinger's boyhood had been spent in the pure atmosphere that would have surrounded such a woman, but it should seem that he could not have been brought in her household. Otherwise it is hard to understand why, in dedicating his "Bondman" to Philip, Earl of Montgomery, one of her sons, he should say, "However, I could never arrive at the happiness to be made known to your lordship, yet a desire, born with me, to make a tender of all duties and service to the noble family of the Herberts descended to me as an inheritance from my dead father, Arthur Massinger." All that we

know of his early life is that he entered a commoner at St. Alban's Hall, Oxford, in 1602. At the University he remained four years, but left it without taking a degree.

From the year 1606, until his name appears in an undated document which the late Mr. John Payne Collier decides to be not later than 1614, we know nothing of him. This document is so illustrative of the haphazard lives of most of the dramatists and actors of the time as to be worth reading. It was written by Nathaniel Field, the actor who played the part of Bussy d'Ambois in Chapman's play of that name, and who afterwards became prosperous and one of the shareholders in the Globe Theatre. Here it is:

"To our most loving friend, Mr. Philip Hinchlow, Esq., These:

"MR. HINCHLOW, You understand our unfortunate extremity, and I do not think you so void of Christianity, but you would throw so much money into the Thames as we request now of you rather than endanger so many innocent lives. You know there is XI. more at least to be received of you for the play. We desire you to lend us Vl. of that, which shall be allowed to you, without which we cannot be bailed, nor I play any more till this be despatched. It will lose you XXI. ere the end of the next week, besides the hindrance of the next new play. Pray, sir, consider our cases with humanity, and now give us cause to acknowledge you our true friend in time of need. We have entreated Mr. Davison to deliver this note, as well to witness your love as our promises and always acknowledgment to be your most thankful and loving friend, NAT FIELD."

Under this is written:

"The money shall be abated out of the money [that] remains for the play of Mr. Fletcher and ours. ROB DABORNE."

"I have always found you a true loving friend to me, and, in so small a suit, it being honest, I hope you will not fail us. PHILIP MASSINGER."

The endorsement on this appeal shows that Hinchlow sent the money. No doubt Field was selected to write it as the person most necessary to Hinchlow, who could much more easily get along without a new play than without a popular actor. It is plain from the document itself that the signers of it were all under arrest, probably for some tavern bill, or it would not otherwise be easy to account for their being involved in a common calamity. Davison was doubtless released as being the least valuable. It is amusing to see how Hinchlow's humanity and Christianity are briefly appealed to first as a matter of courtesy, and how the real arguments are addressed to his self-interest as more likely to prevail. Massinger's words are of some value as showing that he had probably for some time been connected with the stage.

There are two other allusions to Massinger in the registers of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels. Both are to plays of his now lost. Of one of them even the name has not survived. On the 11th of January, 1631, Sir Henry refused to license this nameless performance "because it did contain dangerous matter-as the deposing of