Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/129

 K s vi. APRIL io, 1920.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

101

LONDON, APRIL 10, 1920

CONTENTS. No. 104.

3TOTES : Massinger and ' The Laws of Candy,' 101 Thorn- ford, Dorset: Church of St. Mary Magdalene, 103 London Coffee-houses, Taverns, and Inns in the Eighteenth Century, 105 Izaak Walton's Strawberry in America Giraldus Cambrensis, 107 Stanhope and Moffatt : Church Plate in Hereford Wni. Allingham and a Folk-Song ' Mesocracia," a Spanish Neologism The ' Encyclopaedia Britannica* : RussianArt, 108 '"Teapoy," 109.

'QUERIES: Engravings: 'Nelson's Seat ' Italian St. Swithin's Day -. "iquattro Aprilanti," Grosvenor Place Goodwin, 109-Hawke's Flagship in 1759 "The Lame Demon " Portuguese Embassy Chapel Celtic Patron Saints The Stature of P_epys The Baskett Bible Hastings Family, 110 Marriage of the First Duke of Marl- borougb Gordon : the Meaning of the Name The Third Troop of Guards in 1727 The Knave of Clubs Etonians in the Eighteenth Century " Balderdash ": Wassaiiling of Apple-trees, 111 Josias Conder Authors Wanted, 112.

^REPLIES : William Alabaster Robert Trotman : Epitaph, 112 Unannotated Marrriages at Westminster " Catholic," 113 Blackiston, the Regicide Finkle Street Hamilton, 114 Mary Clarke of New York .Tames Wheatley, cobbler Curious Surnames Melkart's Statue, 115 James Pirie Sir William Ogle: Sarah Stewkley ; Mews or Mewys Family Chair, e. )780 Jenner Family- Shield of Flanders. 116 Walter Hamilton. F.R.G.S. Method of Remembering Figures. 117 The Moores of Milton Park. Egham, Surrey 'Tom Jones' Lewknor Family Curious Christian Epitaph, 118' Adestes Fidelia' Authors Wanted, 119.

.IfOTES ON BOOKS : ' What became of the Bones of St. Thomas ?' ' Inter Lilia.'

INotices to Correspondents.

Motes.

MASSINGER AND 'THE LAWS OF CANDY.'

THERE has been much discussion as to the authorship of ' The Laws of Candy,' which -was first published in the Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.

In his paper on ' Beaumont, Fletcher, and Massinger,' published in the New Shakes- spere Society's Transactions for 1880-6, Mr. Boyle declares that it should be excluded from the works of any of these authors, finding in it no trace whatever of Massinger 's hand. Messrs. Fleay, Oliphant, and Bullen, however, all consider that it is largely his, ^assigning some small share in its composition to Fletcher. This consensus of opinion in no -way influenced Mr. Boyle's earlier view. In Englische Studien, vol. xviii. (1894), p. 294, criticizing Mr. Oliphant' s pronouncement that the play is " pretty equally divided between Massinger and Beaumont," he declares : " Massinger cannot for a moment be thought of as a reviser till his favourite expressions are brought forward," and in his review of Fleay 's ' Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama,' published in the same volume of that periodical (xviii., 121), he is still more emphatic, affirming that " there

is no trace of Massinger throughout the play, in language, metre, or characterization."

The study of Massinger' s style and voca- bulary is one to which Mr. Boyle devoted a vast amount of time and trouble, and his opinion is therefore not lightly to be dis- regarded. The value of his labours does not appear to me to have been sufficiently recognized. His "repetition test," as an aid to the determination of Massinger's contributions to the plays written by him in co-operation with Fletcher and others, is simply invaluable. It is impossible to appreciate its importance merely by a casual examination of the extracts from the various plays, connected by cross-references, dis- played in the pages of Englische Studien and the New -Shakespere Society's Tran- sactions. From such an examination the reader will gain but a poor idea of the value of the parallels cited. But if he will take some small part of the trouble that went to the collecting of them, and read Massinger's plays for himself with a view to noting the character of the repetitions that they present, he will understand the importance that Mr. Boyle attaches to them, and he will understand also why it is that that critic refuses to admit the possibility of Massinger's collaboration in, or revision of, ' The Laws of Candy ' in the absence of evidence that some of his " favourite expressions " are to be found in the play.

Now the fact is that there is such evidence to confirm the views of those who have, on aesthetic (or metrical) grounds, assigned a substantial share in its composition to Massinger. How it is that this has escaped Mr. Boyle is a matter of some surprise for there are several of the " Beaumont and Fletcher " plays, portions of which he has rightly assigned to this dramatist such, for instance, as ' The Honest Man's Fortune ' and ' The Bloody Brother ' where the marks of Massinger's hand are less apparent, in that they contain fewer connexions with his work elsewhere. It is probably because scarcely any of the repetitions here are of the stereotyped kind to be found in the plays written by him from about 1620 onwards, and that where we do find his characteristic sentiments or metaphors, they often show some slight variation from his usual phrasing. This seems to indicate that the play is not of a late date as Mr. Boyle supposes, but that it belongs to a comparatively early period of Massinger's career, before he had acquired the stock of conventional metaphors, the habit of literal repetition, that renders his later work so easy of recognition. In my