Agatha, the daughter of Pollux, born in an. 1540, and Now 'tis 1599." The observation of Steevens is probably founded upon this passage, (at least I am aware of no other,) and it will not, perhaps, be easy to conjecture why the authors should fix upon this particular year, unless it really were the current one. It is to no purpose to object that the scene is laid in a distant country, and the period of action necessarily remote, for the dramatick writers of those days confounded all climes and all ages with a facility truly wonderful. On the whole, I am inclined to attribute the greater part of the Old Law to Middleton and Rowley: it has not many characteristick traits of Massinger, and the style, with the exception of a few places which are pointed out by Dr. Ireland, is very unlike that of his acknowledged pieces.

It is by no means improbable that Massinger, an author in high repute, was employed by the actors to alter or to add a few scenes to a popular drama, and that his pretensions to this partnership of wit were thus recognized and established. A process like this was consonant to the manners of the age, when the players, who were usually the

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proprietors, exerted, and not unfrequently abused, the privilege of interlarding such pieces as were once in vogue, from time to time, with new matter. Who will say that Shakspeare's claims to many dramas which formerly passed under his name, and probably with no intent, on the part of the publishers, to deceive, had not this or a similar foundation?

What has been said of the Virgin-Martyr applies with equal, perhaps with greater force, to the Unnatural Combat and the Duke of Milan,

4 A very curious instance of this occurs in the Officebook of sir Henry Herbert: "Received for the adding of a new scene to the Virgin-Martyr this 7th of July, 1624, £0. 10. 0."* Such were the the liberties taken with our old plays! The Virgin-Martyr had now been a twelvemonth before the publick, being printed in 1622; the new scene, which was probably a piece of low buffoonery, does not appear in the subsequent editions, which are mere copies of the first: had that, however, not been committed to the press previous to these additions, we may be pretty confident that the whole would have come down to us as the joint production of Massinger and Decker,

* This was sir Henry's fee; for this mean and rapacious overseer not only insisted on being paid for allowing a new play, but for every trifling addition which might subsequently be made to it.

of which the style is easy, vigorous, and harmonious, bespeaking a confirmed habit of composition, and serving, with the rest, to prove that Massinger began to write for the stage at an earlier period than has been hitherto supposed.

Massinger appears for the first time in the Office-book of the Master of the Revels, Dec. 3, 1623, on which day his play of the Bondman was brought forward. About this time, too, he printed the Duke of Milan, with a short dedication to lady Katherine Stanhope; in which he speaks with great modesty of his course of studies, to which he insinuates, (what he more than once repeats

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Lady Katherine Stanhope;] Daughter of Francis lord Hastings, and first wife of Philip Stanhope, baron of Shelford, and afterwards (1628) earl of Chesterfield; a nobleman of great honour and virtue. He opposed the high court measures, till he discovered that the parliament were violently usurping on the prerogatives of the other branches of the state; when, after an ineffectual struggle to bring them into constitutional limits, and preserve peace, he joined the arms of his royal master. Shelford, the seat from which he derived his title, was burnt in the conflict, two of his sons fell in battle, and he himself suffered a long and severe imprisonment; yet he preserved his loyalty and faith, and died as he had lived, unblemished,

in his subsequent publications,) misfortune rather than choice had determined him.

In 1624, he published the Bondman, and dedicated it to Philip earl of Montgomery, who being present at the first representation, had shewn his discernment and good taste, by what the Author calls a liberal suffrage in its favour. Philip was the second son of Henry earl of Pembroke, the friend and patron of Massinger's father. At an early age he came to court, and was distinguished by the particular favour of James I. who conferred the honour of knighthood upon him; and, on his marriage with lady Susan Vere,' daughter of

• On his marriage] There is an account of this marriage in a letter from sir Dudley Carlton to Mr. Winwood, which is preserved in the second volume of his Memoires, and which, as affording a very curious picture of the grossness that prevailed at the court of James I. may not be unworthy of insertion: "On St. John's day we had the marriage of sir Philip Herbert and the lady Susan performed at Whitehall, with all the honour could be done a great favourite. The court was great; and for that day put on the best braverie. The prince and duke of Holst led the bride to church; the queen followed her from thence. The king gave her; and she, in her tresses and trinkets, brided and bridled it so handsomely, and indeed became herself so well, that the king said if he were unmarried, he would not give her but keep her

Edward earl of Oxford, and grandaughter of William lord Burleigh, gave him lands to

himself. The marriage dinner was kept in the great chamber, where the prince and the duke of Holst, and the great lords and ladies, accompanied the bride. The ambassadour of Venice was the only bidden guest of strangers, and he had place above the duke of Holst, which the duke took not well. But after dinner he was as little pleased himself; for being brought into the closet to retire himself, he was then suffered to walk out, his supper unthought of. At night there was a mask in the hall, which, for conceit and fashion, was suitable to the occasion. The actors were, the earl of Pembroke, the lord Willoby, sir Samuel Hays, sir Thomas Germain, sir Robert Cary, sir John Lee, sir Richard Preston, and sir Thomas Bager. There was no small loss that night of chaines and jewels, and many great ladies were made shorter by the skirts, and were very well served, that they could keep cut no better. The presents of plate and other things given by the noblemen were valued at £2.300.; but that which made it a good marriage was a gift of the king's of £500. land, for the bride's joynture. They were lodged in the council chamber, where the king, in his shirt and night-gown, gave them a reveille-matin before they were up, and spent a good time in or upon the bed; chuse which you will believe. No ceremony was omitted of bride-cakes, points, garters, and gloves, which have been ever since the livery of the court, and at night there was sewing into the sheet, casting off the bride's left hose, with many other petty sorceries.* Jan. 1605."

* There is an allusion to one of these "petty sorceries" in the speech of Mirțilla, Guardian, Act III. sc. ii.