University of Virginia Library

The Shares of Fletcher and His Collaborators in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon (II)
by
Cyrus Hoy [*]

THE ELEVEN PLAYS WHICH REPRESENT THE JOINT work of Fletcher and Massinger are of two distinct sorts: (1) direct collaborations between the two dramatists, and (2) revisions by Massinger of plays originally of Fletcher's sole authorship. The linguistic patterns of the two dramatists emerge distinctly enough in such of the collaborated plays as have not been reworked by the one or the other, and have been transmitted in texts which have preserved the colloquial and contracted forms of each. Elsewhere the linguistic evidence, particularly that of the Fletcherian ye, has been rather badly obscured.

Since the linguistic patterns of Fletcher and Massinger comprise essentially opposing language preferences, a collaboration of the two should ideally produce a play in which the Fletcherian pattern, with its ye's, 'em's, i'th's, and whatever, will alternate in individual acts and scenes with a pattern from which these forms are, for the most part, absent, but which will tend to show some increase in the use of the verb form hath. This is collaboration in its simplest form—the form in which the respective shares of the dramatists concerned can be most readily determined—and it obtains in four of the plays considered in this section of the present study: Barnavelt, The False One, The Prophetess, and The Spanish Curate. But even with collaboration on a scale as obvious as this, the printed text of the play in question must reproduce the linguistic preferences of the participating dramatists, if such preferences are to serve as the criteria for attribution. The four plays just named are extant in texts in which the linguistic patterns of Fletcher and Massinger have been preserved with scrupulous care. One, Barnavelt,

exists in a manuscript that is known to be the work of the scribe Ralph Crane. The care that Crane exercised in reproducing the Fletcherian ye has been already observed,[1] and it is probable that the printed texts for the other three plays derive from Crane transcripts.

Such a play as The Custom of the Country, however, makes clear the extent to which the linguistic texture of a play can be altered by a scribe who has made no great effort to reproduce the language forms present in his copy. If the distinction between the linguistic patterns of Fletcher and Massinger were maintained throughout the play as clearly as they are in the third act, the respective shares of the two collaborators would be demonstrable enough, and the play could take its place with those in the Barnavelt-Spanish Curate group. In its other four acts, however, the occurrence of ye seems to have been greatly reduced, if one is to judge by the frequency of its appearance in the Fletcherian scenes of Act III. Since the form is present there at something approaching its usual Fletcherian rate of usage, I can see no reason for supposing a compositor to have suppressed the form elsewhere in the play and not there; since no evidence exists of a Massinger revision, I can only conclude that the manuscript behind The Custom of the Country incorporated a portion of the author's autograph in which ye was present, but for the rest represents the work of a scribe who has given ye scant heed. The matter is discussed more fully below.

The nature of any collaboration among two or more dramatists becomes more complex when some one of the participating authors tends to give the final form to the finished play. Apart from any literary revision that may be made, the dramatist who is reworking the whole generally avails himself of the opportunity of eliminating some of the more egregious linguistic preferences from the share of his collaborator, often introducing certain of his own. Of the Fletcher-Massinger collaborations, two, The Double Marriage and The Little French Lawyer, have apparently received their final form from Massinger, for Fletcher's ye has all but disappeared. The final version of The Sea Voyage is evidently the work of Fletcher; there ye is to be found in scenes that bear some of Massinger's strongest verbal characteristics.

The Lovers' Progress and A Very Woman are, beyond hardly any doubt, Massinger revisions of Fletcherian originals, and The Elder Brother seems to belong in the same category. The extent of the revisions varies with each play. Massinger seems to have revised only the first and last acts of The Elder Brother, though the revisions here are so thorough as to amount to rewriting. They are equally thorough, and more extensive still, in The Lovers' Progress and A Very Woman. The

scenes most completely reworked are heavily stamped with Massinger's favorite turns of phrase and grammatical constructions. Here, in the great number of cases, all occurrences of ye have been completely eliminated, and though scenes remain in all three plays which can almost certainly be regarded as pure Fletcher, the occurrence of ye in these seems suspiciously low. Certainly, Fletcher's excessive use of the form must have made it fair game for any dramatist who set about revising a play in which his work was present; and in removing it to the extent that he apparently did, Massinger was not being nearly so dogmatic as Fletcher's former collaborator, Beaumont, who, as we shall see, would only infrequently tolerate ye in any play for which he prepared final copy. From a purely literary and stylistic point of view, one can only applaud Beaumont and Massinger for pruning away a particle of grammar which, as Fletcher employs it, can become almost unbelievably tiresome. But for the sake of the present study, one could wish that they hadn't.

Barnavelt

• Fletcher: I, 3: II, 2-6; III, 1, 3-4; IV, 1-3; V, 1b (from exit of Ambassadors to exit of Provost), 2-3.
• Massinger: I, 1-2; II, 1; III, 2, 5-6; IV, 4-5; V, 1a (to exit of Ambassadors), 1c (from exit of Provost to end).

