Hippolyta agrees in these lines to postpone her wedding in order that the Queens should be avenged on Creon. No doubt the lines are crude, but Boyle goes too far with his “cloven hoof,” his “effluvia of social corruption,” his “thick miasma.”

“There is a close parallel between The Two Noble Kinsmen and A Very Woman in the treatment of madness.”356 I do not see much similarity between the prose of the one play and the poetry of the other, but so far as any exists it is due to the common ideas of the age as to the way in which to treat the mad. “The reflections in the dialogue of Palamon and Arcite,357 on the corruptions of Thebes, the neglect of soldiers, the extravagance of fashion, are allusions such as Massinger makes to contemporary English life.”358 The allusions are such as any moralist might make, and if the rough and immature style in which they are expressed is not like Massinger's the argument falls to the ground.

“There are a good many expressions in common between The Two Noble Kinsmen and Massinger.”359 This is the really serious argument; but let me repeat that similarity of thought and expression in isolated phrases does not prove unity of authorship. Let us, however, look at some of these parallels.

Reference is twice made in The Two Noble Kinsmen to “the wheaten garland” of brides.360 Massinger refers to “the garland” of a bridegroom in three passages.361 I fail to see the connexion. Notice also that Massinger does not use the epithet “wheaten” in these passages.

[pg 101]

Theseus says, “Troubled I am,” and turns away.362 It was quite natural that he should think twice before postponing his wedding. Boyle compares a passage where Ladislas is in uncertainty363:

People in Massinger's plays are often perplexed, and so they are in real life. Note that Theseus ends his remark with these words at the beginning of a line. When Massinger's characters are in perplexity their way of expressing themselves is quite different; it is more full and rounded off.

Theseus says: “Forward to the temple,”364 being anxious to be married. “Similar words in similar situations occur in Massinger.”365 In neither case, however, is it a bridegroom who speaks.

Boyle says this is obscure, but can be explained by Empress of the East:

The thought is a familiar one; and can anyone suppose that Massinger wrote line 165?

The expression “our undertaker”367 recalls a word used by Shakspere.368 Massinger also has it twice;369 the parallel is interesting, but the word was a cant political term of Jacobean times.

[pg 102]

The fact that apes imitate is referred to in these lines:370

In The Emperor of the East we find:

Surely there is no need to assume common authorship here. The imitative ape has been common property for a long time.

A peculiarity of a sick man is referred to, thus:

Massinger in A Very Woman has:

The simile is a part of ordinary experience and literary convention. You might as well argue that Massinger wrote Euphues.

The jailer's daughter leaves the scene with this remark:

Lidia, in The Great Duke of Florence, when Sanazarro seems to be treating her rudely, exclaims:

But she does not leave the stage.

[pg 103]

We might say: Oh, the difference of styles! In the one case we have a rustic maiden of low birth; in the other, a lady justly offended.

I do not deny that some of the parallels are remarkable, but they may be due to imitation or reminiscence. Take the words:

In The Great Duke of Florence we find:

The phrase is one which Massinger's courtly mind would treasure and delight to use.

Theseus, addressing Artesius, says:

Phrases like this are found in Massinger; thus in The Maid of Honour, Roberto says of the wedding of Bertoldo and Aurelia:

They may be due to reminiscence, though it is simpler to regard them as the current English of the day.

The strongest evidence for Boyle's theory is contained in Palamon's invocation to Venus:380

[pg 104]

I never practised

Upon man's wife, nor would the libels read

Of liberal wits; I never at great feasts

Sought to betray a beauty.

These words certainly remind us of Leosthenes in The Bondman, both in thought and style:

I think, however, that reminiscence will suffice to account for the parallel. The man who could write the last line of this passage has no need to buttress up his fame with The Two Noble Kinsmen, though it is of course conceivable that he edited it for publication in 1634.

Lastly, the method of Massinger calls for a few words. It has been noticed by all the critics that he often repeats himself. As is the case with Plautus the same metaphors, thoughts, and words recur from time to time in similar situations. It is clear that this characteristic might help us to trace those parts of Fletcher's plays in which Massinger collaborated.

One or two simple instances of this fact may be quoted: the characters in Massinger are very fond of blushing;382 [pg 105] references to the talkativeness of women are frequent;383 metaphors from the sea and sailing are very common;384 people are fond of saying that they mean to do something but they do not know what;385 the exact courtier kneels and kisses the robe of a lady or her foot, and is sometimes rebuked for doing so.386

[pg 106]

As a good moralist, Massinger dislikes suicide387 and duelling.388 The latter practice is referred to in his plays as a new-fangled importation from abroad.

