Massinger, Philip, dramatist, baptised at St Thomas's, Salisbury, 24th November 1583, was a son of Arthur Massinger, a retainer of the Earl of Pembroke. In a dedicatory epistle to Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery, prefixed to The Bondman (1624), he mentions that his father spent many years in the service of the Herbert family, 'and died a servant to it.' On 14th May 1602 Massinger entered St Alban's Hall, Oxford, and he left the university without a degree in 1606. Gifford supposed that during his residence at Oxford he became a convert to the Roman Catholic faith; and the plays afford some evidence in support of this view.
Massinger was writing for the theatre during the lifetime of the stage-manager Philip Henslowe, who died in January 1615-16. At Dulwich College is preserved an undated letter (circa 1613-14) to Henslowe from Nathaniel Field, Daborn, and Massinger. The three playwrights were in financial distress and begged for an advance of five pounds ('without which we cannot be bailed') on a play which they were preparing. Their petition was granted. On 4th July 1615 Daborn and Massinger borrowed from Henslowe the sum of three pounds. In later years Massinger wrote many plays single-handed; but much of his work is mixed up with the work of other men, particularly Fletcher. His friend Sir Aston Cokayne, in an 'Epitaph on Mr John Fletcher and Mr Philip Massinger,' expressly states, 'Plays they did write together, were great friends.' Beaumont had a share in only a few of the plays ascribed to 'Beaumont and Fletcher;' but Massinger and Fletcher continued to work together long after Beaumont's death. Fletcher was buried in St Saviour's Church, Southwark, 29th August 1625; and Massinger was laid in the same grave, 18th March 1638-39.
Probably the earliest of Massinger's extant plays is The Unnatural Combat, a repulsive tragedy, printed in 1639. The first in order of publication is The Virgin Martyr (1622), partly written by Dekker, who doubtless contributed the beautiful colloquy between Dorothea and Angelo (II. i.). In 1623 was published The Duke of Milan, a fine tragedy, but too rhetorical. The Bondman, The
Renegado, and The Parliament of Love were licensed for the stage between 3d December 1623 and 3d November 1624. In many of his plays Massinger introduces political allusions, and more than once his temerity was rebuked by Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels. The Bondman contains some outspoken criticism on the feeble condition of the navy. There is considerable resemblance between The Parliament of Love, which was first printed by Gifford from a mutilated MS., and A Cure for a Cuckold, ascribed to Webster and Rowley (but not improbably the work of Massinger and Rowley). Of The Roman Actor, produced in 1626 and printed in 1629, Massinger declares 'I ever held it the most perfect birth of my Minerva.' It abounds in eloquent declamation, but is somewhat stiff. The Great Duke of Florence, produced on 5th July 1627, has a delightful love-story. Massinger's female characters are usually unattractive and sometimes odious; but in this comedy he has drawn a charming heroine—a modest, frank, warm-hearted girl. The Maid of Honour, published in 1632 and probably produced in 1628, is—like The Bondman—full of political allusions (as Professor S. R. Gardiner has shown, Contemporary Review, August 1876). The Picture, licensed for the stage 8th June 1629, and printed in 1630, has an improbable plot, but is well written. The Emperor of the East, produced in 1631 and printed in 1632, bears some resemblance to The Duke of Milan. In both plays a man of passionate, ungovernable temper unjustly suspects his wife of infidelity; but The Emperor of the East ends happily. Nathaniel Field joined Massinger in writing the fine tragedy The Fatal Dowry, printed in 1632, but produced some years earlier. From this play Rowe's once-famous Fair Penitent was largely drawn, without acknowledgment. The City Madam, licensed for the stage in 1632, and A New Way to pay Old Debts, printed in 1633, are Massinger's most masterly comedies. There is no warmth or geniality about them; but, as satirical studies, they have Ben Jonson's strength without his ponderousness. A New Way has held the stage down to recent times. Sir Giles Mompesson, the infamous extortioner, is supposed to have been the original of Sir Giles Overreach, a character which has been personated by many famous actors. The Guardian (1633), A Very Woman (1634), and The Bushful Lover (1636) were printed together, 1 vol., in 1655. The most interesting is A Very Woman, which is Fletcher's play The Woman's Plot revised by Massinger. Believe as You List, produced on 7th May 1631, and first printed from MS. in 1844, relates to the adventurer who at the beginning of the 17th century claimed to be the Don Sebastian killed in 1578 at the battle of Alcazar. Massinger represents the claimant as a model of kingly dignity, worthy to rank with Ford's Perkin Warbeck. Though Believe as You List has survived, several other MS. plays of Massinger were destroyed by Warburton's cook towards the close of the 18th century. The powerful and stately Tragedy of Sir John Van Olden Barnavelt, produced in August 1619, written by Massinger and Fletcher, was printed for the first time from MS. in vol. ii. of Bullen's Old Plays (First Series), and was reprinted in Holland. In spite of the Lord Mayor's prohibition it was acted with applause by the king's men.
Massinger showed great care and skill in the construction of his plays. Other playwrights affect us more powerfully, but few can compare with Massinger for general excellence. He was not only a sincere, high-minded artist, but a keen observer of state affairs. Hence his writings have a historical as well as a literary interest. Some of his plays are (as Coleridge said) as interesting as a novel; others are as solid as a treatise on political philosophy. His versification is peculiar. He seems to have taken the metrical style of Shakespeare's latest plays as his model; but his verse, though it is fluent and flexible, lacks the music and magic of Shakespeare's. No writer repeats himself more frequently than Massinger; he had a set of favourite phrases that he constantly introduces. This trick of repetition, joined to his metrical mannerisms, helps us materially to distinguish his work from Fletcher's. Mr Robert Boyle (in papers contributed to Englische Studien) and Mr F. G. Fleay have discussed the difficult question how far Massinger was concerned in the authorship of plays that pass under the name of 'Beaumont and Fletcher.'
Massinger's plays were edited by William Gifford in 1808, 4 vols.; 2d ed. 1816. There is also an edition in the volume (from the text of Gifford) by the late Lieutenant-colonel Cunningham. Two volumes of selected plays, edited by Mr Arthur Symons, are included in the 'Mermaid' series. See S. R. Gardiner, 'The Political Element in Massinger' in Cont. Rev. 1876.