t
to be offensive beyond all bearable limits, but places might be pointed
out in which even his virtuous women indulge in language of the
indescribable variety. The inconsistency of course admits of an easy
explanation. Chivalrous sentiment by no means involves perfect purity,
nor even a lofty conception of the true meaning of purity. Even a strong
religious feeling of a certain kind is quite compatible with
considerable laxity in this respect. Charles I. was a virtuous monarch,
according to the admission of his enemies; but, as Kingsley remarks, he
suggested a plot to Shirley which would certainly not be consistent with
the most lax modern notions of decency. The Court of which he was the
centre certainly included a good many persons who might have at once
dictated Massinger's most dignified sentiments and enjoyed his worst
ribaldry. Such, for example, if Clarendon's character of him be
accurate, would have been the supposed 'W. H.,' the elder of the two
Earls of Pembroke, with whose family Massinger was so closely connected.
But it is only right to add that Massinger's errors in this kind are
superficial, and might generally be removed without injury to the
structure of his plays.

I have said enough to suggest the general nature of the answer which
would have to be made to the problem with which I started. Beyond all
doubt, it would be simply preposterous to put down Massinger as a simple
product of corruption. He does not mock at generous, lofty instincts, or
overlook their influence as great social forces. Mr. Ward quotes him as
an instance of the connection between poetic and moral excellence. The
dramatic effectiveness of his plays is founded upon the dignity of his
moral sentiment; and we may recognise in him 'a man who firmly believes
in the eternal difference between right and wrong.' I subscribe most
willingly to the truth of Mr. Ward's general principle, and, with a
certain reservation, to the correctness of this special illustration.
But the reservation is an important one. After all, can anybody say
honestly that he is braced and invigorated by reading Massinger's plays?
Does he perceive any touch of what we feel when we have been in company,
say, with Sir Walter Scott; a sense that our intellectual atmosphere is
clearer than usual, and that we recognise more plainly than we are apt
to do the surpassing value of manliness, honesty, and pure domestic
affection? Is there not rather a sense that we have been