Plays and Puritans | Page 6

was no need to make such a fuss about the matter; and that at all
events the Puritans were men of very bad taste.
Mr. Gifford, in his introduction to Massinger's plays (1813), was
probably the spokesman of his own generation, certainly of a great part
of this generation also, when he informs us, that 'with Massinger
terminated the triumph of dramatic poetry; indeed, the stage itself

survived him but a short time. The nation was convulsed to its centre
by contending factions, and a set of austere and gloomy fanatics,
enemies to every elegant amusement and every social relaxation, rose
upon the ruins of the State. Exasperated by the ridicule with which they
had long been covered by the stage, they persecuted the actors with
unrelenting severity, and consigned them, together with the writers, to
hopeless obscurity and wretchedness. Taylor died in the extreme of
poverty, Shirley opened a little school at Brentford, and Downe, the
boast of the stage, kept an ale-house at Brentford. Others, and those the
far greater number, joined the royal standard, and exerted themselves
with 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 magnificent entertainments,' etc.
* * *
He then goes on to account for the supposed sudden fall of dramatic art
at the Restoration, by the somewhat far-fetched theory that -
'Such 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 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.'
So is history written, and, what is more, believed. The amount of
misrepresentation in this passage (which would probably pass current
with most readers in the present day) is quite ludicrous. In the first
place, it will hardly be believed that these words occur in an essay
which, after extolling Massinger as one of the greatest poets of his age,
second, indeed, only to Shakspeare, also informs us (and, it seems,

quite truly) that, so far from having been really appreciated or
patronised, he maintained a constant struggle with adversity,--'that even
the bounty of his particular friends, on which he chiefly relied, left him
in a state of absolute dependence,'--that while 'other writers for the
stage had their periods of good fortune, Massinger seems to have
enjoyed no gleam of sunshine; his life was all one misty day, and
"shadows, clouds, and darkness rested on it."'
So much for Charles's patronage of a really great poet. What sort of
men he did patronise, practically and in earnest, we shall see hereafter,
when we come to speak of Mr. Shirley.
But Mr. Gifford must needs give an instance to prove that Charles was
'not inattentive to the success of Massinger,' and a curious one it is; of
the same class, unfortunately, as that with the man in the old story, who
recorded with pride that the King had spoken to him, and-- had told
him to get out of the way.
Massinger in his 'King and the Subject' had introduced Don Pedro of
Spain thus speaking -
'Monies! We'll raise supplies which way we please, And force you to
subscribe to blanks, in which We'll mulct you as we shall think fit. The
Caesars In Rome were wise, acknowledging no law But what their
swords did ratify, the wives And daughters of the senators bowing to
Their will, as deities,' etc.
Against which passage Charles, reading over the play before he
allowed of it, had written, 'This is too insolent, and not to be printed.'
Too insolent it certainly was, considering the state of public matters in
the year 1638. It would be interesting enough to analyse the reasons
which made Charles dislike in the mouth of Pedro sentiments so very
like his own; but we must proceed, only pointing out the way in which
men, determined to repeat the traditional clap- trap about the Stuarts,
are actually blind to the meaning of the very facts which they
themselves quote.
Where, then, do the facts