favorite except among the scholarly few. His dramas were first col lected by Dyce, and have since been re-edited by Hazlitt. "Webster was formed upon Shakespeare. He had no pretensions to the inexhaustible wit, the all-penetrating humor, of his master; but he had the power of approaching the terrible energy of his passion, and the profoundness of his pathos, in characters which he took out of the great muster-roll of humanity and placed in fearful situations, and sometimes with revolting imaginations almost beyond humanity. It is clear what dramatic writers were the objects of Webster's love. belonged to the school of the romantic dramatists."- Charles Knight. He PHILIP MASSINGER, 1584-1640, was a tragic poet of no little genius. Massinger's life was spent in obscurity and poverty. Dying almost unknown, he was buried with no other inscription than the melancholy note in the parish register, "Philip Massinger, a stranger.” Massinger entered Oxford in 1602, but left in 1604 without a degree, and began writing for the stage. He wrote a great number of pieces, of which eighteen only have been preserved. He was found dead in his bed at his house, Bankside, Southwark, one morning in March, 1640. The Virgin Martyr, the Bondman, the Fatal Dowry, the City Madam, and the New Way to Pay Old Debts, are his best-known productions. The last-mentioned has kept possession of the stage, chiefly on account of the effective and original character of Sir Giles Overreach. "Massinger's comedy resembles Ben Jonson's, in its eccentric strength and wayward exhibitions of human nature. The greediness of avarice, the tyranny of unjust laws, and the miseries of poverty, are drawn with a powerful hand. The luxuries and vices of a city life, also, afford Massinger scope for his indignant and forcible invective. Genuine humor or sprightliness he had none. His dialogue is often coarse and indelicate, and his characters in low life too depraved. The tragedies of Massinger have a calm and dignified seriousness, a lofty pride, that impresses the imagination very strongly. His genius was more eloquent and descriptive than impassioned or inventive; yet his pictures of suffering virtue, its struggles and its trials, are calculated to touch the heart, as well as gratify the taste. His versification is smooth and mellifluous."- Chambers. WILLIAM ROWLEY was an actor, and a dramatist of some note, contemporary with Decker, Webster, Massinger, Ford, &c. Rowley was the author, in whole or in part, of a large number of plays. The following are the principal: The Travails of the English Brothers: The World Tost at Tennis; A New Wonder, a Woman Never Vexed: A Shoemaker a Gentleman: A Match at Midnight; The Spanish Gipsy; The Birth of Merlin; The Parliament of Love, &c. JOHN FORD, 1586-1639, was a dramatist of great distinction, contemporary with and succeeding Shakespeare. Ford was of good family, and was bred to the law; and though ho gave much time to dramatic compositions, he did not depend upon it entirely for support, nor was he obliged, like some of the writers of that day, to sacrifice his judgment to his necessities. He had ample means of living, independently of the stage, and whatever plays h produced were made according to his deliberate taste and predetermination. Rank and Character. According to Charles Lamb, "Ford was of the first order of the poets." The general verdict of the critics is that this is too high an estimate. All, however, assign Ford a high rank. His blank verse is soft and musical. He excelled in depicting scenes which awaken tenderness and pathos, and he could be terribly tragic; but he failed entirely in the comic. This prevailing want of genia seems to have belonged to his private life as well as to his poetry. John Suckling, in his Session of the Poets, says of him: "In his dumps John Ford alone by himself sat, With folded arms and melancholy hat." His gravest faults lay in the choice of his subjects. He seemed to light in depicting incestuous passion, as in The Brother and Sisur, and to dally with other forbidden themes which awake the sluiubering fires of wickedness in the human heart. "He delighted in the sensation of intellectual power; he found himself stron the imagination of crime and of agony; his moral sense was gratified by indigna at the dark possibilities of sin, by compassion for rare extremes of suffering. He horred vice, he admired virtue; but ordinary vice and virtue were to him, as I + wine to a dram drinker. His genius was a telescope,-ill adapted for neighboring ob jects, but powerful to bring within the sphere of vision what nature has wisely plac at an unsociable distance. Unquestionably he displayed great power in these horro which was all he desired; but had he been of the first order of poets,' he would h found and displayed superior power in familiar matters of to-day, -in failings which all are liable, virtues which all may practise, sorrows for which all may i better."- Hartley Coleridge. Works.