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of their works, the produce of which, when successful, they were thereby bound to share with him. The principal reason on which this supposition is founded is, that he wrote no piece in his own name for sixteen years after his arrival in London, while he is known, during that time, to have had no means of support but his pen. It appears from the interesting researches of Mr Gifford on this subject, that he was connected at this period with the best-known dramatists of the day. He was the associate, and, as it seems, the assistant of Beaumont and Fletcher, in the composition of several of whose plays he is supposed to have had an important share. These were not the only authors of reputation to whom he lent the aid of his genius; but the income he earned was insufficient for his wants, and both he and his friends were sometimes plunged into the deepest distress. A note is still in existence, in which three of them earnestly implore the assistance of a manager to advance them five pounds out of ten which they were shortly to receive, as the only means of saving them from arrest and ruin.

The Virgin Martyr' was the first play which Massinger ventured to print, and the earliest mention of his name in the office-book of the master of the revels, is under the date of December 3d, 1623, when his 'Bondman' was performed. He printed this work the following year, with a dedication to Philip, Earl of Montgomery, second son of the late earl of Pembroke, in which he speaks with good sense, but mournfully, of his situation and struggles. The relationship between the earl and his former patron, appears to have induced him to seek his patronage, while the manner in which he forbears making any allusion to his early connexion with the Pembroke family increases the difficulty of accounting for the neglect with which he had been treated. Happily for him, however, the earl of Montgomery proved a kind and liberal friend, and the assistance he rendered him contributed perhaps, in some degree, to improve his circumstances and his prospects. Some signal favours must have been conferred, or at least expected, to induce the poet to write the following lines. His obligations, he says, were more

"Than they could owe, who since, or heretofore,
Have laboured, with exalted lines, to raise
Brave piles, or rather pyramids, of praise
To Pembroke, and his family."

It appears, however, from the dedications of Massinger's productions after this period, that the patronage of the earl was far from sufficient to secure him independence, and that it was not only necessary for him to continue writing, but to pay assiduous court to the great. The 'Renegado,' which was printed in 1629, was dedicated to Lord Berkeley, and the Roman Actor,' which appeared in the same year, to Sir Philip Knyvet and Sir Thomas Jeay. But notwithstanding his industry, the profits of his labour must have been wretchedly small. In the space of four years he produced seven plays, all of which, there is every reason to believe, proved successful; but according to the rate at which dramatic authors were then remunerated, his indigence must have been extreme, supposing he depended solely on the exertion of his talents. The highest sum paid for a play by the players was twenty pounds; and if the author preferred the chance of a benefit to taking a fixed sum, it was seldom, says Mr Gifford, that so good a price was obtained. With

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the profits of publication, and the fee of 40 shillings, which, according to the fashion of the times, was looked for from the person to whom the play was dedicated, it is calculated that under the most favourable circumstances, Massinger might have made fifty pounds a year. "But," observes his learned editor, "nothing is better known than the precarious nature of dramatic writing. Some of his pieces might fail of success, (indeed, we are assured they actually did so,) others might experience a thin third day;' and a variety of circumstances, not difficult to enumerate, contribute to diminish the petty sum which we have ventured to state as the maximum of the poet's revenue."

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The reputation which he enjoyed at this time, was very forcibly shown by the honourable manner in which he was treated by the members of the Inner Temple. On his dedicating to them 'The Picture,' they gave him permission to place their names individually at the head of the dedication; but he had sufficient good sense to reply, that, "he had rather enjoy the real proofs of their friendship, than, mountebanklike, boast their numbers in a catalogue." In the year following, that is, in 1631, he produced three new plays, namely, 'Believe as You List,' the 'Unfortunate Piety,' and the 'Emperor of the East.' The two former of these have perished, but the latter was published with a dedication to Lord Mohun, in 1632, and obtained for its author an assurance from that nobleman of "intended favour." The City Madam,' The Maid of Honour,' and 'New Way to pay Old Debts,' were produced in quick succession after this, as well as two other pieces which proved unsuccessful, and reduced, by their failure, the unfortunate author to a state of great distress. The Guardian,' however, which appeared in October 1633, was eminently popular, and the mind of Massinger speedily recovered its former elasticity. Three pieces were the result of the next twelve or fourteen months. They were followed by The Bashful Lover,' which was written in 1636, and three others. These conclude the list of Massinger's numerous works. The Anchoress of Pausilippo,' the last he wrote, was acted on the twenty-sixth of January 1640; and he died on the 17th of March in the same year. He suffered no previous illness, but having retired the previous evening in good health, was found in his bed a corpse. His remains were deposited in Saint Saviour's church-yard, in the Borough, but no stone was erected to mark the spot, and the register simply states, "March 20th, 1639-40, buried Philip Massinger, a stranger."