The play was never printed, and is extant only in a manuscript prompt-book prepared by the scribe Ralph Crane. Crane's care in reproducing the Fletcherian ye has been noted in connection with his transcript of Fletcher's Demetrius and Enanthe (The Humourous Lieutenant), and his regard for the colloquial and contracted forms employed by his authors is equally apparent here; no where are the linguistic patterns of Fletcher and Massinger more sharply differentiated within the same play than in Crane's manuscript of Barnavelt. Ye pervades the scenes of Fletcher's authorship (where it occurs a total of 132 times), but is found only twice in Massinger's portion of the play. Massinger's share exhibits 16 instances of hath, Fletcher's but one. Whereas the contraction 'em occurs 42 times in scenes by Fletcher, as against 6 occurrences of the expanded them, Massinger's scenes show a reverse preference, with only 3 instances of 'em and 33 of them. All instances of the contractions i'th' (6), o'th' (3) and's for his (1) occur in scenes by Fletcher. The play's 5 occurrences of t', the 2 occurrences of i'the, and the single use of the contraction of't are to be found in Massinger's portion of the play.[2]

The Custom of the Country

• Fletcher: I; III, 1-3; IV, 3-5; V, 5a (to entrance of Hypollita).
• Massinger: II; III, 4-5; IV, 1-2; V, 1-4, 5b (from entrance of Hypollita to end).

That the play is a Fletcher-Massinger collaboration is certain, and the respective shares of their authorship are clear enough. Ye, which occurs a total of 78 times in the scenes assigned to Fletcher, appears but twice in Massinger's portion. Hath, which is found 4 times in the Fletcherian scenes, appears 7 times in scenes by Massinger. Again, the occurrence of the contraction 'em and the expanded them in the two shares is striking. 'Em appears 25 times in the Fletcherian portion, while them appears but once. In the scenes by Massinger, 'em occurs only 3 times, while them is used 22 times.

But while the evidence for the two dramatists is sufficiently distinct as to make no real difficulty in determining the work of each, there is hardly any doubt that the linguistic texture of the play has been to some extent distorted in the extant text. The wholly Fletcherian first act contains but 7 ye's, an uncommonly low number when it is compared with the normal rate of occurrence of the form in single acts of his unaided plays, or the single acts of his authorship in such collaborated works as The False One or The Spanish Curate. It is only in the Fletcherian scenes of Act III that ye appears in any abundance; scene one alone contains 7 ye's, so equaling the total for Act I. Such stage directions as "Boy ready for the Songs" (4a)[*] "Tapers ready" (8a), "Light ready" (8b), and "Hold a purse ready" (9b) make it clear that the first folio text derives from a theatrical prompt-book. It is likely that the scribe who prepared this failed in his transcript to reproduce ye on every occasion when it stood in his copy. It is probably significant that the third act, the only one in which ye does occur at something approaching the usual Fletcherian usage, is also the only act in the play that is divided into scenes. A possible explanation of this anomaly—if it is one—is that the prompt copy incorporated, as the text for Act III, a portion of the original Fletcher-Massinger manuscript in which the scenes had been indicated. Such a conjecture demands the

further one that the prompt-book as a whole was prepared by some such scribe as Edward Knight, whose tendency to reduce the occurrence of the Fletcherian ye has been observed in his manuscript of Bonduca,[3] and whose tendency to ignore scene divisions can be demonstrated. Neither Knight's transcript of Bonduca, nor the prompt-book which he prepared for The Honest Man's Fortune contains scene divisions, as does such a prompt-book as the one Crane prepared for Barnavelt. In preparing Massinger's autograph manuscript of Believe as you List for use as a prompt-book, Knight regularly deleted the scene divisions which the author had carefully supplied. In the case of The Custom of the Country, it seems valid to assume that Act III, with its division into scenes and its preservation of the Fletcherian ye in the scenes of his authorship, and Acts I, II, IV, and V, with their lack of scene divisions and the paucity of ye's in the Fletcherian portions, derive from two different manuscript sources.

The Double Marriage

• Fletcher: II; III, 2-3; IV, 1, 3-4; V, 1-2.
• Massinger: I; III, 1; IV, 2; V, 3-4.

Though the occurrence of ye seems here to have been rather sharply curtailed, its distribution is such as to afford a reasonably clear indication of the Fletcherian scenes. Further, the play provides additional linguistic criteria which corroborate the attributions made on the basis of ye. The form occurs 37 times in scenes assigned to Fletcher, twice in scenes by Massinger. Hath appears but once in Fletcher's share, 11 times in Massinger's. The occurence of 'em and them is significant. 'Em is found 44 times, to 5 instances of them, in the Fletcherian portion. In Massinger's scenes, the preference is reversed: 'em occurs but 6 times, them 14 times. While the contraction i'th' is found but once in a Massinger scene, it occurs a total of 12 times in scenes by Fletcher. All instances of o'th' (7), h'as (6), and 's for his (2) are found in scenes by Fletcher.

In view of the systematic suppression of ye throughout Fletcher's portion of the play, it seems clear that Massinger is responsible for the final form of the extant text. That the play was originally a colloborated work, and not a Fletcherian original revised by Massinger, is attested to by the manner in which Fletcher's ye, his preference for 'em and his use of i'th', o'th, and the like are preserved together in scenes which bear the stamp of his style, and are not diffused throughout the whole.

