WILLIAM ALEXANDER, EARL OF STERLINE. [Born, 1580. Died, 1640.] WILLIAM ALEXANDER, of Menstrie, travelled on the continent as tutor to the Earl of Argyll; and after his return to his native country (Scotland), having in vain solicited a mistress, whom he celebrates in his poetry by the name of Aurora, he married the daughter of Sir Walter Erskine. Having repaired to the court of James I., he obtained the notice of the monarch, was appointed gentleman usher to Prince Charles, and was knighted by James. Both of those sovereigns patronized his scheme for colonizing Nova Scotia, of which the latter made him lord-lieutenant. Charles I. created him Earl of Sterline in 1633, and for ten years he held the office of secretary of state for Scotland, with the praise of moderation, in times that were rendered peculiarly trying by the struggles of Laud against the Scottish Presbyterians. He wrote some very heavy tragedies; but there is elegance of expression in a few of his shorter pieces.* NATHANIEL FIELD. [Born, 1587. Died, 1632-3.] NATHANIEL FIELD had the honour of being connected with Massinger in The Fatal Dowry,' the play from which Rowe stole the plot of his Fair Penitent.'† *["Lord Sterline is rather monotonous, as sonnetteers usually are, and he addresses his mistress by the appellation of Fair tygress. Campbell observes that there is elegance of expression in a few of his shorter pieces." -Hallam, Lit. Hist., vol. iii. p. 505.] + [For the fullest particulars about Nathaniel Field (many entirely new), see Mr. Collier's Life of Field in his 'Memoirs of the Principal Actors in the Plays of Shakspeare,' 8vo. 1846.] THOMAS DEKKER. [Died about 1638.] AT the close of the sixteenth century we find that the theatres, conducted by Henslowe and Alleyn, chiefly depended on Jonson, Heywood, Chettle, and this poet, for composing or retouching their pieces. Marston and Dekker had laboured frequently in conjunction with Jonson, when their well-known hostility with him commenced. What grounds of offence Marston and Dekker alleged cannot now be told; but Jonson affirms that, after the appearance of his comedy, 'Every Man in his Humour,' they began to provoke him on every stage with their "petulant styles,” as if they wished to single him out for their adversary. When Jonson'sCynthia's Revels' appeared, they appropriated the two characters of Hedon and Anaides to themselves, and were brooding over their revenge when 'The Poetaster' came forth, in which Dekker was recognised as Demetrius. Either that his wrath made him more willing, or that he was chosen the champion of the offended host, for his rapid powers and popularity, he furnished the Satiromastix ;' not indeed a despicable reply to Jonson, but more full of rage than of ridicule. The little that is known of Dekker's history, independent of his quarrel with Jonson, is unfortunate. His talents were prolific, and not contemptible; but he was goaded on by want to hasty productions, acquainted with spunging-houses, and an inmate of the King's Bench prison.* Oldys thinks that he was alive in 1638. * He was there at one time for three years, according to Oldys. No wonder poor Dekker could rise a degree above the level of his ordinary genius in describing the blessings of Fortunatus's inexhaustible purse: he had probably felt but too keenly the force of what he expresses in the misanthropy of Ampedo: "I'm not enamour'd of this painted idol, This strumpet world; for her most beauteous looks When fools do swim in wealth, her Cynthian beams P JOHN WEBSTER. [Died about 1638.] LANGBAINE only informs us of this writer that he was clerk of St. Andrew's parish, Holborn,* and esteemed by his contemporaries. He wrote in conjunction with Rowley, Dekker, and Marston. Among the pieces entirely his own are The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona,' the tragedy of Appius and Virginia,' 'The Devil's Law Case,' and 'The Duchess of Malfi.' From the advertisement prefixed to Vittoria Corombona,' the piece seems not to have been successful in the representation. The author says “that it wanted that which is the only grace and setting out of a tragedy, a full and understanding auditory." The auditory, it may be suspected, were not quite so much struck with the beauty of Webster's horrors as Mr. Lamb seems to have been, in writing the notes to his 'Specimens of our old Dramatic Poetry.' In the same preface Webster deprives himself of the only apology that could be offered for his absurdities as a dramatist by acknowledging that he wrote slowly; a circumstance in which he modestly compares himself to Euripides. In his tragedy of The Duchess of Malfi,' the duchess is married and delivered of several children in the course of the five acts. JOHN FORD. [Born, 1586. Died, 1640?] It is painful to find the name of Ford a barren spot in our poetical biography, marked by nothing but a few dates and conjectures, chiefly drawn from his own dedications. He was born of a respectable family in Devonshire; was bred to the law, and entered of the Middle Temple at the age of seventeen. At the age of twenty he published a poem, entitled 'Fame's Memorial,' in honour of the deceased Earl of Devonshire; and, from the * ["Gildon, I believe, was the first who asserted that our author was clerk of St. Andrew's. I searched the registers of that church, but the name of Webster did not occur in them; and I examined the MSS. belonging to the Parish Clerks' Hall, in Wood-street, with as little success."