Let us now quote some of his favourite words: references need not be given for “honour”; wherever we find “atheist” for a bad man,389 or “magnificent” for munificent,390 [pg 107] or the Latin phrase “nil ultra,”391 or the Greek words “apostata”392 and “embryon”;393 wherever we find “frontless”394 impudence and “sail-stretched” wings395 and “libidinous”396 Caesars; wherever the moisture of the lips is compared to nectar,397 wherever we read of “the centre”398 or of “horror,”399 or of washing an [pg 108] Ethiop,400 there we are on familiar ground. Again, it is a characteristic of Massinger, which offends some of his readers more than others, that he is always ready with the obvious remark. Thus, when Marrall, after a career of tergiversation is finally kicked off the stage, he says:

In The Emperor of the East, when the complications about Paulinus' apple are getting rather serious, the Princess Flaccilla makes the remark, which is certainly in the mind of the reader:

When Leosthenes allows himself to be intolerably coarse in his language to Cleora, we read these words:

When Hilario seeks to amuse his mistress with an absurd message from the front, and she observes, “This is ridiculous,”404 we feel inclined to say, “Not only ridiculous, but not worth writing.” When Cardenes, after lying as dead [pg 109] for some time, gives signs of life, the Viceroy very justly observes:

It will be remembered that Shakspere had used this device in his day. Compare Richard II: “Can sick men play so nicely with their names?”406 Midsummer-Night's Dream: “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”407 1 Henry VI: “Here is a silly stately style indeed!”408

What impression do we get of Massinger from his writings? He was the intimate friend and associate of Fletcher; how far was he a man of the same stamp? Both as a poet and a stylist Fletcher is his superior; he is more tender and more varied; in isolated scenes he attains a high degree of pathos. From time to time the bursts of lovely poetry which illustrate his plays make us bow the head as though in the presence of an enchanter. The fifty plays which are currently associated with his name, with all their faults, are a veritable fairyland. Again, there is a terse piquancy about him, which expresses itself in clear-cut, vigorous lines, such as we find rarely in our poet. And he has a real vein of humour, which makes one laugh heartily.409 Nor is his direct and lucid prose style to be despised. On the other hand, he was not a great artist; his plots, though usually bustling, are often improbable; his character-drawing is constantly fickle and inconsequent. Thus, according to Boyle,410 in The Honest Man's Fortune, Tourneur and Massinger make Montague a gentleman; in Act V. Fletcher destroys all that was good in Massinger, but makes good sport for [pg 110] the groundlings. He maintains that the same thing happens to Buckingham in Henry VIII and to Barnavelt. Though there are many life-like characters in his works, to whom we feel attracted, such as Leon in Rule a Wife and have a Wife and Valerio in The Wife for a Month, they are too often made to do improbable things. Again, as a moralist Fletcher falls far behind Massinger. He shows from time to time a high-flown and tainted sentimentality which is far removed from real life. Indeed, the bad use to which he puts his great talent is often enough to make angels weep. He more than anyone is responsible for the Puritan reaction; he more than anyone is responsible for most of what was bad in the Restoration drama, and he has had his reward. Except by the student, his work is forgotten. It can hardly be doubted that the death of Fletcher was a gain to Massinger in emancipating him from the co-operation of a fascinating but unsafe guide.411 In standing alone he learnt to perfect all that was best in his own gifts.

It is difficult to form a clear judgment of Beaumont. The more I read what scholars attribute to him, the more I feel disposed to agree with Sir A. Ward that Beaumont and Fletcher were men of the same mind and tastes. It is plain that the author of Philaster, The Maid's Tragedy, and A King and No King had a range of passion and pathos beyond Massinger. Philaster is incomparable, and as we [pg 111] read the other two plays we hurry on from scene to scene; when we put the book down we are perturbed. They have carried us away in spite of their grave faults. The glorious nonsense of The Knight of the Burning Pestle is equally beyond Massinger. On the other hand, such disagreeable plays as The Coxcomb and Cupid's Revenge do not invite a second perusal. I do not feel that Beaumont was cleaner in mind than Fletcher, or more balanced in judgment. When we come to the department of metre we seem to be on surer ground; the metre of Beaumont has high qualities, and his decasyllabic verse reminds me of the cold purity of a waterfall. In style his lines constantly have a marked simplicity and directness which anticipate Wordsworth. He can write a line in which the words run in the order which they would have in prose, and hence his great strength. On the other hand, he is often careless about the length of his lines, possibly from a love of variety. He is fond of rhyme, and introduces prose freely into his scenes. His models appear to have been Marlowe for metre and Ben Jonson for treatment. He has a liking for burlesque, as witness The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Woman-Hater, and Arbaces in A King and No King.412 All this is very unlike Massinger.