The Elder Brother

• Fletcher: II; III; IV.
• Massinger: I; V.

This I regard as a Fletcherian original, the first and last acts of which have been virtually rewritten by Massinger. The manner in which Fletcher's linguistic forms appear in what are otherwise Massinger scenes tends, I think, to point in the direction of such a theory. Ye occurs a total of 60 times in the three acts of Fletcher's authorship; it is found 6 times in Massinger's portion of the play. Y', which appears 20 times in Fletcher's scenes, is found 7 times in scenes by Massinger. The distinction in Fletcher and Massinger's preferences for 'em and them is here apparent. In the Fletcher scenes, 'em appears 25 times, them 12 times, as compared with 5 occurrences of 'em and 16 of them in scenes by Massinger. But the occurrence of the other significant contractions is not confined to Fletcher's share of the play, as is elsewhere the case in a Fletcher-Massinger collaboration. I'th', found 4 times in scenes by Fletcher, occurs twice in scenes by Massinger. O'th', found 4 times in the Fletcherian portion, appears 3 times in Massinger's scenes. In the shares of each, 's for his occurs 4 times. The total of 60 ye's in three acts of Fletcher's sole authorship is hardly as great as one would expect from the occurrence of the form in single acts of such other collaborated plays as Barnavelt, The Prophetess, The False One, or even the third act—not of Fletcher's sole authorship—of The Custom of the Country. The supposition would be that Massinger, in addition to re-writing Acts I and V, tended to reduce the occurrence of ye throughout the play. A further supposition might be that, at the same time, he introduced an occasional hath. The form, which occurs 7 times in Massinger's two acts, is found 5 times in Fletcher's three.

The False One

• Fletcher: II; III; IV.
• Massinger: I; V.

The distribution of pronominal ye in the play makes the respective shares of the two dramatists clear enough. The form occurs not at all in Act I, and is found but once in Act V. In Acts II, III, and IV it is used a total of 115 times. The scenes in which ye abounds are marked by the infrequent use of hath. Of the 12 occurrences of hath in the play, 8 appear in Act I, 3 in Act V, and only one in a scene (II, 3) in which the Fletcherian ye predominates. The Massinger scenes show a decided preference for the expanded pronominal form them (which is used 20

times) over the contraction 'em (used but 5 times). The reverse is true in the Fletcherian portion, where 'em appears 22 times, them 9 times. It is in the scenes of Fletcher's authorship that all instances of the contractions i'th', o'th', h'as, 's for his, and let's are to be found.

Like Barnavelt then, The False One is preserved in a text which has carefully preserved the respective linguistic preferences of the two dramatists. Like the manuscript of Barnavelt, the manuscript behind the first folio text of The False One is, I think, the work of the scribe Ralph Crane. One of Crane's chief scribal characteristics is his use of parentheses, and especially parentheses around proper names, forms of address, or nouns used in the vocative. I have examined two manuscripts known to have been prepared by him, and find examples of this practice on almost every page. Thus, in his manuscript of Fletcher's Demetrius and Enanthe we find, among many others: "I will (Celia)" [line 550], "there's a braine (brother)" [l.620], "by heauen (Sir)" [l. 929], "take heede (Woman)" [l. 1263], "I will (Soldier)" [l. 1714], "sett 'em-off (Lady)" [l. 2009], and "see her (deere Leontius)" [l. 3119]. Similarly, in his manuscript of Middleton's The Witch, the same practice is found to obtain. To cite but a few examples: "here am I (Mother)" [l. 255], "I cannot blame you (Sister)" [l. 524], "Where are You (Sir)" [l. 708], " 'tis my Master (Sirha)" [l. 1062], "thus (Madam)" [l. 1267], "I dare fight (Sir)" [l. 1795], "I did indeed (my Lord)" [l. 2091].

In the first folio text of The False One, the use of parentheses is to be found as well. Thus we have: "Truth needs (Septinius) no oaths" [121b], "Stand farther off (good Sceva)" [128b], "for our meanes (Sir)" [132a], "I doe not use to waite (Lady)" [135a], "Where are thy threates now (foole)" [141b], "now (my dearest)" [142b]. Like Crane's manuscript of Barnavelt, Demetrius and Enanthe, and The Witch, the first folio text of The False One is divided into scenes. With the exception of The Elder Brother (and Act III of The Custom of the Country), only four of the Fletcher-Massinger plays have scene divisions: Barnavelt, The False One, The Prophetess, and The Spanish Curate. Barnavelt we know to be a Crane manuscript. The printed text of The False One we have seen to contain one of his most striking scribal characteristics, and it will be seen that the first folio texts of the other two plays display the same characteristics. This use of parentheses around vocatives is not present in the text of any of the other eleven plays of Fletcher and Massinger's joint authorship. The four plays which I have specified are further set apart by the fact that they alone of the Fletcher-Massinger collaborations preserve the linguistic patterns which we know to distinguish the respective work of the two dramatists

in a clear and immediately discernible manner. For the two patterns to emerge so sharply within a single play, the author's foul papers would have had of necessity to be transcribed by a scribe who would reproduce the Fletcherian ye as carefully as we know Crane to have reproduced it in his transcript of Demetrius and Enanthe. All of these considerations then—division into scenes, use of the parentheses with vocatives, and the preservation of ye—make it seem valid to assume that the first folio texts of The False One, The Prophetess and The Spanish Curate were printed from manuscripts prepared by Crane.

