general, and of a great deal more in some few of the scenes, particularly in the quarrel between Annabella and her husband, which is wrought up to a pitch of demoniac scorn and phrensy with consummate art and knowledge; but I do not find much other power in the author (generally speaking) than that of playing with edged tools, and knowing the use of poisoned weapons.-HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1820, Lectures on the Literature of the Age of Eliza beth, p. 136. It is not easy to speak too favourably of the poetry of this play in the more impassioned passages; it is in truth too seductive for the subject, and flings a soft and soothing light over what in its natural state would glare with salutary and repulsive horror.GIFFORD, WILLIAM, 1827, ed., Dramatic Works of John Ford, Introduction. In spite of the harsh, affected, and offensive levity of the title, is Ford's masterpiece, the play that justifies Mr. Swinburne's eloquent panegyric, and will always be most in the critic's mind in all attempts to fix Ford's place among the dramatists.-MINTO, WILLIAM, 1874-85, Characteristics of English Poets, p. 362. It is somewhat unfortunate that the very title of Ford's masterpiece should sound so strangely in the ears of a generation "whose ears are the chastest part about them." For of these great twin tragedies the first-born is on the whole the greater. The subtleties and varieties of individual character do not usually lie well within the reach of Ford's handling; but in the part of Giovanni we find more of this power than elsewhere. Here the poet has put forth all his strength; the figure of his protagonist stands out complete and clear. There is more ease and life in it than in his other sculptures; though here as always Ford is rather a sculptor of character than a painter. But the completeness, the consistency of design is here all the worthier of remark, that we too often find this the most needful quality for a dramatist wanting in him as in other great writers of his time.-SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES, 1875, John Ford, Essays and Studies, p. 278. Never has genius more miserably misused its gifts. If, as the title of "Tis Pity She's a Whore" implies, this tragedy be intended to awaken a feeling akin to sympathy, or bordering upon it, on behalf of the heroine of its story of incest, the endeavour, so far as I can judge, fails in achieving the purpose insinuated. In truth, the dramatist's desire is to leave an impression far other and more perilous than that of a mere feeling of compassion. for a fair sinner; his purpose is to persuade us that passion is irresistible. But his efforts are vain, and so too is the sophistry of those who seek to explain away their chief force; for while recognising their charm, the soul revolts against the fatalism which, in spite of the Friar's preaching and Annabella's repentance, the sum-total of the action of this drama implies.-WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 187599, A History of English Dramatic Literature, vol. III, p. 78. English poets have given us the right key to the Italian temperament. The love of Giovanni and Annabella in Ford's tragedy is rightly depicted as more imaginative than sensual.-SYMONDS, JOHN ADDINGTON, 1875, Renaissance in Italy, vol. 1, p. 412. The man who thus conceived the horrors of the Italian Renaissance in the spirit in which they were committed is Ford. In his great play he has caught the very tone of the Italian Renaissance: the abominableness of the play consisting not in the coarse slaughter scenes added merely to please the cockpit of an English theatre, but in the superficial innocence of tone; in its making evil lose its appearance of evil, even as it did to the men of the Renaissance.-LEE, VERNON, 1884, Euphorion, vol. 1, p. 99. After repeated readings and very careful weighings of what has been said, I come back to my first opinion-to wit, that the Annabella and Giovanni scenes, with all their perversity, all their availing themselves of what Hazlitt, with his unerring instinct, called "unfair attractions," are among the very best things of their kind. Of what may be thought unfair in them I shall speak a little later; but allowing for this, the sheer effects of passion the "All for love and the world well lost," the shutting out, not instinctively or stupidly, but deliberately, and with full knowledge, of all other considerations except the dictates of desirehave never been so rendered in English except in "Romeo and Juliet" and "Antony and Cleopatra." The comparison of course brings out Ford's weakness, not merely in execution, but in design; not merely in accomplishment, but in the choice of means for accomplishment. Shakespere had no need of the haut goût of incest, of the unnatural horrors of the heart on the dagger. But Ford had; and he in a way (I do not say fully) justified his use of these means.-SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1887, History of Elizabethan Literature, p. 404. Unlike most of his Elizabethan brethren, was ever a deliberate, cool, calculating literary workman, and while he is weaving this story of abnormal passion and investing it with all the grace and charm at his command, it is manifest that he is nowise carried away by the imaginative contemplation of it himself, but is all the while curiously studying the monstrous growth of his own diseased fancy in a cold anatomical fashion that rouses our moral repugnance in direct proportion as it excites our æsthetic admiration. He is always the craftsman, possessing a faculty of self-criticism rare among his compeers of that age. WATSON, WILLIAM, 1893, Excursions in Criticism, p. 10. Here Ford is at his best-and worst. He is the dramatist of passion-passion that neither inspires or ennobles; but drives on its victims with the awful force of irresistible destiny. Lost souls, struggling in the mælstrom of over-mastering fate, with no issue possible but selfdestruction; and here and there a "despicable buffoon" to make coarse and insane jests these are the elements of Ford's tragedy. The theme of the play is repulsive; it affords the most characteristic example of that straining after the fantastic and extraordinary, which marked the close of a literary period that seemed to have exhausted the simpler possibilities of tragedy.-MASTERMAN, J. HOWARD B., 1897, The Age of Milton, p. 81. THE WITCH OF EDMONTON It is very easy to sneer at the supernatural portions of this play . . . I consider creditable to the talents and feelings of both poets. I believe in witchcraft no more than the critics; neither, perhaps, did Ford and Decker, but they dealt with those who did; and we are less concerned with the visionary creed of our forefathers than with the skill and dexterity of those who wrote in conformity to it, and the moral or ethical maxims which they enable us to draw from it. The serious part of this drama is sweetly written. The character of Susan is delineated in Ford's happiest manner; pure, affectionate, confiding, faithful, and forgiving; anxious as a wife to prove her love, but fearful to offend, there is a mixture of warmth and pudency in her language, particularly in the concluding scene of the second act, which cannot fail to please the most fastidious reader. Winnifrede is only second to her unfortunate rival; for, though highly culpable before marriage, she redeems her character as a wife, and insensibly steals upon our pity and regard. Even Katherine with any other sister would not pass unnoticed.GIFFORD, WILLIAM, 1827, ed., Dramatic Works of John Ford. "The Witch of Edmonton" is a play of rare beauty and importance both on poetical and social grounds. It is perhaps the first protest of the stage against the horrors and brutalities of vulgar superstition; a protest all the more precious for the absolute faith in witchcraft and deviltry which goes hand in hand with compassion for the instruments as well as the victims of magic.-SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES, 1875, John Ford, Essays and Studies, p. 300. 66 was This remarkable play when first published attributed to the joint authorship of Dekker, Ford, Rowley, '&c."-safety being evidently sought in numbers; but critical opinion has agreed in ascribing it in the main to Dekker and Ford. I confess at the same time that it is not obvious to me why the supposition should be excluded that William Rowley, whose literary identity seems to admit of so easy a treatment, had a substantial share in the play. In any case, there cannot be much likelihood of mistake in assuming Ford to have written at all events the earlier scenes, treating of the woes of Frank, Winnifrede and Susan. And assuredly the English drama includes very few domestic tragedies more harrowing than this play, of which its authors doubtless owed the immediate suggestion to a topic of the day, but which furnished *(?) Ford with an opportunity such as he would never have found by searching for it.-WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 1875-99, A History of English Dramatic Literature, vol. III, p. 74. THE SUN'S DARLING 1623-57 Is he, then, found? Phoebus, make holiday, Jove, this day let all run at six and sevens; I know not on what authority Langbaine speaks, but he expressly attributes the greater part of this moral masque to Ford. As far as concerns the last two acts, I agree with him; and a long and clear examination of this poet's manner enables me to speak with some degree of confidence. But I trace Decker perpetually in the other three acts, and through the whole of the comic part. I think well of this poet, and should pause before I admitted the inferiority of his genius-as far, at least, as imagination is concerned to that of Ford: but his rough vigour and his irregular metre generally enable us to mark the line between him and his more harmonious coadjutor. -GIFFORD, WILLIAM, 1827, ed., Dramatic Works of John Ford. The greater part of the masque as we have it, or at all events the last two acts, have been thought attributable to Ford; but the ground is unsafe, the more so as the partial inconsistency of the allegory favours the notion of the work having been subjected to a revision. Much of the dialogue is very beautiful; the lyrics -in so far as they are original-seem to me less excellent.-WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 1875-99, A History of English Dramatic Literature, vol. III, p. 75. THE BROKEN HEART I do not know where to find, in any play, a catastrophe so grand, so solemn, and so surprising as in this. What a noble thing is the soul in its strengths and its weaknesses! Who would be less weak than Calantha? Who can be so strong? The expression of this transcendent scene almost bears us in imagination to Calvary and the Cross; and we seem to perceive some analogy between the scenical sufferings which we are here contemplating, and the real agonies of that final completion to which we dare no more than hint a reference.-LAMB, CHARLES, 1808, Specimens of Dramatic Poets. Except the last scene of the "Broken Heart" (which I think extravagantothers may think it sublime, and be right) they are merely exercises of style and effusions of wire-drawn sentiment.—HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1820, Lectures on the Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, p. 137. The "Broken Heart" has generally been reckoned his finest tragedy; and if the last act had been better prepared, by bringing the love of Calantha for Ithocles more fully before the reader in the earlier part of the play, there would be very few passages of deeper pathos in our dramatic literature.-HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. iii, ch. vi, par. 97. Ford can fill the ear and soul singly, with the trumpet-note of his pathos; and in its pauses you shall hear the murmuring voices of nature,-such a nightingale, for instance, as never sang on a common night. Then that death scene in the "Broken Heart!" who has equalled that? It is single in the drama, the tragic of tragedy and the sublime of grief.BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT, 1842-63, The Book of the Poets. Even in that single play of Ford's which comes nearest to the true pathetic, "The Broken Heart," there is too much apparent artifice, and Charles Lamb's comment on its closing scene is worth more than all Ford ever wrote. But a critic must look at it minus Charles Lamb. We may read as much of ourselves into a great poet as we will; we shall never cancel our debt to him. In the interests of true literature we should not honor fraudulent drafts upon our imagination.-LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, 1887-92, Massinger and Ford, The Old English Dramatists, ed. Norton, p. 129. LOVE'S SACRIFICE 1633 Unto this altar, rich with thy own spice, To read this tragedy, and thy own be next. Thou cheat'st us, Ford; mak'st one seem two by art: What is Love's Sacrifice but the Broken Heart? representation of a portion of English history, excels King John or the two Parts of Henry IV. It has as much unity as the dramatic history admits or requires; a clearly defined catastrophe, to which every incident contributes, and every scene advances. Ford showed great judgment in selecting a manageable episode of history, instead of a reign or a "life and death, which no one but Shakspeare could ever make practicable.--COLERIDGE, HARTLEY, 1840, The Dramatic Works of Massinger and Ford, Introduction, p. lviii. As the last attempt at historical drama it suffers by contrast with the master -CRASHAW, RICHARD, 1646, The Delights pieces of Shakespeare, but its merits are of the Muses. as he From the "high-tuned poem, justly calls it, which he had here put forth in evidence of his higher and purer part of power, the fall, or collapse rather, in his next work was singular enough. I trust that I shall not be liable to any charge of Puritan prudery though I avow that this play of "Love's Sacrifice" is to me intolerable. In the literal and genuine sense of the word, it is utterly indecent, unseemly and unfit for handling. The conception is essentially foul because it is essentially false; and in the sight of art nothing is so foul as falsehood. SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES, 1875, John Ford, Essays and Studies, p. 287. Its theme is a tissue of passion and revenge, into which too many coarse threads are allowed to enter. The dramatist has drawn so wavering a line between sin and self-restraint, guilt and innocence, that he may be suspected of having wished to leave unsettled the "problem" which he proposes. If so, he stands from every point of view self-condemned. The bye-plot of the play is utterly revolting, and in the character of d'Avolos, and the passages in which he excites the jealousy of the Duke against Fernando, Ford has most palpably copied Iago. WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 187599, A History of English Dramatic Literature, vol. III, p. 82. PERKIN WARBECK 1634 It is indeed the best specimen of the historic drama to be found out of Shakspeare; and, as a compact consecutive "The Broken Heart." considerable, and entirely different from those of Ford's other works. The tragedy is founded on Bacon's "Life of Henry the Seventh," and the character of the monarch is developed with skill and discretion. The play, interesting, dignified and occasionally humorous, seems to indicate that Ford's genius was capable of a wider range than his prevailing melancholy allowed. We doubt, indeed, whether more to wonder that he should have written one such play, or that, having written one, he should have written no more.