abour search for that which will
Afflict us when 'tis found. Something I know
That I could wish I nere had understood,
Which yet if I should speake, as the respect
And duty that I owe my Country bids me,
It wilbe thought 'tis rather privat spleene
Then pious zeale. But that is not the hazard
Which I would shun: I rather feare the men
We must offend in this, being great, rich, wise,
Sided with strong friends, trusted with the guard
Of places most important, will bring forth
Rather new births of tumult, should they be
Calld to their Triall, then appease disorder
In their just punishment; and in doing Justice
On three or four that are delinquents, loose
So many thousand inocents that stand firme
And faithfull patriots. Let us leave them therefore
To the scourge of their owne consciences: perhaps
Th'assurance that they are yet undiscoverd,
Because not cyted to their answeare, will
So work with them hereafter to doe well
That we shall joy we sought no farther in it."

Here we have vigorous writing, staid and grave and unimpassioned, and a
more regular metre. In determining questions of authorship I have so
often found myself (and others, too) at fault, that I shrink from
adopting the dictatorial tone assumed in these matters by learned
Germans and a few English scholars. But I think in the present instance
we may speak with tolerable certainty. Before my mind had been made up,
my good friend, Mr. Fleay, pronounced strongly in favour of Massinger.
He is, I think, right; in fact, it is beyond the shadow of a doubt that
Massinger wrote the speech quoted above. In all Massinger's work there
is admirable ease and dignity; if his words are seldom bathed in tears
or steeped in fire, yet he never writes beneath his subject. He had a
rare command of an excellent work-a-day dramatic style, clear, vigorous,
free from conceit and affectation. But he is apt to grow didactic, and
tax the reader's patience; and there is often a want of coherence in his
sentences, which amble down the page in a series of loosely-linked
clauses. I will not examine scene by scene in detail; for I must frankly
confess that I feel myself sometimes at a loss to determine whether a
particular passage is by Fletcher or Massinger. Most of the impassioned
parts belong, I think, to the former. I would credit Massinger with the
admirably conducted trial-scene in the fourth act; bu