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A fly = a familiar. From the common old belief that an attendant demon waited on warlocks and witches in the shape of a fly, or some similar insect. cf. Jonson's The Alchemist, I : You are mistaken, doctor, Why he does ask one but for cups and horses, A rifling fly, none of your great familiars. Also Massinger's The Virgin Martyr, ii, II: Courtiers have flies That buzz all news unto them.
In illustration of this difference, a play of Massinger's, "The Maid of Honour," may be advantageously cited, as the catastrophe turns upon this question of marriage contracts. Camiola, the heroine, having been precontracted by oath to Bertoldo, the king's natural brother, and hearing of his subsequent engagement to the Duchess of Sienna, determines to quit the world and take the veil.
I hope by and by to act Camiola very well, but I am afraid the play itself can never become popular; the size of the theater and the public taste of the present day are both against such pieces; still, the attempt seemed to me worth making, and if it should prove successful we might revive one or two more of Massinger's plays; they are such sterling stuff compared with the Isabellas, the Jane Shores, the everything but Shakespeare.
Though he never "played to the gallery," the heart of the gallery was as much with him as the heart of the boxes, and he knew the value of its rapt silence as well as of its stormy voices. In Boston, in 1857, he played Sir Giles Overreach, in Massinger's "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," and the profound impression he made in it confirmed him in his purpose to devote himself to tragic acting.
Mr. Macready revived Massinger's fine play with considerable success, but both the matter and the manner of our dramatic ancestors is too robust for the audiences of our day, who nevertheless will go and see "Diane de Lys," by a French company of actors, without wincing. Of Mrs. Siddons's Mrs.
Such is the fate of Brisac in Fletcher's Elder Brother, and of Ricardo and Ubaldo in Massinger's Picture. Sometimes, as in the Fatal Dowry and Love's Cruelty, the outraged honor of families is repaired by a bloody revenge.
Massinger's account of Theophilus' conversation will, we fear, make those who know anything of that great crisis of the human spirit suspect that Massinger's experience thereof was but small: but the fact which is most noteworthy is this that the 'Virgin Martyr' is actually one of the foulest plays known.
Fletcher does not repeat himself often, and these two exceptions are important. IV. 4, is apparently by Massinger, but contains no repetitions. IV. 5, is by Massinger. There are no clear Massingerisms, but the metrical style, and the allusion to Raleigh already mentioned, make it plain that the Scene is his. V. 1, is also Massinger's.
Massinger's Luke, and Ben Jonson's Sir Epicure Mammon, and Pope's Sir Balaam, and our own daily observation, might convince us that the Devil "now tempts by making rich, not making poor." We may read in the "Guardian" a circumstantial account of a man who was utterly ruined by gaining a capital prize; we may recollect what Dr.
Difficulty in understanding our elder writers without a knowledge of their language and ideas. 2. Especially in the case of dramatic poets. 3. Examples. Hamlet's "assume a virtue." 4. Changes in ideas and law relating to marriage. Massinger's "Maid of Honour" as an example. 5. Sponsalia de futuro and Sponsalia de praesenti. Shakspere's marriage. 6.
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