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The life of this admirable writer was chequered with few changes, but it was one of disappointment and misfortune. His works are con sidered to afford sufficient evidence of the excellence of his heart, and the purity of his principles,-characteristics which ought in conjunction with his noble genius to have secured him the support as well as the respect of those who knew his merits, and had it in their power to serve him. But he was ill adapted for playing the part of a courtier, and he lived in days when genius, unaccompanied by servility on the one side, or party-zeal on the other, had little chance of winning the favour of the great, or making its way to profitable popularity. As a dramatist, Massinger is true to nature, especially in delineations of the tenderer emotions. His language is apt and powerful, and his versification exquisitely harmonious without ever sinking into either monotony or weakness.

Edward Fairfax.

DIED A. D. 1632.

EDWARD FAIRFAX, the well-known translator of Tasso's noble epic, was the second son of Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton in Yorkshire. The author of the Lives of the Poets,' published under the name of Theophilus Cibber, has attempted to cast a stain upon Fairfax's birth, but the alleged circumstance of illegitimacy has by no means been established against our poet. Sir Thomas Fairfax received the honour of knighthood from Queen Elizabeth. The poet's elder brother-afterwards Lord Fairfax of Cameron-was also knighted before Rouen, in Normandy, for his bravery in the army sent to the assistance of Henry IV. of France. Another brother distinguished himself at the battle of Newport, and in the memorable three years' siege of Ostend. While the other members of his family were thus seeking laurels in the field, Edward devoted his time to quieter but still more glorious pursuits, and sought his happiness in the endearments of connubial love, and the assiduous cultivation of polite literature. Having married, he fixed himself at Newhall, in the neighbourhood of Lord Fairfax's estate; and in this secluded retirement he lived and died, honoured and esteemed by all who knew him, and not the least so by his titled brother, to whom he proved eminently serviceable by his advice on various occasions, and the warm interest he took in the education of his lordship's children with his own.

Fairfax's claim on the admiration of posterity is chiefly founded on his admirable translation of the Jerusalem Delivered' of Tasso. The work, though the first production of a young man, was received with high approbation when it first appeared. Not to mention the pleasure which royalty itself preferred to take in Fairfax's vigorous and glowing stanzas, Dryden speaks of Spenser and Fairfax in nearly the same breath, as equally worthy favourites of the muse; and Waller confesses that he owes the music of his numbers to the model furnished him in Fairfax's Tasso. The author of the Lives of the Poets' above quoted, says, with perfect truth, that Fairfax's diction is "so pure, elegant, and full of grace, and the turn of his lines so perfectly melodious, that one cannot read his verses without rapture, and we can scarcely imagine the original Italian has greatly the advantage in either." With equal sagacity the anonymous biographer adds: "It is not very probable that while Fairfax can be read any author will attempt a new translation of Tasso with success." New translations of Tasso have indeed been tried, and one of them at least possesses merits of no ordinary kind; but old Fairfax still keeps his ground even against the polished and graceful verses of Wiffen. Besides his translation of Tasso, Fairfax executed a metrical history of Edward the Black Prince, and several Eclogues; but we do not know that any of these pieces has yet been published, with the exception of one Eclogue, which was printed by Mrs Cooper in The Muses' Library,' in 1737.

Thomas Carew.

