more gallantry than good fortune, in the service of their old and indulgent master.* We have not yet, perhaps, fully estimated, and certainly not yet fully recovered, what was lost in that unfortunate struggle. The arts were rapidly advancing to perfection under the fostering wing of a monarch who united in himself taste to feel, spirit to undertake, and munificence to reward. Architecture, painting, and poetry, were by turns the objects of his paternal care. Shakspeare was his "closet companion," Jonson his poet, and in conjunction with Inigo Jones, his favoured architect, produced those • It is grateful to notice the noble contrast which the English stage of that day offers to that of Revolutionary France. One wretched actor, only, deserted his Sovereign, and fought on the side of the Parliament, while of the vast multitude fostered by the nobility and the royal family of France, not an individual adhered to their cause. All rushed madly forward to plunder and assassinate their benefactors; and, with few exceptions, were recognized as the most bloody and remorseless miscreants of that horrible period. "His "closet companion,"] Milton mentions, as a fact universally known, the fondness of the unfortunate Charles for the plays of Shakspeare: and it appears from those curious particulars collected from sir Henry Herbert by Mr. Malone, that his attachment to the drama, and his anxiety for its perfection, began with his reign. The plot of the Gamester, one of the best of Shirley's pieces, was given to him by the king; and there is an anecdote recorded by the Master of the Revels, which shews that he was not inattentive to the success of Massinger. "At Greenwich this 4 of June (1638) Mr. W. Murray magnificent entertainments which, though mo❤ dern refinement may affect to despise them, modern splendour never reached even in thought.? gave mee power from the king to allow of the King and the Subject, and tould mee that he would warrant it: "Monies! We'll raise supplies what way we please "This is a peece taken out of Philip Messenger's play called the King and the Subject, and enterd here for ever to bee re memberd by my son and those that cast their eyes on it, in honour of king Charles, my master, who readinge over the play at Newmarket, set his marke upon the place with his own hande, and in thes words :-This is too insolent, and to bee changed. 66 Note, that the poett makes it the speech of a king, Don Pedro of Spayne, and spoken to his subjects." This play is lost. It was probably a revived one, as sir Henry received but £1. for reading it. 2 That the exhibition of those masques was attended with a considerable degree of expense, cannot be denied: and yet a question may be modestly started, whether a thousand pounds might not have been as rationally and as creditably laid out on one of them at Tibbald's, Althorpe, or Ludlow Castle, as on a basket of unripe trash, in Grosvenor Square. But we are fallen indeed! The festival of the knights of the Bath, presented an opportunity for a masque appropriate to the subject, in which taste should have united with grandeur. Whose talents were employed on the great occasion I cannot pretend to say; but assuredly the frequenters of Bartholomew That the tyranny of the commonwealth should sweep all this away, was to be expected: the circumstance not less to be wondered at than regretted is, that when the revival of monarchy afforded an opportunity for restoring every thing to its pristine place, no advantage should be taken of it. Such, however, was the horror created in the general mind, by the perverse and unsocial government from which they had so fortunately escaped, that the people appear to have anxiously avoided all retrospect; and with Prynne and Vicars, to have lost sight of Shakspeare and "his fellows." Instead, therefore, of taking up dramatic poetry (for to this my subject confines me) where it abruptly ceased in the labours of Massinger, they elicited, as it were, a manner of their own, or fetched it from the heavy monotony of their continental neighbours. The ease, the elegance, the simplicity, the copiousness of the former period, were as if they had never been; and jangling and blustering declamation took place of nature, truth, and sense. Even criticism, which, in the former reign, had been making no inconsiderable progress under the influence and direction of the great masters of Italy, was now diverted into a new channel, and only studied in the puny and jejune canons of their degenerate followers, the French. fair were never invited to so vile and senseless an exhibition, as was produced at Ranelagh for the entertainment of the nobility and gentry of the united kingdom. The Restoration did little for Massinger; this, however, will the less surprise us, when we find that he but shared the fortune of a greater name. It appears from a list of revived plays preserved by Downes the prompter, that of twenty-one, two only were written by Shakspeare! The Bondman and the Roman Actor were at length brought forward by Betterton, who probably conceived them to be favourable to his fine powers of declamation. We are told by Downes, that he gained "great applause" in them his success, however, did not incite him to the revival of the rest, though he might have found among the number ample scope for the display of his highest talents. I can discover but two more of Massinger's plays which were acted in the period immediately following the Restoration, the Virgin-Martyr, and the Renegado; I have, indeed, some idea that the Old Law should be added to the scanty list; but having mislaid my memorandums, I cannot affirm it. The time, however, arrived when he was to be remembered. Nicholas Rowe, a man gifted by nature with taste and feeling, disgusted at the tumid vapidity of his own times, turned his attention to the poets of a former age, and, among the rest, to Massinger. Pleased at the discovery of a mind congenial with his own, he studied him with attention, and endeavoured to form a style on his model. Suavity, ease, ele • Two only] And of these two, one was Titus Andronicus! gance, all that close application and sedulous imitation could give, Rowe acquired from the perusal of Massinger: humour, richness, vigour, and sublimity, the gifts of nature, were not to be caught, and do not, indeed, appear in any of his multifarious compositions. Rowe, however, had discrimination and judgment he was alive to the great and striking excellencies of the Poet, and formed the resolution of presenting him to the world in a correct and uniform edition. It is told in the preface to the Bondman, (printed in 1719,) and there is no reason to doubt the veracity of the affirmation, that Rowe had revised the whole of Massinger's works, with a view to their publication: unfortunately, however, he was seduced from his purpose by the merits of the Fatal Dowry. The pathetic and interesting scenes. of this domestic drama have such irresistible power over the best feelings of the reader, that he determined to avail himself of their excellence, and frame a second tragedy on the same story. How he altered and adapted the events to his own conceptions is told by Mr. Cumberland, with equal elegance and taste, in the Essay which follows the original piece.* 2 See Vol. III. p. 465. A few words may yet be hazarded on this subject. The moral of the Fatal Dowry is infinitely superior to that of the Fair Penitent, which, indeed, is little better than a specious apology for adultery. Rowe has lavished the most seducing colours of his eloquence on Lothario, and |