-Dyce's Webster, vol. i. p. 1.] dedication of that piece, it appears that he chiefly subsisted upon his professional labours, making poetry the solace of his leisure hours. All his plays were published between the years 1629 and 1639; but before the former period he had for some time been known as a dramatic writer, his works having been printed a considerable time after their appearance on the stage; and, according to the custom of the age, had been associated in several works with other composers. * With Dekker he joined in dramatizing a story which reflects more disgrace upon the age than all its genius could redeem, namely, the fate of Mother Sawyer, the Witch of Edmonton, an aged woman, who had been recently the victim of legal and superstitious murder "Nil adeo fœdum quod non exacta vetustas Ediderit." The time of his death is unknown.† WILLIAM ROWLEY. [Born 15-. Died, 1640?] Or William Rowley nothing more is known than that he was a player by profession, and for several years at the head of the Prince's company of comedians. Though his name is found in one instance affixed to a piece conjointly with Shakspeare's, he is generally classed only in the third rank of our dramatists. His Muse is evidently a plebeian nymph, and had not been educated * [Honour Triumphant,' and 'A Line of Life,' two tracts by Ford, unknown to the editors of his works, were reprinted by the Shakespeare Society in 1843.] † I have declined obtruding on the reader some passages in Ford's plays which possess a superior power to a scene in 'The Lover's Melancholy,' because they have been anticipated by Mr. Lamb in his 'Dramatic Specimens.' Even if this had not been the case, I should have felt reluctant to give a place to one dreadfully beautiful specimen of his affecting powers, in the tragedy of 'The Brother and Sister. Better that poetry should cease, than have to do with such subjects. The Lover's Melancholy' has much of the grace and sweetness that distinguishes the genius of Ford. [“Mr. Campbell speaks favourably of the poetic portion of this play; he thinks, and I fully agree with him, that it has much of the grace and sweetness which distinguish the genius of Ford. It has also somewhat more of the sprightliness, in the language of the secondary characters, than is commonly found in his plays."-Gifford.] [Prince Charles, afterwards Charles I. The play in which his name is printed conjointly with Shakspeare's is called 'The Birth of Merlin.'] in the school of the Graces. His most tolerable production is The New Wonder, or a Woman never Vexed.' Its drafts of citizen life and manners have an air of reality and honest truth; the situations and characters are forcible, and the sentiments earnest and unaffected. The author seems to move in the sphere of life which he imitates with no false fears about its dignity, and is not ashamed to exhibit his broken merchant hanging out the bag for charity among the debtors of a prison-house. PHILIP MASSINGER. [Born, 1583. Died, 1640.] THE father of this dramatic poet was attached to the family of Henry, the second Earl of Pembroke, and died in the service of that honourable house. The name of a servant carried with it no sense of degradation in those times, when the great lords and officers of the court numbered inferior nobles among their followers. On one occasion the poet's father was the bearer of letters from the Earl of Pembroke to Queen Elizabeth; a circumstance which has been justly observed to indicate that he could be no mean person, considering the punctilious respect which Elizabeth exacted from her courtiers. Massinger was born at Salisbury,* or probably at Wilton, in its neighbourhood, the seat of the Earl of Pembroke, in whose family he also appears to have been educated. That nobleman died in the poet's sixteenth year, who thus unfortunately lost whatever chance he ever had of his protecting kindness. His father continued indeed in the service of the succeeding earl,† who was an accomplished man, a votary of the Muses, and one of the brightest ornaments of the courts of Elizabeth and James; but he withheld his patronage from a man of genius, who had claims to it, and would have done it honour, for reasons that have not been distinctly explained in the scanty and sorrowful history of the poet. Mr. Gifford, dissatisfied with former reasons alleged for this neglect, and convinced from the perusal of his writings that Massinger was a Catholic, conjectures that it may be attri buted to his having offended the earl by having apostatized while * [He was baptized in St. Thomas's Church, Salisbury, 24th November, 1583.] † William, the third Earl of Pembroke. |