The Little French Lawyer

• Fletcher: II; III, 1-2, 4; IV, 1-4, 6b (from entrance of La Writ to end); V, 1a (to second entrance of Cleremont), 2.
• Massinger: I; III, 3; IV, 5, 6a (to entrance of La Writ), 7; V, 1b (from second entrance of Cleremont to end), 3.

That the play is a Fletcher-Massinger collaboration is certain, but Massinger seems to have given the final form to the extant text, with the result that the linguistic evidence is somewhat obscured. Nonetheless, ye, which occurs but 30 times in the entire play, appears 26 times in the portion assigned to Fletcher, 4 times in the portion assigned to Massinger. And such other linguistic evidence as is available distinguishes clearly enough, on the whole, the respective shares of the two authors. Hath, which does not occur in the scenes by Fletcher, is used 9 times in the Massinger scenes. Fletcher's scenes reveal his usual preference for the contracted 'em to the expanded form them ('em occurs 23 times, them 4 times in scenes of his authorship). Massinger's share does not, however, exhibit his customary preference for them to 'em (here each form occurs 15 times). The contraction i'th', present only once in the Massinger share, occurs 10 times in Fletcher's scenes, and all instances of such other contractions as y' (8), o'th' (3), h'as (1), 's for his (4) appear in the Fletcherian portion.

The nature of the manuscript behind the first folio text may shed some light on the state of the linguistic evidence. There seems hardly any doubt that the manuscript derives from a theatrical prompt-book. In III, 3 (64a), the word "Wine" appears in the margin, eleven lines before the stage direction, "Enter Nurse with Wine," thus evidently serving as a warning to the prompter to have the necessary property on hand at the proper moment. But the text abounds with other stage directions which it is difficult to imagine would ever have had their origin in a play-house. Such directions as "Enter Cleremont, as in the field" (56a) and "Enter a company of Gentlemen, like Ruffians" (68a)

do not seem particularly relevant from a prompter's point of view, and such a direction as "Enter Nurse and Charloth, pass ore the stage with pillowes / night cloath and such things" (63b) is a bit vague for his purposes. Finally, such a marginal direction as "A strange Musick. / Sackbut & Troup mu-/sick" (71a) makes it clear that we are here dealing with an author's manuscript which has been adapted for use as a prompt-book. The direction for "A strange Musick" is a typically authorial one, which the prompter has made specific by his addition, immediately beneath it in the margin, of "Sackbut & Troup musick."

It seems fairly certain that the author who prepared the manuscript which came to serve as the prompt-book for The Little French Lawyer was Massinger. Directions such as that for "A strange Musick" are common in his unaided plays.[4] The direction at the beginning of Fletcher's V, 1a of The Little French Lawyer, "Enter one and opens the Chamber doore, in which La-/mira and Anabell were shut, they in all feare" (71a)—a "literary" stage direction if there ever was one—calls to mind in the very manner of its phrasing such a direction as "The Hangmen torment 'em, they still smiling," from III, 1 of Massinger's The Roman Actor (sig. F3). If, as seems likely, Massinger did in fact transcribe the finished manuscript of The Little French Lawyer, the supposition would be that, in the process, he pruned away some of the Fletcherian ye's, a form for which, as we know from his unaided plays, he had no great regard.

The Lovers' Progress

• Fletcher: I, 2b (from entrance of Dorilaus to end); II; III, 2-3, 5-6.
• Massinger: I, 1, 2a (to entrance of Dorilaus); III, 1, 4; IV; V.

Both the prologue and epilogue declare the play to be a revision of a work of Fletcher's and the linguistic evidence indicates clearly enough that the extant text represents this revision and not the Fletcherian original. That the reviser was Massinger—whose work is present in the play beyond any doubt—seems certain. The only question that arises, then, is whether Massinger was in fact revising a play of Fletcher's sole authorship—as prologue and epilogue declare—or whether he was reworking a play of which he and Fletcher were joint authors. Did the Massinger portions stand in some degree in the original version of

the play, or do they enter the text only with the subsequent revision?

The evidence is far from conclusive, but I tend to favor the theory that Massinger's role was that of reviser only, and that originally the play stood as a product of Fletcher's sole authorship. In support of this is the manner in which ye—though its occurrence has apparently been reduced in the act of revision—is to be found throughout the play, and not in single acts or scenes as is elsewhere the case in plays originally of Fletcher and Massinger's joint authorship. The form, which occurs a total of 101 times, is to be found at least once in all but three scenes of The Lovers' Progress. Almost equally significant is the occurrence of the forms 'em and them. In the other plays that represent original Fletcher-Massinger collaborations, even when the evidence of ye has been to some extent obscured, there emerges a sharp distinction between the respective preferences of the two dramatists for the contracted and the expanded forms. Here, 'em is to be found in all a total of 15 times; them appears but 3 times in the play. The preference for 'em, like the occurrence of ye, is not confined to specific acts or scenes, but seems to provide the play as a whole with a single, underlying linguistic pattern, that of Fletcher.

