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Updated: June 16, 2025
His first readings were principally Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Isaac Walton, &c. He has indeed extracted the beauty and innermost value of Antiquity, whenever he has pressed it into his service. Birth and Parentage. Christ's Hospital. South Sea House and India House. Condition of Family. Death of Mother. Mary in Asylum. John Lamb. Charles's Means of Living. His Home. Despondency.
The characters of Shakspeare and Ben Jonson are, indeed, discriminated with much skill; but surely something might have been said, if not of Massinger and Beaumont and Fletcher, yet at least of Congreve and Otway, who are involved in the sweeping censure passed on "the wits of Charles."
This was not a mere theory, but a vital active belief, as the beautiful well-known lines at the commencement of the eighth canto of the second book of "The Faerie Queene," and the use made of these opposing spirits in Marlowe's "Dr. Faustus," and in "The Virgin Martyr," by Massinger and Dekker, conclusively show.
Two periods of the English Theatre: the first the most important The first conformation of the Stage, and its advantages State of the Histrionic Art in Shakspeare's time Antiquities of Dramatic Literature Lilly, Marlow, Heywood Ben Jonson Criticism of his Works Masques Beaumont and Fletcher General characterization of these Poets, and remarks on some of their Pieces Massinger and other contemporaries of Charles the First.
Massinger would have carried out the scene in quite another tone. Some of the Fletcher scenes in this play, in which he has an unusually large share, are surprisingly good, and remind us of Fletcher at his best, in Philaster and the earlier plays. He fails here, as he always does, in the delineation of character. Nowhere is this break-down more characteristic than in Buckingham and Barnavelt.
Every pains has been taken to prove that the indecent scenes in the play were not written by Massinger, but by Dekker; on what grounds we know not. If Dekker assisted Massinger in the play, as he is said to have done, we are aware of no canons of internal criticism which will enable us to decide, as boldly as Mr. Gifford does, that all the indecency is Dekker's, and all the poetry Massinger's.
In a neat little verse after the manner of Beeching's and Mackail's celebrated verses on the Balliol Dons verse modelled, it may be noted, on the pageant of Kings and Queens in Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, Fry thus delineated me: I am Strachey, never bored By Webster, Massinger or Ford; There is no line of any poet Which can be quoted, but I know it.
I would credit Massinger with the admirably conducted trial-scene in the fourth act; but the concluding scene of the play, where Barnavelt is led to execution, I would ascribe, without hesitation, to Fletcher. There is no difficulty in fixing the date of the present play.
Gifford must needs give an instance to prove that Charles was 'not inattentive to the success of Massinger, and a curious one it is; of the same class, unfortunately, as that with the man in the old story, who recorded with pride that the King had spoken to him, and had told him to get out of the way. Massinger in his 'King and the Subject' had introduced Don Pedro of Spain thus speaking
The drama was still rich in genius, its most distinguished names being those of Ford, Massinger, and Shirley; but here depravity had taken a deeper root than elsewhere, and it was a blessing that, soon after the breaking out of the war, the theatres were closed, and the poets left to idleness or repentance. The old English drama was extinct, and poetry had few votaries.
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