- MASTERMAN, J. HOWARD B., 1897, The Age of Milton, p. 82. GENERAL The author has not much of the oratorical stateliness and imposing flow of Massinger; nor a great deal of the smooth. and flexible diction, the wandering fancy, and romantic sweetness of Beaumont and Fletcher; and yet he comes nearer to these qualities than to any of the distinguishing characteristics of Jonson or Shakespeare. He excels most in representing the pride and gallantry, and high-toned honour of youth, and the enchanting softness, or the mild and graceful magnanimity of female character. There is a certain melancholy air about his most striking representations; and, in the tender and afflicting pathetic, he appears to us occasionally to be second only to him who has never yet had an equal. The greater part of every play, however, is bad; and there is not one which does not contain faults sufficient to justify the derision even of those who are incapable of comprehending its contrasted beauties. The diction we think for the most part beautiful, and worthy of the inspired age which produced it.-JEFFREY, FRANCIS, 1811-44, Contributions to the Edinburgh Review, vol. II, p. 301. Ford possesses nothing of the energy and majesty of Massinger, and but little. of the playful gaiety and picturesque fancy of Fletcher, yet scarcely Shakspeare himself has exceeded him in the excitement of pathetic emotion. Of this, his two Tragedies of "Tis Pity She's a Whore," and the "Broken Heart," bear the most overpowering testimony. Though too much loaded in their fable with a wildness and horror often felt as repulsive, they are noble specimens of dramatic genius; and who that has a heart to feel, or an eye to weep, can, in the first of these productions, view even the unhallowed loves of Giovanni and Annabella; or in the second, the hapless and unmerited fates of Calantha and Penthea, with a cheek unbathed in tears! DRAKE, NATHAN, 1817, Shakspeare and His Times, vol. II, p. 563. He has no great body of poetry, and has interested us in no other passion except that of love; but in that he displays a peculiar depth and delicacy of romantic feeling. CAMPBELL, THOMAS, 1819, An Essay on English Poetry. Ford is not so great a favorite with me as with some others, from whose judgment I dissent with diffidence.-HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1820, Lectures on the Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, p. 135. I know few things more difficult to account for than the deep and lasting impression made by the more tragic portions of Ford's poetry. Whence does it derive that resistless power which all confess, of afflicting, I had almost said harassing, the better feelings? It is not from any peculiar beauty of language,for in this he is equalled by his contemporaries, and by some of them surpassed; nor is it from any classical or mythological allusions happily recollected and skilfully applied, for of these he seldom avails himself: it is not from any picturesque views presented to the mind, for of imaginative poetry he has little or nothing; he cannot conjure up a succession of images, whether grave or gay, to flit across the fancy or play in the eye. Yet it is hardly possible to peruse his passionate scenes without the most painful interest, the most heart thrilling delight. This can only ariseat least I can conceive nothing else adequate to the excitement of such sensations from the overwhelming efficacy of intense thought devoted to the embodying of conceptions adapted to the awful situations in which he has, imperceptibly and with matchless felicity, placed his principal characters.-GIFFORD, WILLIAM, 1827, ed., Dramatic Works of John Ford, Introduction. Ford, with none of the moral beauty and elevation of Massinger, has, in a much higher degree, the power over tears: we smypathize even with his vicious characters, with Giovanni and Annabella and Bianca. Love, and love in guilt or sorrow, is almost exclusively the emotion he portrays: no heroic passion, no sober dignity, will be found in his tragedies. But he conducts his stories well and without confusion; his scenes are often highly wrought and effective; his characters, with no striking novelty, are well supported; he is seldom extravagant or regardless of probability.-HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. iii, ch. vi, par. 97. It would be unfair . . to conclude that he delighted in the contemplation of vice and misery as vice and misery. He delighted in the sensation of intellectual power, he found himself strong in the imagination of crime and of agony; his moral sense was gratified by indignation at the dark possibilities of sin, by compassion for rare extremes of suffering. He abhorred vice-he admired virtue; but ordinary vice or modern virtue were, to him, as light wine to a dram drinker. His genius was a telescope, illadapted for neighbouring objects, but powerful to bring within the sphere of vision, what nature has wisely placed at an unsociable distance. Passion must be incestuous or adulterous; grief must be something more than martyrdom, before he could make them big enough to be seen. Unquestionably he displayed great power in these horrors, which was all he desired; but had he been "of the first order of poets," he would have found and displayed superior power in "familiar matter of to-day," in failings to which all are liable, virtues which all may practise, and sorrows for which all may be the |