The Prophetess

• Fletcher: I; III; V, 3.
• Massinger: II; IV; V, 1-2.

The first folio text of the play, with its abundant use of parentheses with the vocative,[5] its division into scenes, and its scrupulous observance of the Fletcherian ye, almost certainly derives from a Crane transcript. The faithful reproduction of ye makes the attribution of the respective shares of the two dramatists a relatively simple affair. In the Fletcherian portion, ye occurs 166 times; in Massinger's share it is found but once. Hath appears but a single time in Fletcher's scenes, 8 times in scenes by Massinger. While 'em occurs 20 times in Fletcher's portion, and them but twice, the two forms appear respectively 9 and 12 times in scenes by Massinger. All occurrences of i'th' (2), h'as (1), 's for his (3) and, with one exception, o'th' (the form is used 7 times in all) appear in Fletcher's portion of the play.

The Sea Voyage

• Fletcher: I; IV.
• Massinger: II; III; V.

The play presents difficulties, for though the work of both Fletcher and Massinger is present beyond any doubt, it is not entirely certain whether one is dealing with a Fletcherian original revised in part by Massinger, or with a Fletcher-Massinger collaboration to which Fletcher, reversing the usual practice, has given the final form.

The difficulties spring from the manner in which ye pervades—though not with equal frequency—the entire play from beginning to end. Acts I and IV, containing 67 and 123 ye's respectively, are comparable, on this point at least, to any single acts in any of Fletcher's unaided plays. Also in favor of Fletcher's sole authorship of the original is the fact that the contraction 'em occurs throughout the play (a total of 85 times), and the expanded them is hardly used at all (but 4 times). Thus the extent to which hath appears most unexpectedly in scenes heavily stamped with the Fletcherian ye suggests the possibility of Massinger's revising hand altering Fletcher's linguistic pattern. This, however, I do not believe to be the case.

On the evidence of such plays as The Little French Lawyer and The Double Marriage, it seems certain that the Fletcherian ye would not be present in such abundance in The Sea Voyage if that play had been reworked by Massinger in any noticeable degree. It seems far more likely that, in this case, Fletcher was responsible for the play's final form. Only thus can I account for the fact that Acts II, V, and the last half of Act III, while marked with some of the most characteristic examples of Massinger's vocabulary and syntax, exhibit an occurrence of ye unknown in any of his work elsewhere.

The Spanish Curate

• Fletcher: II; III, 1-2, 4; IV, 3, 5-7; V, 2.
• Massinger: I; III, 3; IV, 1-2, 4; V, 1, 3.

This affords one of the clearest examples of a Fletcher-Massinger collaboration in the canon. Linguistically, the play divides into two distinct parts, determined by the occurrence of ye. The form occurs but 5 times in the scenes assigned to Massinger, but it is found a total of 268 times in the Fletcherian portion. Almost equally striking is the occurrence of hath. In Massinger's first act, where ye does not occur, hath appears 7 times. The Fletcherian second act, with its 57 ye's, contains no hath's. Of the 10 hath's to be found in the remaining three

acts, all but two appear in scenes by Massinger. Such contractions as are to be found in the play occur, almost without exception, in the Fletcherian scenes. With only two exceptions (IV, 1 and V, 1), the expanded pronominal form them occurs more frequently than the contracted 'em in scenes by Massinger. The reverse obtains in scenes by Fletcher, where 'em is always the predominant form. The relevant figures make this clear enough: while 'em occurs but 7 times and them 13 times in the scenes by Massinger, 'em is found 36 times and them but twice in the scenes by Fletcher. Without exception, all occurrences of i'th', o'th', h'as, and 's for his appear in Fletcher's portion.

That the first folio text of the play was printed from a Crane manuscript is, I think, indicated by the preservation of the Fletcherian ye, by the division into scenes, and by the use of parentheses with the vocative, a practice that is illustrated in the following: "give me leave (deare friend)" [25b], "Is it my fault (Don Henrique)" [28b], "Dost thou remember (Diego)" [30b], "It seems so (neighbours)" [32a], "What noise was this (wife?) [39a], "Be wholy hers (my Lord)" [40a], "No more (sweet wife)" [44b].

A Very Woman

• Fletcher: II, 3b (from exit of the Duke to end); III; IV, 1, 3.
• Massinger: I; II, 1-2, 3a (to exit of the Duke); IV, 2; V.

Despite the fact that the play was licensed for acting as Massinger's on 6 June 1634, nine years after Fletcher's death, and the further fact that it was first printed as one of Massinger's Three New Plays in 1655, having been omitted from the 1647 Beaumont and Fletcher Folio, there is no doubt at all that it contains the work of both Fletcher and Massinger.

