PHILIP MASSINGER (1583-1640).
Massinger, baptized at Salisbury on 24 Nov. 1583, was son of Arthur Massinger, a confidential servant of Henry, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. He entered at St. Alban Hall, Oxford, and left without a degree in 1606. Little is known of him for some years thereafter. He is conjectured to have become a Catholic and thus to have imperilled his relations with the Herbert family, at any rate until the time of Philip, the 4th earl, who was certainly his patron. He was buried at St. Saviour's on 18 March 1640 and left a widow. The greater part of his dramatic career, to which all his independent plays belong, falls outside the scope of this notice, but on 4 July 1615 he gave a joint bond with Daborne for £3 to Henslowe, and some undated correspondence probably of 1613 shows that he was collaborating in one or more plays with Daborne, Field, and Fletcher.
Collections
T. Coxeter (1759), J. M. Mason (1779), W. Gifford (1805), H. Coleridge (1840, 1848, 1851), F. Cunningham (1871, 3 vols.).
[These include The Old Law, The Fatal Dowry, and The Virgin Martyr, but not any plays from the Beaumont and Fletcher Ff.]
Selections
1887-9. A. Symons, The Best Plays of P. M. 2 vols. (Mermaid Series). [Includes The Fatal Dowry and The Virgin Martyr.]
1912. L. A. Sherman, P. M. (M. E. D.).
Dissertations: S. R. Gardiner, The Political Element in M. (1876, N. S. S. Trans. 314); J. Phelan, P. M. (1879-80, Anglia, ii. 1, 504; iii. 361); E. Koeppel, Quellenstudien zu den Dramen G. Chapman's, P. M.'s und J. Ford's (1897, Q. F. lxxxii); W. von Wurzbach, P. M. (1899-1900, Jahrbuch, xxxv. 214, xxxvi. 128); C. Beck, P. M. The Fatal Dowry (1906); A. H. Cruickshank, Philip Massinger (1920).
It is doubtful how far Massinger's dramatic activity began before 1616. For ascriptions to him, v.s. Beaumont and Fletcher (Captain, Cupid's Revenge, Coxcomb, Scornful Lady, Honest Man's Fortune, Faithful Friends, Thierry and Theodoret, T. N. K., Love's Cure), Anthony Brewer (The Lovesick King), and Second Maiden's Tragedy (ch. xxiv). It has also been suggested that a Philenzo and Hypollita and an Antonio and Vallia, ascribed to him in late records, but not extant, may represent revisions of early work by Dekker (q.v.).
FRANCIS MERBURY (c. 1579).
At the end of the epilogue to the following play is written 'Amen, quoth fra: Merbury'. The formula may denote only a scribe, but a precisely similar one denotes the author in the case of Preston's Cambyses (q.v.).
