e in the border land where dreams are only
half dispelled by the light of common day. 'Don Quixote' had sounded the
knell of the old romance, but something of the old spirit still lingers,
and can tinge with an interest, not yet wholly artificial, the lives and
passions of beings who are thus hovering on the outskirts of the living
world. The situations most characteristic of Massinger's tendency are in
harmony with this tone of sentiment. They are romances taken from a
considerable variety of sources, developed in a clearly connected series
of scenes. They are wanting in the imaginative unity of the great plays,
which show that a true poet has been profoundly moved by some profound
thought embodied in a typical situation. He does not, like Shakespeare,
seize his subject by the heart, because it has first fascinated his
imagination; nor, on the other hand, have we that bewildering complexity
of motives and intricacy of plot which shows at best a lawless and
wandering fancy, and which often fairly puzzles us in many English
plays, and enforces frequent reference to the list of personages in
order to disentangle the crossing threads of the action. Massinger's
plays are a gradual unravelling of a series of incidents, each following
intelligibly from the preceding situation, and suggestive of many
eloquent observations, though not developments of one master-thought. We
often feel that, if external circumstances had been propitious, he would
have expressed himself more naturally in the form of a prose romance
than in a drama. Nor, again, does he often indulge in those exciting and
horrible situations which possess such charms for his contemporaries.
There are occasions, it is true, in which this element is not wanting.
In the 'Unnatural Combat,' for example, we have a father killing his son
in a duel, by the end of the second act; and when, after a succession
of horrors of the worst kind, we are treated to a ghost, 'full of
wounds, leading in the shadow of a lady, her face leprous,' and the
worst criminal is killed by a flash of lightning, we feel that we were
fully entitled to such a catastrophe. We can only say, in Massinger's
words,--

May we make use of
This great example, and learn from it that
There cannot be a want of power above
To punish murder and unlawful love!

The 'Duke of Milan' again culminates with a horrible scene, rivalling,
though with less power, the grotesque horrors of We