The prologue declares A Very Woman to be a revision of an old play "long since acted," and the supposition is then that here, as in The Lovers' Progress and The Elder Brother, Massinger is revising a Fletcherian original. The 1634 licensing date is thus explained, for as we know from the case of The Woman's Prize, it is just at this period that the Master of the Revels was insisting that old plays must be relicensed if they were to be re-staged.[6] Particularly if one is to suppose A Very Woman to have been re-written in large part when it was put back on the stage in 1634, it would have to have been licensed anew. The fact that it should have been licensed as Massinger's is reasonable enough since he was the reviser, and the original author was dead.

The three Fletcherian originals which Massinger revised have a

good deal in common; each gives evidences of a single underlying linguistic pattern that has been altered by a revising hand. An examination of the first act of A Very Woman, one of the most heavily revised sections of the play, is instructive.

There ye occurs but once, hath 7 times, 'em not at all, them 5 times. There are no instances of i'th', o'th, h'as, or 's for his, but there are two occurrences each of the Massinger contractions t' and of't. In the remainder of the play, however, although ye is completely absent from all but three of the Massinger scenes, and its rate of occurrence has almost certainly been reduced throughout, the linguistic evidence is much of a piece. After Act I, 'em occurs consistently in Fletcher and Massinger scenes alike through the remainder of the play, to a total of 32 times. Subsequent to Act I, them appears but 6 times. On the evidence of the first act, with its strong indication of Massinger's presence, it would seem that the preference for them to 'em would be apparent in subsequent scenes which bear his stamp if these were of his original authorship or if they had been as thoroughly revised by him as Act I. But in the remainder of the play Massinger, in the scenes which he reworked, does not seem to have been much concerned—apart from the excision of ye—with Fletcher's colloquial and contracted forms. Thus, as in The Lovers' Progress, the contraction i'th' occurs 7 times in Massinger scenes—an unusually high rate of occurrence for his work.

There is no great difficulty in distinguishing the work of the two dramatists in the play. Massinger's introduction of hath into his scenes (where it occurs a total of 17 times, as compared to 3 occurrences in scenes by Fletcher), and the absence of ye from his portion (where it appears but 5 times, as compared to 75 times in Fletcher's share), affords as always the basis for separating the work of the two dramatists in collaboration.

Barnavelt — British Museum, MS. Add. 18653

                                                                 

													's
	ye	y'	you	hath	doth	'em	them	i'th'	i'the	o'th'	h'as	t'	(his)	let's	of't
I, i:			66	5	1	1	1		1
-, ii:			18	2			3		1
-, iii:	27		33			4	4	1		1				2
Total: I	27		117	7	1	5	8	1	2	1				2
II, i:			30	3		1	11					1
-, ii:	9		21			4				1	1			2
-, iii:			1			4
-, iv:	5		2
-, v:	1		1			1		1						1
-, vi:	1		9			2								1
Total: II	16		64	3		12	11	1		1	1	1		4
III, i:	20		12	1		2								1
-, ii:	1		41	3		1	6
-, iii:	2					1					1			1
-, iv:	4		7		1	3
-, v:			3
-, vi:			8								1
Total: III	27		71	4	1	7	6				2			2
IV, i:	9		7			7		3
-, ii:	3		3				1				1
-, iii:	18		11			5	1							1
-, iv:	1		5												1
-, v:			68	1			6					4
Total: IV	31		94	1		12	8	3			1	4		1	1
V, i (a):			31	2			5
-, i (b):	1		6
-, i (c):							1							1
-, ii:	2		14			1								3
-, iii:	30		29			8		1		1			1	2
Total: V	33		80	2		9	6	1		1			1	6
TOTAL:	134		426	17	2	45	39	6	2	3	4	5	1	15	1

The Custom of the Country — Folio 1647

                               

											's
	ye	y'	you	hath	doth	'em	them	i'th'	o'th'	h'as	(his)	let's
I, i:	5	2	111	3			1	1	1		1	1
-, ii:	2	1	13			3
Total: I	7	3	124	3		3	1	1	1		1	1
II, i:		1	28			1	6	1	1
-, ii:	1		21	1		2	4		1
-, iii:			50					1		1
-, iv:			30				2	2
Total: II	1	1	129	1		3	12	4	2	1
III, i:	7		15
-, ii:	36		41			3
-, iii:	10		31			6		3	1		1
-, iv:			6
-, v:			32				2					1
Total: III	53		125			9	2	3	1		1	1

                           

IV, i:			11	1
-, ii:			13	3			2
-, iii:	7		84	1		6		1
-, iv:	2	1	16			1
-, v:	6	1	40			1		1
Total: IV	15	2	164	5		8	2	2
V, i:			14
-, ii:			9	2								1
-, iii:			15				2
-, iv:	1		36				3
-, v (a):	3	1	45			5
-, v (b):			4				1
Total: V	4	1	123	2		5	6					1
TOTAL:	80	7	665	11		28	23	10	4	1	2	3

The Double Marriage — Folio 1647

                                               

