Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/315

 for which Massinger was distinguished, declares himself to be ambitious that it should be known What's good was Fletcher's and what ill his own. This play is unquestionably a revised version of the ‘Wandering Lovers,’ a play licensed 6 Dec. 1623, and may be identified with the ‘Tragedy of Cleander’ (ascribed to Massinger), which was performed at Blackfriars 7 May 1634. A play called ‘The Wandering Lovers, or the Picture,’ was entered in the ‘Stationers' Register,’ 9 Sept. 1653, as a work of Massinger. In spite of the puzzling after-title the entry probably refers to the ‘Lovers' Progress.’ The ‘Spanish Curate,’ 1647, was licensed 24 Oct. 1622. Both plot and under-plot are taken from a Spanish romance (of Gonçalo de Cespides), which had been translated into English by Leonard Digges under the title of ‘Gerardo the Unfortunate Spaniard,’ 1622. The excellent comic scenes are Fletcher's, but the more serious portions of the play belong to Massinger. In the preface to his alteration of ‘Philaster,’ 1763, the elder Colman states that the ‘Spanish Curate’ had been recently revived without success. An alteration was acted at Covent Garden in 1840. ‘Love's Pilgrimage,’ 1647, a romantic comedy of high merit, appears to be almost entirely by Fletcher. In the first act are found some passages that occur, with slight alterations, in Ben Jonson's ‘New Inn,’ published in 1629. Weber's explanation, which Dyce accepted, is that Shirley introduced these passages when he revised Fletcher's play. Mr. Fleay is of opinion that ‘Love's Pilgrimage’ was written as early as 1612, and that Ben Jonson was the borrower. He urges that the disputed passages are ‘distinctly Fletcher's in style and metre;’ but this is a very bold assertion, for nothing could be more Jonsonian than Colonel Tipto's elaborate enumeration of his various articles of finery (New Inn, ii. 2; Love's Pilgrimage, i. 1). Nor is it possible to accept Mr. Fleay's identification of ‘Love's Pilgrimage’ with the lost play ‘Cardema’ or ‘Cardano,’ acted in 1613. The story of ‘Love's Pilgrimage’ is taken from ‘Las dos Doncellas,’ one of the ‘Novelas Exemplares’ of Cervantes. ‘Love's Cure,’ 1647, has an allusion to the Russian ambassador who was in England in 1622; and there are references to the renewal of the war between Spain and Holland, and to ‘the miraculous maid in Flanders’ who ‘lived three year without any other sustenance than the smell of a rose.’ The date would seem to be about 1623, and the play is probably by Massinger and Middleton. Mr. Fleay fixes 1608 as the date of the original production, and contends that ‘Love's Cure’ is an alteration by Massinger of a play by Beaumont and Fletcher. The ‘Nice Valour, or the Passionate Madman,’ 1647, is an amusingly eccentric comedy. In v. 3 mention is made of a prose-tract that was not published until 1624, but the original play may have been written earlier. Mr. Fleay suggests that much of the play was rewritten by Middleton. The verbal quibbles are strongly suggestive of Middleton, and the poetry is frequently in his manner. To this play belongs the beautiful song ‘Hence all you vain delights,’ which gave Milton hints for ‘Il Penseroso.’ In a contemporary commonplace-book preserved among the Malone MSS. the song is ascribed to William Strode; but Fletcher's claim to this and the other songs in the ‘Nice Valour’ cannot be seriously disputed. Fletcher's hand can hardly be traced in the ‘Laws of Candy,’ 1647, which is largely by Massinger. The principal plot is taken from the ninth novel of the tenth decade of Cinthio's ‘Hecatommithi.’ The ‘Fair Maid of the Inn,’ 1647, licensed for the stage 22 Jan. 1625–6, was brought out after Fletcher's death. Only a small portion can be assigned to Fletcher; the chief contributors seem to have been Rowley and Massinger. Part of the story is drawn from ‘La Ilustre Fregona,’ one of Cervantes's ‘Novelas Exemplares.’ From Sir Henry Herbert's ‘Office-Book’ it appears that the ‘Maid in the Mill,’ licensed 29 Aug. 1623, and acted three times at court in that year, was a joint work of Rowley and Fletcher. The plot is taken partly from Gonçalo de Cespides's ‘Gerardo,’ and partly from a novel of Bandello. To Fletcher may be safely assigned the whole of the first act, part of the third, and the early part of v. 2 (scene between Otrante and Florimel). The ‘Night-Walker, or the Litte Thief,’ was published in 1640 as the work of John Fletcher. Herbert's ‘Office-Book’ shows that this comedy was ‘corrected’ by Shirley in 1633. We learn from the same source that it was acted at court before the king and queen in January 1633–4, and was ‘likt as a merry play.’ Langbaine says that he had seen it acted by the king's servants with great applause both in town and country. Weber plausibly conjectured that the ‘Night-Walker’ is an alteration by Shirley of Fletcher's ‘Devil of Dowgate, or Usury put to Use,’ mentioned by Sir Henry Herbert as ‘a new play’ in October 1623. The ‘Coronation,’ printed in 1640 as a work of Fletcher, was licensed in February 1634–5 as written by Shirley, who in 1652 claimed it in a list of his plays appended to the ‘Cardinal.’ There is no reason