-The principal plays of Ford are the following: Brother and Sister; Loves Sacrifice; The Broken Heart: The Lover's Melancholy; Perkin Warbeck, a historie..! drama; The Lady's Trial; Beauty in a Trance. He wrote a much larger number. His complete works have been printed in 2 vols. 8vo. THOMAS HEYWOOD was an actor, a dramatic poet, and a prose writer, in the times of Elizabeth, James I., ar Charles I. Works. The plays which Heywood wrote, or helped to wri amount to two hundred and twenty, but only twenty-three have bee preserved. The best known are, A Woman Killed with Kindness, The English Traveller, The Late Lancashire Witches. The best of his other writings are An Apology for Actors, Nine Books of History concerning Woman, England's Elizabeth, General History of Woman. - Style. — Heywood's style is the exact reverse of Marlowe's; it is easy, and free from all extravagance. The plot of the dramas is carefully elaborated. But there is a want of vigor which prevents Heywood from rising to the first rank of dramatists. THOMAS RANDOLPH, 1605-1634, was a dramatist of superior abilities, but he accomplished little on account of the irregularities of his life. Randolph was educated partly at Oxford and partly at Cambridge. Coming to London, he attracted the attention of Ben Jonson, who admired the brilliancy of his talents, and introduced him into the gay society of the dramatic wits. Randolph fell into intemperate habits, and died young. Randolph achieved no great success, but wrote several plays which have decided merit: The Muses' Looking-Glass; Aristippus, or The Jovial Philosopher; The Jealous Lover; Augustus, or the Impossible Dowry, etc. His best piece was The Muses' Looking-Glass, which, however, can hardly be called a drama, though written for the stage. It contains many contrasted portraits of virtues and vices which are better as detached fragments than in their original setting. One of his similes is worthy of quotation: "Justice, like lightning, ever should appear To few men's ruin, but to all men's fear." ANTHONY MUNDAY, 1553-1663, was among the crowd of second-class dramatists of his day. Munday was concerned in fourteen plays, the most noted being that of Sir John Oldcastle. He wrote also The Banquet of Dainty Conceits, The Fountain of Fame, The Pain of Pleasure, and some other poems. JAMES SHIRLEY, 1596-1666, was the last of the great school of dramatists of the Shakespearian era. Career. Shirley was born in London, and educated at Cambridge. He took orders in the church, but becoming a Catholic, resigned his position, and endeavored to establish himself as a classical teacher. Not succeeding in this, he began writing poems and plays. The ordinance of the Long Parliament, prohibiting the exhibition of stage-plays, obliged Shirley again to resort to school-teaching as a means of subsistence, and his Academy at White Friars was the resort of many who "afterwards proved most eminent in divers faculties." Subsequently, however, he resumed his chosen occupation as a dramatist, and produced a large number of plays, Works. Shirley's Complete Works were edited by William Gifford, in 6 vols., 8vo, with a biography by Alexander Dyce. Shirley wrote some books in connection with his craft as a schoolmaster: The Way Made Plain to the Latin Tongue; An English and Latin Grammar; The Rudiments of Grammar, the rules being in English verse; Introduction to English, Latin, and Greek; An Essay towards a Universal and Rational Grammar, etc. As a dramatist he ranks among the best of the second class. Of his plays, which are numerous, The Gamesters is considered the best. "James Shirley claims a place amongst the authors of this period, not so much for any transcendent talent in himself, as that he was the last of a great race, all of whom spoke nearly the same language, and had a set of moral feelings and notions in common. A new language, and quite a new turn of tragic and comic interest, came in with the Restoration."-Charles Lamb. EXTRACTS. Reply of Cæsar to Ptolemy, King of Egypt, when the latter, having secured the head of Pompey, brought it to the conqueror. Cæsar. Egyptians, dare ye think your highest pyramids, Built to outdare the sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy kings lie rak'd in ashes, Are monuments fit for him? No, brood of Nilus, But the eternal substance of his greatness, And, with the body, give it noble burial: Your earth shall now be bless'd to hold a Roman, To send you for a present, king of Egypt, I mean a head of equal reputation, And that you lov'd, tho' 't were your brightest sister's Ptol. Hear me, great Cæsar! Cæsar. I have heard too much; And study not with smooth shows to invade Though I hated Pompey, and allow'd his ruin, I gave you no commission to perform it. To My Own Soul. POOR soul, the centre of my sinful earth, Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end? And let that pine, to aggravate thy store; Within be fed, without be rich no more: |