Bake Biographia Dramatica; Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary; Davies's Lite of Massinger; Langbaine's History of the Stage; Wood's Athene Oxonienses, by Bliss: Gifford's Introduction to Massinger. We Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, Was Shakespear a catholic? Assuredly there is as much reason to think him one, as Massinger. The truth is, that many of the Roman catholic opinions were adopted by the early protestants. The real presence, and sacerdotal absolution, were among them. For proof of this, we need only open the Book of Common Prayer, especially the one used in Elizabeth's reign. Let us not, however, be misunderstood. We do not positively assert that Massinger was not a catholic: all that we contend for is, that his plays do not afford internal evidence strong enough to warrant the inference.* See a few pages below, where other reasons are adduced for this view But whatever might be the cause which led to the estrangement of lord Pembroke from his dependent,one that had an hereditary claim on his protection,the misfortunes of the latter commenced with his departure from college. The stage was his only resource, a precarious one at all times, and likely to be more so in proportion as the puritans increased. Many eminent men were dependent on it; but one only appears to have flourished by it. This was Shakespear, who yet derived more profit from his acting than from his writing, and from his share of the theatre than from both together. Ben Jonson could not have lived, had he not been a favourite at court, and pensioned by it. Beaumont and Fletcher were of good family, and had, probably, resources sufficient for their maintenance, independent of the stage. Greene, Peele, Marlowe, and a score besides, had, indeed, no other means of support; but they lived and died wretched. Unfortunately, Massinger, a name as dear to letters as any of them, Shakespear excepted, was doomed to be as wretched as any one of his contemporaries. It is strange that, though Massinger, probably, arrived in London soon after he left college, we have nothing of his before 1622-when he was fast approaching his fortieth year. The reason, however, is, that he wrote in conjunction with other dramatists. We know that he assisted Fletcher in several pieces. This fact rests on the authority of sir Aston Cockayne, who knew them both; and' on a letter which he, Field, and Daborne wrote to the well-known manager, Mr. Henslow. That letter we have consigned to the foot of the page*; and it will not be read without sorrow. "To our most loving friend, Mr. Philip Hinchlow, esquire, These,] 66 Mr. Hinchlow, "You understand our unfortunate extremitie, and I doe not thincke you so void of of cristianitie but that you would throw so much money into the Thames as wee request now of you, rather than endanger so many innocent lives. You know there is xl. more at least to be receaved of you for the play. We desire you to lend us vi. of that; which shall be allowed to you, without which we cannot be bayled, nor I play any more till this be dispatch'd. It will lose you xxl. ere the end of the next weeke, besides the hinderance of the next new play. Pray, sir, con-- with humanity and now give us cause to acknowledge you "When it is added that, together with these, forty other manuscript plays of various authors were destroyed, it will readily be allowed that English literature has seldom sustained a greater loss than by the strange conduct of Mr. Warburton, who becoming the master of treasures which ages may not reproduce, lodges them, as he says, in the hands of an ignorant servant, and when, after a lapse of years, he condescends to revisit his hoards, finds that they have been burnt from an economical wish to save him the charges of more valuable brown paper! It is time to bring on shore the book-hunting passenger in Locher's Navis Stultifera, and exchange him for one more suitable to the rest of the cargo. "Tardy, however, as Mr. Warburton was, it appears that he came in time to preserve three dramas from the general wreck; -The Second Maid's Tragedy; The Bugbear; and The Queen of Corsica. "These, it is said, are now in the library of the marquis of Lansdowne, where they will, probably, remain in safety till moths, or damps, or fires mingle their forgotten dust with that of their late companions. "When it is considered at how trifling an expense a manuscript play may be placed beyond the reach of accident, the withholding it from the press will be allowed to prove a strange indifference to the ancient literature of the country. The fact, however, seems to be, that these treasures are made subservient to the gratification of a spurious rage for notoriety: it is not that any benefit may accrue from them either to the proprietors or others, that manuscripts are now hoarded, but that A or B may be celebrated for possessing what no other letter of the alphabet can hope to acI passion of literary avarice (a compound |