Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/130

 102

NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vi.

1920.

opinion Massinger's part of this play cannot possibly be later than 1617, and was more probably written two or three years before that date. Like Mr. Boyle, I am convinced that early work of Massinger's is to be found in 'Henry VIII.' and 'The Two Noble Kinsmen,' in spite of the fact that they contain comparatively few passages for which close parallels of sentiment or phrasing are to be found in his later plays, and it is a notable circumstance that the text of ' The Laws of Candy ' has several points of con- nexion with that of ' Henry VIII.' The only other hypothesis that will account for the comparative lack of striking parallels be- tween ' The Laws of Candy ' and Massinger's independent work is that it has been dras- tically revised by some other dramatist, and it is not easy to suppose that^a reviser should so have altered the text as to have left scarcely a trace of the pronounced manner- isms of Massinger's later plays.

Mr. Boyle, as I have already stated, affirms that this play shows " no trace of Massinger in language, metre, or charac- terization." In my opinion his hand is recognizable in all three. But it is the first that is the most important, and it is accord- ingly the language of the play which I shall here examine. I agree with Mr. Boyle that unless it can be shown that this is Massinger's, it cannot be said that his authorship has been demonstrated. Attributions based merely on impressions, or even upon the application of metrical tests, have so frequently proved erroneous, that it is impossible to place any confidence in them.

Act I., sc. i., is, I think, wholly Massinger's. Two passages deserve particular notice, of which the first is in the second speech of Melitus, lines 6-9 :

.... that great lady,

Whoso insolence, and never-yet-match'd pride,

Can by no character be well express'd

But in her only name, the proud Erota. Here, as Coleridge has remarked,

" The poet intended no allusion to the word ' Erota ' itself ; but says that her very name, ' the proud Erota ' became a character and adage : as we say a Quixote or a Brutus ; so to say an ' Erota ' expressed female pride and insolence of beauty."

Similarly Hortensio in ' The Bashful Lover,' III. iii., describes the daughter of the Duke of Mantua as :

.... the excellence of nature,

That is perfection in herself, and needs not

Addition or epithet, rare Matilda, and in ' The Duke of Milan,' IV. iii., Sforza speaks in the same strain of Marcelia : Her goodness does disdain comparison, And, but herself, admits no parallel.

At the end of the scene a messenger brings word to Melitus and Gaspero that the Senate is about to adjudicate upon the claims of Cassilanes and his son Antinous. Gaspero explains to Melitus the method prescribed by the laws of Candy to determine who, where there is more than one claimant, is to be the recipient of the honours which the State con- fers upon such of its subjects as have proved pre-eminent in valour, and, as they leave the stage together, he adds :

... .as we walk , I shall more fully inform you.

This is a characteristic Massinger tag, though not quite in the form that we find it else- where in his plays, e.g., in ' The Unnatural Combat,' V. i. :

As we walk, I'll tell thee more.

and ' The Renegado,' II. vi. :

As I walk, I'll tell you more. We find it again in ' Henry VIII.,' IV. i. :

As I walk thither, I'll tell ye more.

and in ' Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt ' (Bullen, ' Old Plays,' ii. 219) :

As we sit, I'll yield you further reasons.

In the second scene of this act, the marks of Massinger are so obvious and so abundant as to preclude any doubt of his sole author- ship. This is the scee of the quarrel between Cassilanes and his son. Fleay's opinion that Massinger was chiefly responsible for the play on the ground of its resemblance to ' The Unnatural Combat ' is described as " fanciful " by Prof. Schelling. But it is far from fanciful. It is not merely that there is in both plays a contention between a father and a son. There is a marked resemblance in the tone and spirit of the speeches of father and son in both plays, which cannot fail to strike any one who will read both at a sitting. We find the same rotund oratory, the same bombastic self-glorification in the speeches of Cassilanes as in those of the elder Malefprt. And the sons address their fathers in the same kind of language. Both prelude their utterances with a reference to the obligations of the filial relationship, Antinous observing :

It were a sin against the piety Of filial duty, if I should forget The debt I owe my father on my knee.

while young Malef ort ( ' Unnatural Combat,'

II. i.) begins with :

As you are my father

[ bend my knee, and, uncornpeil'd, profess

My life, and all that's mine, to be your gift.