It may be asked, how does Massinger compare with Webster? This question naturally rises in the mind at a moment when a gifted writer, snatched from us before his time, has left us an interesting and scholarly study of Webster. Mr. Rupert Brooke makes no secret of his contempt for Fletcher, and “the second-rate magic” of Massinger; he regards Webster as the last of the strong school of Elizabethan dramatists.

Are we to compare Westward Ho!, Northward Ho!, and The Cure for a Cuckold with A New Way to pay Old Debts and The City Madam? They are less refined, less [pg 112] skilfully constructed. The stage is more crowded, and the characters are worse drawn. The same considerations apply to the Malcontent413 and The Devil's Law-case. Mr. Brooke practically allows that he means by Webster, The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, and these plays alone. Let it be said at once that it is an ungrateful task to magnify one poet at the expense of another. We allow that in these two plays Webster comes nearer to Shakspere than any of his compeers. He has a great, a subtle, a well-stored mind; he produces isolated tragic effects of the most poignant kind; he is a master of atmosphere; he plays with the feelings of his auditors; he can dazzle them by “his miraculous touches of poetic beauty.”

On the other hand, he is not a clear thinker, nor are his plays skilfully planned. I should imagine that they read better than they act. For instance, the scene in The Duchess of Malfi, where Ferdinand gives the heroine the dead hand, fills us with horror. I doubt if it would be effective on the stage. Webster's rhymes are poor, and his prose worse than Massinger's. Sir Sidney Lee414 says his blank verse is “vigorous and musical”; to me it seems too often ragged and halting. But the chief objection to Webster is that he lives in “a world of repulsive themes and fantastic crimes.” He revels in the sinister suggestions aroused by skulls, dead hands, ghosts, echoes, and madmen. His mind was morbid, and his successes are like lightning flashes of splendid power piercing a gloomy and sullen background.

The fact that he was not a productive writer may weigh less with some critics than with others; more important is it to remember that Massinger's plays held the stage much longer than Webster's. This fact may fairly be taken to prove the appeal which the former has successfully [pg 113] made to the human heart. Webster, in short, compared with Shakspere, reminds us somewhat of the contrast between Mantegna and Raphael.

In one or two respects Webster has affinities with Massinger. Both frequently imitate Shakspere; and both repeat themselves continually, though in different ways. Whereas Massinger used the same vocabulary and terms of thought again and again, Webster quotes whole sentences from one of his plays in another, as if he felt, like some of the Greek writers of antiquity, that when he had said a thing as it should be said, he had the right to use it again.415

It is difficult to compare Massinger with Ben Jonson: both wrote Roman plays and domestic comedies; but Ben Jonson has at once a greater mind and a wider range of experiment. He was a learned man, a great figure in society, the dictator of a circle of wits, the centre of many friendships and enmities. He would probably regard Massinger as a pale-featured, gentle hack. We know more about his full-blooded personality than about any other writer of the period, and while there is much in him to offend, there is more to inspire our respect.

Our immediate object is to compare the two writers as dramatists. It is at once clear that they work on different lines. Massinger is a follower of Shakspere and Fletcher, though we can trace in some of his tragedies the influence of Webster and Tourneur. In his comedies, we see some approximation to Ben Jonson; it is instructive to compare Eastward Ho! with The City Madam. A fundamental difference of method is at once seen; Massinger deliberately eschews the use of prose. It must at once be conceded that he has left nothing on so colossal a scale as Every Man in his Humour, Volpone, Epicoene, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair. Here we find skilful plot, masterly characterization, and ludicrous combinations. [pg 114] How heartily we laugh over the Plautine scene before Cob's house in Every Man in his Humour,416 or at the intrusion of unbidden guests at Morose's wedding, or at the deception practised on the two knights in the gallery.417 How dazzled we are with the kaleidoscopic “vapours” of the great Fair. On the other hand, in what Dryden calls the “dotages,” we find a great falling off. Ben Jonson can be very dull. Still even in The Devil is an Ass and The Staple of News there is a vein of original fancy, which reminds us that we are dealing with no imitator, but with an original and poetical mind. Nor must we forget the splendid series of Masques, into which Ben Jonson put some of his best work; to this Massinger has but little to oppose. And then, as we all know, Ben Jonson bursts out from time to time with a great lyric, whereas Massinger's songs are commonplace. Lastly, in The Case is Altered, we have a plot in the manner of Fletcher which is so successful as to make us regret that Jonson did not try this type of play again. Though it has not the atmosphere of Massinger, it has something of the mellow graciousness at which he, like Fletcher, aimed.

