MASSINGER 



MASSORAH 



85 



Renegade, and The Parliament of Love were licensed 

 for the stage between 3d December 1623 and 3d 

 November 1624. In many of his plays Massinger 

 introduces political allusions, ami more than once 

 liis temerity was rebuked by Sir Henry Herbert, 

 Master of the Revels. The Bondman contains some 

 outspoken criticism on the feeble condition of the 

 navy. There is considerable resemblance between 

 Tin- Parliament of Love, which was lirst printed by 

 (iitlord from a mutilated MS., and A (jure for a 

 Curbild, ascribed to Webster and Kowley ( but not 

 improbably the work of Massinger and Kowley). 

 Of The Roman Actor, produced in 1626 and printed 

 in l(i'29, Massinger declare* ' I ever held it the most 

 perfect birth of my Minerva.' It abounds in elo- 

 quent declamation, but is somewhat stiff. The 

 Great Du/.e of Florence, produced on 5th July 1627, 

 has a delightful love-story. Massingcr's female 

 cliaracters are usually unattractive and sometimes 

 odious ; but in this comedy he has drawn a charm- 

 ing heroine a modest, frank, warm -hearted girl. 

 The Maid of llniiunr, published in 1632 and prob- 

 ably produced in 1628, is like The Bondman 

 full of political allusions (as Professor S. R. 

 Gardiner has shown, Contemporary Review, August 

 1876). The Picture, licensed for the stage 8th June 

 1629, and printed in 1630, has an improbable plot, 

 but is well written. The Emjteror of the East, 

 produced in 1G3I and printed in 1632, bears some 

 resemblance to The Duke of Milan. In Imtli plays 

 a man of passionate, ungovernable temiier un- 

 justly suspects his wife of infidelity ; but The 

 Emneror of the East ends happily. Nathaniel 

 Field joined Massinger in writing the fine tragedy 

 The fatal Dowry, printed in 1632, but proaueM 

 some years earlier. From this play Howe's once- 

 famous Fair Penitent was largely drawn, without 

 acknowledgment. . The City Madam, licensed for 

 the stage in 1632, and A New Way to pay Old 

 Debts, printed in 1633, are Massinger's most mas- 

 terly comedies. There is no warmth or geniality 

 about them ; but, ax satirical studies, they have 

 Ben Jonson's strength without his ponderousness. 

 A \>'ir ll'iii/ has held the stage down to recent 

 times. Sir Giles Mompesson, the infamous extor- 

 tinner, is supposed to have lieen the original of Sir 

 Giles Overreach, a character which has been per- 

 sonated by many famous actors. The Guardian 

 (1633), A Very Woman (1634), and The Bashful 

 Lover (1636) were printed together, 1 vol., in 1655. 

 The most interesting is A Very Woman, which is 

 Fletcher's play The Woman* Plot revised by Mas- 

 singer. Believe a* You Lint, produced on 7th May 

 1631, and lirst printed from MS. in 1844, relates to 

 th" adventurer who at the lieginning of the 17th 

 century claimed to be the Don Sebastian killed in 

 1578 at the battle of Alcazar. Mas.singer repre- 

 sents the claimant as a model of kingly dignity, 

 worthy to rank with Ford's Perkin 'Warheck. 

 Though Believe as You List has survived, several 

 other MS. plays of Massinger were destroyed by 

 Warburton's cook towards the close of the 18th 

 century. The powerful and stately Tragedy of Sir 

 John Van Olden Bai-naue/t, produced in August 

 1619, written by Massinger and Fletcher, was 

 printed for the first time from MS. in vol. ii. of 

 Mullen's Old Plays (First Series), and was re- 

 printed in Holland. In spite of the Lord Mayor's 

 prohibition it was acted with applause by the king's 

 men. 



