were to be tried by this rule alone, we must rank him very high; a few instances will prove this. Theophilus, speaking of Dioclesian's arrival, says,

I

The marches of great princes,

→it Like to the motions of prodigious meteors, b Are step by step observed;

Virgin Martyr, Act I. sc. i,

The introductory circumstances of a threatening piece of intelligence, are

In the same play, we meet with this charming image, applied to a modest young nobleman: zi The sunbeams which the emperor throws upon him, to Shine there but as in water, and gild him

No other figure could so happily illustrate the peace and purity of an ingenuous mind, uncorrupted by favour. Massinger seems fond of this thought; we meet with a similar one in the Guardian :

I have seen those eyes with pleasant glances play
Upon Adorio's, like Phoebe's shine,

to whom we are probably indebted for this, as well as for many other fine images of our Poet. The first is in the Winter's Tale:

He says he loves my daughter;

I think so too: for never gaz'd the moon
Upon the water, as he'll stand, and read,
As 'twere, my daughter's eyes.

The second is ludicrous:

Act IV. sc. iv.

King. Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine

(Those clouds remov'd) upon our wat'ry eyne. Ros. O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter;

Thou now request'st but moon-shine in the water.
Love's Labour's Lost, Act V. sc. ii.

The following images are applied, I think, in

a new manner:

as the sun,

Thou did'st rise gloriously, kept'st a constant course
In all thy journey; and now, in the evening,
When thou should'st pass with honour to thy rest,
Wilt thou fall like a meteor?

Virgin-Martyr, Act V. sc. ii.

O summer friendship,

Whose flattering leaves that shadow'd us in our

Prosperity, with the least gust drop off

In the autumn of adversity.

Maid of Honour, Act III. sc. i.

In the last quoted play, Camiola says, in

per

plexity,

What a sea

Act III. sc. iv.

Of melting ice I walk on!

A

very

noble figure, in the following passage,

seems borrowed from Shakspeare:

What a bridge

Of glass I walk upon, over a river

Of certain ruin, mine own weighty fears

Cracking what should support me !

The Bondman, Act IV. sc. iii.

I'll read you matter deep and dangerous;
As full of peril, and advent'rous spirit,
As to o'er-walk a current, roaring loud,
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.

Henry IV. Part I. Act I. sc. iii.

It cannot be denied that Massinger has improved on his original: he cannot be said to borrow, so properly as to imitate. This remark may be applied to many

thus Harpax's menace,

other passages:

passage in Measure for Measure, where it is said to be a punishment in a future state,

to reside

In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice.

Again, in the Old Law, we meet with a passage similar to a much celebrated one of Shakspeare's, but copied with no common hand:

In my youth

I was a soldier, no coward in my age;
I never turn'd my back upon my foe;
I have felt nature's winters, sicknesses,
Yet ever kept a lively sap in me

To greet the cheerful spring of health again.

Act I. sc. i.

Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty:
For in my youth I never did apply

Hot and rebellious liquors to my blood;
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,

Frosty, but kindly.' As You Like It, Act II. sc. iii.

? In an expression of Archidamas, in the Bondman, we discover, perhaps, the origin of an image in Paradise Lost : O'er our heads, with sail-stretch'd wings,

Destruction hovers. Milton says of Satan,

The Bondman, Act I. sc. iii.

His sail-broad vanns ·

He spreads for flight.

Our Poet's writings are stored with fine sentiments, and the same observation which has been made on Shakspeare's, holds true of our Author, that his sentiments are so artfully introduced, that they appear to come uncalled, and to force themselves on the mind of the speaker. In the legendary play of the Virgin-Martyr, Angelo delivers a beautiful sentiment, perfectly in the spirit of the piece: Look on the poor

With gentle eyes, for in such habits, often,
Angels desire an alms.

When Francisco, in the Duke of Milan, succeeds in his designs against the life of Marcelia, he remarks with exultation, that

When he's a suitor, that brings cunning arm'd
With power, to be his advocates, the denial
Is a disease as killing as the plague,
And chastity a clue that leads to death.

Act IV. sc. ii.

Pisander, in the Bondman, moralizes the insolence of the slaves to their late tyrants, after the revolt, in a manner that tends strongly to interest us in his character:

Here they, that never see themselves, but in
The glass of servile flattery, might behold
The weak foundation upon which they build

Mrs. Montagu's Essay on Shakspeare.