to the post, was, in those days, managed by confidential servants, who were dispatched from one to the other, and even to the sovereign: when to this we add the unbounded state and grandeur which the great men of Elizabeth's days assumed on a variety of occasions, we may form some idea of the nature of those services discharged by men of birth and fortune, and the manner in which such numbers of them were employed.

Massinger was born, as all the writers of his life agree, at Salisbury, probably at Wilton, the seat of the earl of Pembroke, in whose family he appears to have been educated. When he had reached his sixteenth year, he sustained an rreparable loss in the death of that worthy nobleman, who, from

2 An instance of this occurs with respect to Massinger's father, who was thus employed to Elizabeth: "Mr. Massinger is newly come up from the earl of Pembroke with letters to the queen, for his lordship's leave to be away this St. George's day." Sidney Letters, Vol. II. p. 933. The bearer of letters to Elizabeth on an occasion which she perhaps thought important, could, as Davies justly observes, be no mean person; for no monarch ever exacted from the nobility in general, and the officers of state in particular, a more rigid and scrupulous compliance to stated order, than this princess. 3 Death of that worthy nobleman,] This took place on

attachment to the father, would, not improbably, have extended his powerful patronage to the young poet. He was succeeded in his titles and estates by his son William, the third earl of Pembroke; one of the brightest characters that adorned the court of Elizabeth and James. He was, says Wood, "not only a great favourer of learned and ingenious men, but was himself learned and endowed to admiration with a poetical geny, as by those amorous and poetical aires and poems of his composition doth evidently appear; some of which had musical notes set to them by Hen. Lawes and Nich. Laneare.” Ath. I. 546..

Massinger's fatlier continued in the service of this nobleman till his death. It is not pos

the 19th of January, 1601. It is impossible to speak of him without mentioning, at the same time, that he was the husband of Sir Philip Sidney's sister, the all-accomplished lady for whom Jonson wrote the celebrated epitaph:

"Underneath this marble herse
"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."

sible to ascertain the precise period at which this took place, but it was not later, perhaps, than 1606 in the interim he had bestowed, as Langbaine says, a liberal education on his son, and sent him to the University of Oxford, where he became a commoner of St. Alban's Hall, (1602,) in the eighteenth year of his age. Wood's account varies from this in several particulars. He says, he was entered at St. Alban's Hall in 1601, when he was in his seventeenth year, and supported there, not by his father, but the earl of Pembroke. Antony had many opportunities for ascertaining these facts, if he had desired to avail himself of them, and therefore Davies inclines to his authority. The seeming difference, he adds, between the two periods respectively assigned for Massinger's matriculation, may be easily reconciled, for the year then began and ended according to that mode which took place before the alteration of the style. It is seldom safe to speak by guess, and Davies had no authority for his ingenious solution; which unfortunately will not apply in the present case. The memorandum of Massinger's entrance now lies before me, and proves Wood to be incorrect; it is dated

May 14, 1602. How he came to mistake in
a matter where it required so little pains to
be accurate, is difficult to say.

Langbaine and Wood agree in the time
Massinger spent at Oxford, but differ as to
the objects of his pursuit. The former ob-
serves, that during his residence there he
applied himself closely to his studies; while
the latter writes, that he " gave his mind more
to poetry and romances for about four
years
or more, than to logick and philosophy, which
he ought to have done, as he was patronized to
that end." What ideas this tasteless but use-
ful drudge had of logick and philosophy it
may be vain to enquire; but, with respect to
the first, Massinger's reasoning will not be
found deficient either in method or effect;
and it might easily be proved that he was no
mean proficient in philosophy of the noblest
kind: the truth is, that he must have applied
himself to study with uncommon energy, for
his literary acquisitions at this early period
appear to be multifarious and extensive.

From the account of Wood, however,
Davies concludes that the earl of Pembroke

In it he is styled the son of a gentleman; " Philip
Massinger, Sarisburiensis, generosi filius.”

was offended at this misapplication of his time to the superficial but alluring pursuits of poetry and romance, and therefore withdrew his support, which compelled the young man to quit the University without a degree; "for which," adds he, "attention to logick and philosophy was absolutely necessary; as the candidate for that honour must pass through an examination in both, before he can obtain it." Dans le pays des aveugles, says the proverb, les borgnes sont rois: and Davies, who apparently had not these valuable acquisitions, entertained probably a vast idea of their magnitude and importance. A shorter period, however, than four years, would be found amply sufficient to furnish even an ordinary mind with enough of school logick and philosophy, to pass the examination for a bachelor's degree; and I am, therefore, unwilling to believe that Massinger missed it on the score of incapacity in these notable arts.

However this may be, he certainly left the University abruptly; not, I apprehend, on account of the earl of Pembroke withholding his assistance, for it does not appear that he ever afforded any, but of a much more calamitous event, the death of