												's
	ye	y'	you	hath	doth	'em	them	i'th'	o'th'	h'as	t'	(his)	let's
I, i:	2		69	3			5
-, ii:			17	1			6				1		1
Total: I	2		86	4			11				1		1
II, i:	7		44			14	1	4	1	1			1
-, ii:	7	2	30			3			1				2
-, iii:	1		7			6	1	1	1
Total: II	15	2	81			23	2	5	3	1			3
III, i:			16	4		4	1
-, ii:	2		42			6		3	1	2		2	1
-, iii:	4		55	1		4	2	2		1			1
Total: III	6		113	5		14	3	5	1	3		2	2
IV, i:	1		11
-, ii:			35	1			1
-, iii:	3	2	55			2			1
-, iv:	3		17			1	1						1
Total: IV	7	2	118	1		3	2		1				1
V, i:	8		37			7		1	2	2
-, ii:	1		30			1		1
-, iii:			13
-, iv:			19	2		2	1	1					1
Total: V	9		99	2		10	1	3	2	2			1
TOTAL:	39	4	497	12		50	19	13	7	6	1	2	8

The Elder Brother — Quarto 1637

                                                 

												s'
	ye	y'	you	hath	doth	'em	them	i'th'	o'th'	h'as	t'	(his)	let's	of't
I, i:		1	20	1	1		5	1
-, ii:		1	33	3		2	7	1	2	1	5	2	1
Total: I		2	53	4	1	2	12	2	2	1	5	2	1
II, i:	3	2	27	1		3	1	1	1			1
-, ii:	2		3			3							3
-, iii:	1		6	1				1	1			1
-, iv:	1		4	1			1		2			1
Total: II	7	2	40	3		6	2	2	4			3	3
III, i:		1	10										1
-, ii:	6		9					1
-, iii:	2		16			4	3				1	1	2
-, iv:	1	2	13
-, v:	6	5	41			2	3			2			3
Total: III	15	8	89			6	6	1		2	1	1	6
IV, i:	8		22	1		3					2
-, ii:	1		2			1			1
-, iii:	24	2	48			8	4				2			1
-, iv:	5	8	38	1		1		1	2		3		1	1
Total: IV	38	10	110	2		13	4	1	3		7		1	2
V, i:	5	3	73	2		2	4		1		2	3
-, ii:	1	2	29	1		1
Total: V	6	5	102	3		3	4		1		2	3
TOTAL:	66	27	394	12	1	30	28	6	10	3	15	9	11	2

The False One — Folio 1647

                                               

											's
	ye	y'	you	hath	doth	'em	them	i'th'	o'th'	h'as	(his)	let's
I, i:			47	6			12
-, ii:			10	2		1
Total: I			57	8		1	12
II, i:	15		35			2	1
-, ii:			1			2	1	1
-, iii:	18		23	1		5	2	1				1
Total: II	33		59	1		9	4	2				1
III, i:	1		6
-, ii:	28		19			7	2					2
-, iii:	2		4
-, iv:	6		4			2	1		1			1
Total: III	37		33			9	3		1			3
IV, i:	14		5
-, ii:	23		33			4	1			1		1
-, iii:	8		9				1				1	1
Total: IV	45		47			4	2			1	1	2
V, i:			7				3
-, ii:	1		3	2		1	1
-, iii:			9	1			1
-, iv:			13			3	3
Total: V	1		32	3		4	8
TOTAL:	116		228	12		27	29	2	1	1	1	6

The Little French Lawyer - Folio 1647

                                                           

											's
	ye	y'	you	hath	doth	'em	them	i'th'	o'th'	h'as	(his)	let's	of't
I, i:	3		74	2		3	6						1
-, ii:			19			3
-, iii:			36	2		1	1
Total: I	3		129	4		7	7						1
II, i:	4		54			1		1	1			1
-, ii:	2		13					1
-, iii:	8	1	71					1	1		1
Total: II	14	1	138			1		3	2		1	1
III, i:	2		33				1	2
-, ii:	3	2	44			1		1		1	2	1
-, iii:			48			1	1
-, iv:	1	1	60			2	1					1
Total: III	6	3	185			4	3	3		1	2	2
IV, i:			2					1
-, ii:		1	3			1						1
-, iii:			4									2
-, iv:	1	1	30			7					1	4
-, v:			11
-, vi (a):			30	2		2	4
-, vi (b):			28			1
-, vii:	1		27	1		3	2
Total: IV	2	2	135	3		14	6	1		1	7
V, i (a):	5	2	46			9	2	3	1
-, i (b):			35	1		1	1	1				1
-, ii:			5			1
-ll>		15	1		1
Total: V	5	2	101	2		12	3	4	1			1
TOTAL:	30	8	688	9		38	19	11	3	1	4	11	1

The Lovers' Progress - Folio 1647

                                   

													's
	ye	y'	you	hath	doth	'em	them	i'th'	i'the	o'th'	h'as	t'	(his)	let's	of't
I, i:			67	3		2									1
-, ii (a):	2		30											1
-, ii (b):	5		25				1	1
Total: I	7		122	3		2	1	1						1	1
II, i:	8	1	42
-, ii:	3		20	1					1
-, iii:	14		15											2
-, iv:	10		23	1		2
Total: II	35	1	100	2		2		1						2
III, i:	1		3					1	1
-, ii:	2		1						1
-, iii:	19		37	1		3		1			2	1		3
-, iv:	2		8	3	1	1									1
-, v:	13	1	15			2	1	1					2	1
-, vi:	27		16												1
Total: III	64	1	80	4	1	6	1	3	2		2	1	2	4	2