Massinger showed great care and skill in the 

 construction of bis plays. Other playwrights affect 

 us more powerfully, but few can compare with 

 Massinger for general excellence. He was not only 

 a sincere, high-minded artist, but a keen observer 

 of state affairs. Hence his writings have a histori- 

 cal as well as a literary interest. Some of his plays 

 are (as Coleridge said) as interesting as a novel; 



others are as solid as a treatise on political philo- 

 sophy. His versification is peculiar. He seems to 

 have taken the metrical style of Shakespeare's 

 latest plays .as his model ; but his verse, though it 

 is fluent and flexible, lacks the music and magic of 

 Shakespeare's. No writer repeats himself more 

 frequently than Massinger ; he had a set of favour- 

 ite phrases that he constantly introduces. This 

 trick of repetition, joined to liis metrical manner- 

 isms, helps us materially to distinguish his work 

 from Fletcher's. Mr EoWt Boyle ( in papers con- 

 tributed to Emjlische Studien) and Mr F. G. Fleay 

 have discussed the difficult question how far Mas- 

 singer was concerned in the authorship of plays 

 that pass under the name of ' Beaumont and 

 Fletcher.' 



Massinper's plays were edited by William Gifford in 

 1808, 4 vols. ; 2d td. 1816. There is also an edition in the 

 volume ( from the text of Gifford) hy the late Lieutenant- 

 colonel Cunningham. Two volumes of selected plays, 

 edited by Mr Arthur Symoi s, are included in the ' Mer- 

 naid' series, fee S. R. Gardiner, 'The Political Ele- 

 ment in Massinger ' in Cont. Jler. 1876. 



lljissoil. DAVID, an eminent Scottish author, 

 born at Alwrdeen, 2d Decemlier 1822, educated at 

 Marischal College in that city, and at the univer- 

 sity of Edinburgh. At nineteen he became editor 

 of a Scotch [provincial paper, and later joined the 

 literary staff of W. & K. Chambers. In 1847 he 

 settled in London, writing for the reviews, the 

 Encycloptgdta Britannica, and the English Encyclo- 

 jxrdia. In 1852 he succeeded Clougli in the chair 

 of English Literature in University College; in 

 1865 he became professor of English Literature 

 in the University of Edinburgh, a post he re- 

 signed in 1895. Masson edited Macmillan's 

 Magazine from 1859 to 1868. His first published 

 work was his Essays, Biographical and Critical 

 ( 1856), reprinted with later essays in 3 vols. (1874- 

 76) entitled respectively Warilstrorth, Shelley, and 

 Krot.t ; The Three Devils Luther's, Milton's, and 

 Goethe's ; and Chatterton, a Story of the Year 1770. 

 His great work is his ponderous Life of John Milton, 

 innriited in connection with the Political, Ecclesias- 

 tical, and Literary History of ///.v Time (6 vols. 

 1859-80), the most complete biography of any 

 Englishman, and of great value for the contempor- 

 ary history. Other works are British Novelists 

 and their Styles (1859); Recent British Philosophy 

 (1865); Drmnmond of Hawthornden : the Story of 

 his Life and Writings (1873); the 'Cambridge' 

 edition of Milton, with introductions, notes, and an 

 e-.-:iy on Milton's English (3 vols. 1874 ; new ed. 

 1890), the 'Golden Treasury' edition (2 vols. 1874), 

 and the ' Globe ' edition ( 1877 ). Later works are 

 De Quincey (1878) in the 'Men of Letters ' series, 

 and his edition of De Quincey's works ( 14 

 vols. 1889-91), besides some volumes of Sketches 

 and Essays (1892 and 1894). He was Rhind 

 lecturer in 1885, after 1879 he edited the Register 

 of the Privy-council of Scotland, and in 1893 

 became Historiographer Royal for Scotland. 



M jisso'rah. or MASORA ( ' tradition ' ), a 

 collection of critical notes on the text of the 

 Old Testament, its divisions, accents, vowels, 

 grammatical forms, and letters (see HEBREW 

 LANGUAGE, Vol. V. p. 614). The Massorah, like 

 the Halacha and Haggada, was the work of many 

 ages and centuries, as, indeed, we find in ancient 

 authorities mention made of different systems of 

 accentuation used in Tiberias, Babylon (Assyria), 

 and Palestine. It wns in Tiberias also that the 

 Massorah was first committed to writing between the 

 6th and 9th century A.D. Monographs, memorial 

 verses, and glosses on the margins of the text 

 seem to have been the earliest forms of the written 

 Massorah, which gradually expanded into one of the 

 most elaborate and minute systems, laid down in the 