It would be silly to deny Jonson's superiority of intellect, and of attainment when at his best. His faults are, however, very serious. Though he can draw a man of good breeding, his women are very ordinary. He is too fond of incorporating long passages from the classical authors whom he knew so well; he would have been more attractive if he had used Aristophanes and Plautus, Ovid and Libanius, as inspirations rather than as materials. The notes on Sejanus are a liberal education, but after all, “the play's the thing.” The use of “humour” and “vapours,” though at first brilliant and captivating, even becomes artificial and tedious; no one is the embodiment of one passion or weakness. Let us be thankful that human nature is not so simple or consistent, for in that case it would cease to interest. More serious still, Jonson [pg 115] has no sense of proportion; we read Knowell's soliloquy in Every Man in his Humour,418 and we say, “Fine! but too long”; and we say this again and again as we read his works. The great length of the fifth act of Sejanus is a good instance of this fault. Indeed, it is impossible that the play was acted in the form which we now have—it would have emptied the house, like Burke's speeches. When Jonson gets on to some subject of which he knows the technical terms, such as “fucuses”419 or “alchemy,” he is almost as tedious as Kipling's Macandrew. His plots are at times too skilful; thus, even Brainworm in time gets on our nerves. His coarseness is that of a common soldier, and his puns are bad.

Are there any points of contact between the two authors? I do not wish to suggest that Massinger owed nothing to the older writer, though parallels of diction may mean little but the simultaneous use of the idioms of the day. Thus in The Staple of News we find, “I do write man,”420 “blacks,”421 “kiss close,”422 “nectar,”423 “magnificent”424; tossing in a blanket is referred to,425 and the saints426 at Amsterdam, while the cook's fortifications427 remind us of a passage in A New Way to pay Old Debts. In Sejanus we find “passive fortitude” commended.428 “He puts them to their whisper,”429 reminds us [pg 116] of The Roman Actor. Sejanus' change of temper to his satellites430 when he fancies danger is past resembles that of Domitian in the same play. The City Madam has touches of plot and style which recall Volpone.

There is, however, little contact between Ben Jonson and Massinger. Their births were separated by only ten years, but a much longer period than that seems to divide them. Friend of the great as he was, Ben Jonson was yet an Aristophanic, nay, a Rabelaisian democrat; Massinger is a gentleman and a courtier. The one has the vigour and immaturity of the Elizabethan age, and in him we feel in contact with the obsolete Mystery and Morality plays;431 the other has the refinement and romance of the Caroline era. The one is a powerful satirist and a pugnacious fighter; the other lives in an ideal world. On the one side is vis consili expers; on the other, a more limited intellect with a surer artistic sense. If I may venture to say so, they differ from one another as an apple from a pear. I do not deny that Ben Jonson was the greater man, but I find him more archaic and more difficult to read than Massinger. Much of the interest of his plays is dead for us, his local colour and topical allusions, which require so many notes, are more tedious; his personal likes and dislikes, his egotism, his vanity, are wearisome; and though his blank verse is strong and manly, it is not so melodious as Massinger's. The older man stands foursquare and solitary; the younger man reaches forward to posterity, and we feel him to be linked by his art and grace to ourselves. Though Dryden never mentions Massinger, there is a dignified capacity which is common to the two authors.