BORN A. D. 1589.—died a. D.1639

THIS pleasing poetical writer was the younger brother of Sir Matthew Carew, a zealous royalist in the civil wars. Wood says he received his university education at Corpus Christi college, but that he neither matriculated nor took any degree. His elegant manners and sprightly wit recommended him to the court of Charles I., who appointed him one of his gentlemen of the bed-chamber. He died in 1639. Clarendon says of him: "He was a person of a pleasant and facetious wit, and made many poems, especially in the amorous way." It is to be regretted that his verses, which are often very graceful, should be so frequently disfigured with licentiousness, the prevailing vice of the times. They probably owed not a little of their popularity in a dissolute age to this circumstance; but they possess many beauties, and are thickly strewed with gems of true poetry. The first edition of his collected pieces was published in 1640, in 12mo; the third, in 1651. Many of his songs were set to music by the two Lawes, and other eminent masters of the day. Headley has very elegantly and correctly estimated the merits and defects of Carew in the following observations appended to his Beauties of English Poetry :-" The consummate elegance of this gentleman entitles him to very considerable attention. Sprightly, polished, and perspicuous, every part of his work displays the man of sense, gallantry, and breeding; indeed, many of his productions have a certain happy finish, and betray a dexterity both of thought and expression, much superior to any thing of his contemporaries, and, on similar subjects, rarely surpassed by his successors. Carew has the ease without the pedantry of Waller, and perhaps less conceit. He reminds us of the best manner of Lord Lyttleton. Waller is too exclusively considered as the first man who brought versification to any thing like its present standard. Carew's pretensions to the same merit are seldom sufficiently either considered or allowed. Though love had long before softened us into civility, yet it was of a formal, ostentatious, and romantic cast; and, with a very few exceptions, its effects upon composition were similar to those on manners. Something more light, unaffected, and alluring, was still wanting: in every thing but sincerity of intention it was deficient. Panegyric, declamatory and nauseous, was rated by those to whom addressed, on the principle of Rubens's taste for beauty, by its quantity, not its elegance. Satire, dealing in rancour rather than reproof, was more inclined to lash than to laugh us out of our vices; and nearly counteracted her intentions by her want of good manners. Carew and Waller jointly began to remedy those defects. In them, gallantry, for the first time, was accompanied by the graces,—the fulsomeness of panegyric forgot its gentility,-and the edge of satire rendered keener in proportion to its smoothness. Suckling says of our author, in his 'Session of the Poets,' that

-'the issue of his brain

Was seldome brought with labour and pain.'

"In Lloyd's Worthies Carew is likewise called 'elaborate and accurate.' However the fact may be, the internal evidence of his poems say no such thing. Hume has properly remarked, that Waller's pieces 'aspire not to the sublime, still less to the pathetic.' Carew, in his beautiful masque, has given us instances of the former; and, in his epitaph or Lady Mary Villiers, eminently of the latter."

Sir John Suckling.

BORN A. D. 1608?-DIED A. D. 1641

THIS spirited dramatist, and man of fashion of the 17th century, had a court birth as well as breeding; being the son of Sir John Suckling, who had been secretary of state to Charles's predecessor, and was comptroller of the household to Charles himself, when the subject of this notice was born, in 1613, as some of his biographers insist, but more probably in 1608, at Witham, in Middlesex. The accounts which have been given of the extraordinary quickness of his parts, even in childhood—such as that he spoke Latin fluently when five years old—are somewhat contradictory; but still there seems little doubt that his early acquirements in school-learning were very remarkable. They must have been so; for he does not appear to have pursued his studies later than about the age of seventeen years, and yet he was accomplished in much of the learning of his day. It is also uncertain in what schools he acquired it. Aubrey supposes that his initiation took place at Westminster, and he says Davenant told him that he was at Cambridge for three or four years, having entered that university when only eleven years of age.

At a very early age, certainly before he was twenty, Suckling had travelled over a greater portion of civilized Europe than it was usual for the youth of English nobility to visit; and, on his return he seems to have been received, by universal consent, as the very mirror of a wit, a courtier, and a fine gentleman; and this at a time when the qualities necessary to support these characters were a little better understood than they are now, and not a little better practised. Aubrey says of him: "He was incomparably readie at repartying, and his wit most sparkling when most set upon and provoked. He was the greatest gallant of his time, and the greatest gamester both for bowling and cards, so that no shop-keeper would trust him for sixpence. As to day, for instance, he might be winning, be worth £200, the next day he might not be worth half so much, or perhaps be sometimes minus nihilo. Sir William, who was his intimate friend, and loved him entirely, would say, that Sir John, when he was at his lowest ebb in gaming, I meane when most unfortunate, then would make himself most glorious in apparell, and sayd that it exalted his spirits, and that he had then best luck when he was most gallant, and his spirits at the highest." In 1629, while on the continent, (when Suckling was probably about twenty years of age, but according to other reckonings, when he was not more than sixteen) he became a soldier, serving a short but busy campaign, under the celebrated Gustavus Adolphus.

From the period of his return till his death, (which happened not

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