                 

IV, i:	1	8	1
-, ii:	3		52	6				2						3	1
-, iii:			35	6	1	3	1	2
Total: IV	4		95	13	1	3	1	4						3	1
V, i:			15	3				1						1
-, ii:	1		15
-, iii:	1		37	2		2	1	1							1
Total: V	2		67	5		2	1	2						1	1
TOTAL:	112	2	464	27	2	15	4	11	2		2	1	2	11	5

The Prophetess - Folio 1647

                                                   

											's
	ye	y'	you	hath	doth	'em	them	i'th'	o'th'	h'as	(his)	let's
I, i:	9		5						1			1
-, ii:			1									1
-, iii:	50		38			4	1	2	2		1
Total: I	59		44			4	1	2	3		1	2
II, i:			10
-, ii:		1	22	2	1	1	3
-, iii:			12	2	1	1						1
Total: II		1	44	4	2	2	3					1
III, i:	29		18			1				1
-, ii:	11		15			2
-, iii:	16		20	1		3	1
Total: III	56		53	1		6	1			1
IV, i:			1			1	5
-, ii:			14	1		1	1
-, iii:			7
-, iv:			9			3	1
-, v:			5			1
-, vi:			14	2
Total: IV			59	3		6	7
V, i:
V, ii:	1		24	1	1	1	2		1
-, iii:	51		32			10			3		1
Total: V	52		56	1	1	11	2		4		1
TOTAL:	167	1	256	9	3	29	14	2	7	1	2	3

The Sea Voyage - Folio 1647

                       

												's
	ye	y'	you	hath	doth	'em	them	i'th'	o'th'	a'	h'as	(his)	let's
I, i:	14		5			1		2					4
-, ii:	2		4										1
-, iii:						1							1
-, iv:	51		23			21							3
Total: I	67		32			23		2					9
II, i:	6		16	1		2				1
-, ii:	18		22	3	1	4	2		1				1
Total: II	24		38	4	1	6	2		1	1			1
III, i:	28	1	80	5		11	1	2					1	5
Total: III	28	1	80	5		11	1	2				1	5

                     

IV, i:	22		5	1		8							2
-, ii:	60		31	4		13							2
-, iii:	36		14	1		7							5
-, iv:	5		2			4
Total: IV	123		52	6		32							9
V, i:				1		3
-, ii:	7		13		1	8
-, iii:					1
-, iv:	4		13			2	1
Total: V	11		26	1	2	13	1
TOTAL:	253	1	228	16	3	85	4	4	1	1		1	24

The Spanish Curate - Folio 1647

                                                         

											's
	ye	y'	you	hath	doth	'em	them	i'th'	o'th'	h'as	(his)	let's	of't
I, i:			42	5		2	5					1
-, ii:			13	2
-, iii:			2
Total: I			57	7		2	5					1
II, i:	29		35			8[*]	1	3		2		2
-, ii:	17		16			7		1				1
-, iii:	2		2									3
-, iv:	9		2						2
Total: II	57		50			15	1	4	2	2		6
III, i:	2		6			1		1
-, ii:	62		23			5			2			2
-, iii:			27	4		1	4						1
-, iv:	33		19			1		1	3	1		2
Total: III	97		75	4		8	4	2	5	1		4	1
IV, i:	2		26	2		1
-, ii:			5
-, iii:
-, iv:			14
-, v:	39		28	2		9	1		1			2
-, vi:	6		4						1			2
-, vii:	28		14						3	2	2	1
Total: IV	75		91	4		10	1		5	2	2	5
V, i:	1		50	1		3	1
-, ii:	43	1	28			5		2	1	1		1
-, iii:	2		35	1			3
Total: V	46	1	113	2		8	4	2	1	1		1
TOTAL:	275	1	386	17		43	15	8	13	6	2	17	1

A Very Woman - Octavo 1655

                                                     

												's
	ye	y'	you	hath	doth	'em	them	i'th'	o'th'	h'as	t'	(his)	let's	of't
I, i:	1		118	7			5				2			2
Total: I	1		118	7			5				2			2
II, i:			17
-, ii:			17			2	2				1			1
-, iii (a):	2	41	2		1		1
-, iii (b):	16		33			3
Total: II	18		108	2		6	2	1			1			1
III, i:	19		33			8		1				1
-, ii:	5		25			1	1	1
-, iii:			2	1
-, iv:	4		6			2
-, v:	4		29	1		1	1	3	1				1
Total: III	32		95	2		12	2	5	1			1	1
IV, i:	1		4	1
-, ii:			19	1	2	4		1			2	1
-, iii:	26		39	1	2			2
Total: IV	27		62	3	4	4		3			2	1
V, i:	2		7			1
-, ii:		1					2
-, iii:			11			5	1
-, iv:			26	3		2	1	1
-, v:			18	2		2		1			1		1
-, vi:			13	2
Total: V	2		76	7		10	2	4			1		1
TOTAL:	80		459	21	4	32	11	13	1		6	2	2	3

Notes