Massinger's chief rival in the latter part of his life was Shirley. Shirley's plays are full of interest; his graceful [pg 117] style rises occasionally into poetry, at which the author himself seems to smile; his plots are full of ingenious turns; his female characters are more confidently developed than Massinger's, nor is he unable to draw a lifelike man, as we see from Lorenzo in The Traitor and Columbo in The Cardinal. He excels in the battledore and shuttlecock of love-making; he tells us far more of the manner of well-bred contemporary society than Massinger. Indeed, it is probable that he had a greater success in his day than his rival, and was more in touch with Court circles, though even the loyal Shirley discreetly satirizes from time to time the government of Charles I. He is not devoid of humour and epigram; his dialogue is light and sprightly. He reaches back to Fletcher and forward to Dryden; we seem, as we read his plays, to be a long way removed from the labour of Jonson, the pomp of Chapman, the vernal simplicity of Heywood. On the other hand, we miss in him the breadth and strength, the dignity, the nobility, and the fire of Massinger. He is more of a photographer than a painter. Though his style has eloquence, the thought is often far from clear, and the long sentences are clumsy. There is something slight and unsubstantial about the whole thing, while the metre is continually careless and lame.

In assigning Massinger's place in the drama of his age, we have to remember that the period falls into two well-defined parts. He has very little in common with Marlowe, Greene, and Peele, and still less with the charming Dresden china of Lyly. Marlowe's generation breathes the freshness and vehemence of the spring, while Massinger reflects the silver lights of September. So rapid was the development of fifty years, that to pass from the one to the other is like going from the lancet windows of Salisbury Cathedral to the tracery of William of Wykeham. While we miss the purity and simplicity of Early English, it would be foolish to ignore the strength of design and proportion that maturity and experience brought. The [pg 118] towers and battlements, the lierne vaulting, the large windows, and generous clerestories of Perpendicular do much to atone for the spiritless detail and mechanical wall-panelling. A similar consideration applies to the Jacobean dramatists when compared with their Elizabethan predecessors.

Shall I be thought presumptuous in setting Massinger against Shakspere? The attempt may, at any rate, help to elicit a true estimate; the suggestion has often been made before. Shakspere seems to have been from his writings a man of great receptivity, unerring knowledge of human nature, profound wisdom, and infinite sweetness, the master of all the arts which we associate with a good poet. Massinger reminds us of Ben Jonson, though he is less consciously clever, less cumbered with learning, less combative.432 He is modest,433 manly, lucid, sane, and [pg 119] sensible, capable of just indignation, one who respects himself, a faithful friend,434 and a wide reader; he knows a gentleman when he sees him; he can pay compliments with good breeding; he has had his ups and downs in life;435 he is one who understood men better than women, and who, like Sir Thomas Browne, “loved a soldier”;436 a vigorous and business-like artist, he is never worsted by his theme, but makes it lifelike and interesting, with an unerring instinct for what is effective on the stage, his very faults being largely due to this useful knowledge. That there was a strain of noble melancholy in his mind can hardly be denied.437 The character which seems to me to embody Massinger himself is Charalois in The Fatal [pg 120] Dowry. Whether he was musical I should doubt after the perfunctory reference to the art in The Fatal Dowry.438 We find nothing in his plays like the famous idyllic description in Ford's Lover's Melancholy.439 On the other hand, he knew that vocal and instrumental music were effective in a play; we need go no farther than the end of Act IV. in The Virgin Martyr for proof of this.440 And Cario uses the terms of music with great precision in The Guardian.441 On the whole we get the impression that he was an example of a rare combination, modesty with independence of mind, a fact which, considering what the circumstances of the literary life then were, is quite enough to explain the hard struggle he seems to have undergone.

It may be said that I am comparing a mighty genius with a second-rate intellect. Are there any points in which Massinger can hold his own against Shakspere? Granted that he falls short in passion, imagination,442 wit, diction, rhythm, lyric rapture, where does he shine?

[pg 121]

It may at first hearing sound snobbish to point out that he was a University man, but a good deal of truth lies hidden in that simple phrase. Shakspere's plays are marked by many faults of construction, taste, and detail; he who never blotted a line should certainly, as Ben Jonson remarked, have blotted a good many. It always seems to me that this is a line of thought which is too much ignored by those who believe that Shakspere wrote his own plays, and that Bacon had nothing to do with them. The Baco-Shaksperians point, and very justly, to the surprising knowledge and culture shown in the plays; they refuse to believe that all this can have come from the brain of a Warwickshire rustic, forgetting the faults which are so glaring, faults which are precisely those which a learned and accurate scholar like Bacon would have avoided.

