armed by the growing vigour of
the Puritanical citizens. Fletcher is, as Coleridge says, a
thoroughgoing Tory; his sentiments in 'Valentinian' are, to follow the
same guidance, so 'very slavish and reptile' that it is a trial of
charity to read them. Nor can we quite share Coleridge's rather needless
surprise that they should emanate from the son of a bishop, and that the
duty to God should be the supposed basis. A servile bishop in those days
was not a contradiction in terms, and still less a servile son of a
bishop; and it must surely be admitted that the theory of Divine Right
may lead, illogically or otherwise, to reptile sentiments. The
difference between Fletcher and Massinger, who were occasional
collaborators and apparently close friends (Massinger, it is said, was
buried in Fletcher's grave), was probably due to difference of
temperament as much as to the character of Massinger's family
connection. Massinger's melancholy is as marked as the buoyant gaiety of
his friend and ally. He naturally represents the misgivings which must
have beset the more thoughtful members of his party, as Fletcher
represented the careless vivacity of the Cavalier spirit. Massinger is
given to expatiating upon the text that

Subjects' lives
Are not their prince's tennis-balls, to be bandied
In sport away.

The high-minded Pulcheria, in the 'Emperor of the East,' administers a
bitter reproof to a slavish 'projector' who

Roars out
All is the King's, his will above the laws;

who whispers in his ear that nobody should bring a salad from his garden
without paying 'gabel,' or kill a hen without excise; who suggests that,
if a prince wants a sum of money, he may make impossible demands from a
city and exact arbitrary fines for its non-performance.

Is this the way
To make our Emperor happy? Can the groans
Of his subjects yield him music? Must his thresholds
Be wash'd with widows' and wrong'd orphans' tears,
Or his power grow contemptible?

Professor Gardiner tells us that at the time at which these lines were
written they need not have been taken as referring to Charles. But the
vein of sentiment which often occurs elsewhere is equally significant of
Massinger's view of the political situation of the time. We see what
were the topics that were beginning to occupy men's minds.

Dryden made the remark, often quoted for