Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/156

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vi. APRIL IT, 1020.

Massinger uses the same figure again in ' The Elder Brother,' V. i. :

But if you think to build upon my ruins, You'll find a false foundation. The short second scene of this act is

certainly by Massinger. I have already noted Ferdinand's " Thou art all virtue " as

characteristic of him, and there is an un- mistakable sign of his hand in the opening

'lines of the final speech of Cassilanes : -

The senate, and the body of this kingdom Are herein (let me speak it without arrogance) Beholding to her.

I have passed unnoticed a speech of Antinous in Act I., sc. ii., beginning with the words :

Thus (my lords) to witness

How far I am from arrogance, <fcc.

" but both may without hesitation be assigned to Massinger. Compare :

I will not say

(For it would smell of arrogance, to insinuate The service I have done you) with what zeal, <fec. ' The Roman Actor,' I. ii.

. . . .nor let it relish Of arrogance, to say my father's care, With curiousness and cost, did train me up, &c.

' The Parliament of Love,' V. i. Let it not taste of arrogance that I say it. ' The Fair Maid of the Inn ' (At. and Webster), I. ii. So far our author is from arrogance That he craves pardon for his ignorance, &c. ' Believe as You List,' Prologue.

Not only does the style of the last act savour strongly of Massinger, but we find many of his characteristic touches in its language. It is in these words that Antinous . appeals to Erota not to press her claim against his father, who is about to denounce him for ingratitude : You speak too tenderly ; and too much like

yourself To mean a cruelty.

To say of a person that he or she speaks " like himself " or " like herself " is to us a very ordinary form of expression. But I cannot find that it was so in Massinger' s day, excepting in his plays where we constantly find this and kindred expressions, such as " look like yourself," " appear like yourself," " suffer like yourself," &c. For " speak like yourself " compare :

till now, I never heard you Speak like yourself.

' The Emperor of the East,' II. i. 'Tis spoken like yourself.

' The Roman Actor,' I. i.

- and it occurs again in ' Henry VIII.' (II. iv. 84-5), where Wolsey says to Queen Katharine :- j do profesg

You speak not like yourself.

Xext we have one of Massinger' s favourite allusions to " oracles " in the opening lines of Cassilanes' address to the Senate :

Are you this kingdom's oracles, yet can be So ignorant ?

Such allusions are not, of course, peculiar to this dramatist, but they are at least characteristic of him. For a similar passage to the above, compare, in ' Believe as You List,' II. ii. :

And will you fsc. the Carthaginian senate], Who, for your wisdom, are esteemed the sages And oracles of Afric, meddle in The affairs of this affronter ?

again, in III. iii. of the same play :

here's a man, The oracle of your kingdom, that can tell you ....

and, in Massinger's part of ' The Elder Brother ' (V. i.) :

. . . .does the court, that should be the example And oracle of our kingdom, read to us Xo other doctrine ?

Cassilanes enlarges upon his son's in- debtedness to him for his martial spirit and training just in the same way as the elder Malefort when he confronts his son in ' The Unnatural Combat.' If the reader will turn to Act II., sc. i., of the latter play and compare the bitter reproachful speech of Malefort just before the " unnatural combat " with this speech of Cassilanes, it will be strange indeed if the comparison does not convince him that they are from the same hand. When he has heard his father out, Antinous at once admits the charge of ingratitude :

'Tis all true. Nor hath my much wrong'd father limn'd my

faults

In colours half so black, as in themselves, My guilt hath dy'd them : were there mercy lefb Yet mine own shame would be my executioner :

Here once more we find a parallel in ' Henry VIII.' The confession of Antinous is strongly reminiscent of Buckingham's confession of his guilt in the first scene of that play, which I believe to be Massinger's:

It will help me nothing

To plead mine innocence ; for that dye is on ma Which makes my whitest part black.

When Cassilanes greets his son's admission of his guilt with the observation :

A burthen'd conscience Will never need a hangman.

he speaks with the voice of Cleremond in the trial scene of ' The Parliament of Love ' (V. i.) :

Should I rise up to plead my innocence Though, with the favour of the court, I stood Acquitted to the world ....