Now Massinger is a correct and artistic writer. The little tricks of style which were so dear to his mighty predecessor, the pun, the alliteration,443 the conceit, the verbal quibble,444 are far less obtrusive; he is free from [pg 122] that affectation and precious obscurity which are so marked in Shakspere's later style. And one small point may be noticed in passing here, as an indication of good breeding: the characters in Massinger very seldom address one another by name. It is significant that Greedy and Overreach both offend in this way.445

Though it is true that these faults were common to the age, they are so marked in Shakspere that it is impossible to ignore them in any estimate of the man. In the details of style, then, Massinger can claim credit for being more correct. In a word, what he lacks in genius and poetry he supplies to a certain extent by good taste and education. He shares this advantage with his age, which was learning to correct the errors of the past; the English language was advancing rapidly to more maturity and balance than it had in the previous generation.

I have already pointed out the careful study of Shakspere which we find in Massinger, and the copious use of his imperial vocabulary. When we take into account all the elements of the problem, when we make allowance for quantity of work done, as well as for quality, would it be too much to say that Massinger is as the pupil to the master, and that, though separated by “a long interval,” he comes second?446 This may seem a hard saying, [pg 123] unless it is explained. I allow that Ben Jonson had a greater intellect; that Beaumont and Fletcher had more genius, more pathos, more humour; that Marlowe, Webster, and Ford, each in his own way, were greater poets. I put Massinger next to Shakspere as a dramatist pure and simple, because his best work is well-constructed and interesting, his style and metre entrancing, his atmosphere charming and easy, yet ideal, his morality mature and sane. And in praising his morality, I do not lay stress on the benefits to be derived from the use of his plays as a school-book, though that consideration is not to be despised but rather maintain that in avoiding abnormal, tainted, and morbid themes he is in advance of his age; consequently he is easier for us to read and understand than other writers whose gifts were greater than his; he makes a successful and enduring appeal to the communis sensus of mankind.

I now proceed to a short critical estimate of Massinger's plays. The most famous are The Virgin Martyr in tragedy, and A New Way to pay Old Debts in comedy. Opinions have differed strangely about The Virgin Martyr. It went through four editions in quarto in the seventeenth century, a fact which testifies to its immediate popularity. Davies447 considered it far inferior to any of his other productions, and Mason was equally severe. Even Hallam confessed that parts of it were far from pleasing. There can be no doubt that these parts of the play, which the critics now unanimously ascribe to Dekker, are responsible for giving Massinger a bad name for coarseness. It is hard to carry supernatural machinery through, as Fletcher's Prophetess shows, and we have here an Angel, and a Devil, but they are on the whole managed successfully. The first act is admirably proportioned; the fourth and fifth also are masterly. There are a thrill and a glamour in the style of this play unlike anything else in Massinger, due perhaps to the religious problem dealt [pg 124] with.448 The only fault of Dorothea is that, like other good people, she is a bad judge of character. It gives us a shock to find Spungius and Hircius members of her household, and at least we feel she should not have put her charities in their hands, but should have attended to the poor herself.449 The Princess Artemia is a type common in Massinger.450

In A New Way to pay Old Debts we have an ingenious plot which never flags, adequate comedy, and characters which are appropriately, if not very carefully, drawn. The style is strong and natural; it is not far from this play to Goldsmith, and indeed the eighteenth century must have owed much to it. In its atmosphere of ease and propriety there are no harsh lights or discordant tints.

The central idea of the plot was probably borrowed from a play of admirable vivacity and dexterity, Middleton's Trick to catch the Old One, which appeared in 1607. What has Massinger added to Middleton? He has made the plot more probable, refining the characters, and raising the whole thing from prose to poetry. We laugh less, but we admire more, for we feel that we are seeing something transacted which might have happened.

Sir Giles Overreach is Massinger's masterpiece, a superman of colossal wickedness, with no belief in the honour or virtue of men or women.451 Though fond of [pg 125] money, he is not a miser, but loves to lavish his gains; power is rather his foible; repeated success has made him reckless; his aim is to increase his estates by bullying his poorer neighbours, and by employing the sharp practices of the law. But he has yet one other ambition, to see his only daughter married to a lord and to hear her styled “Right Honourable.” His unscrupulousness is expressed in often-quoted passages of great power; his frantic anger in the fifth act is depicted with a skill which leaves no sympathy in our minds for a father whose only daughter has treated him badly. Here Massinger is more successful than his great model in the case of Shylock and Jessica. I cannot agree that it is inconsistent with the character of Sir Giles that he should be anxious for his daughter to marry a lord—there are several passages in the earlier part of the play which show that he is not only a bully but a base-born snob.452