=1. Philip Massinger (1583–1640)= was born at Salisbury, educated at Oxford, and became a literary man in London, writing plays for the King’s Men, a company of actors. If we may judge from his begging letters that survive, he found in dramatic work little financial encouragement. He died and was buried in London. Massinger did much hack-work, and was fond of working out topical and moral themes; so that a large amount of his work is of little permanent importance. The best of his many plays are _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_ (1625) and _The City Madam_ (1632), two quite fine comedies; and _The Duke of Milan_ (1618) and _The Unnatural Combat_ (1619), quite respectable tragedies. The level of Massinger’s workmanship is laudably high; he is remarkably uniform in quality; and in a few cases (as in that of Sir Giles Overreach in _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_) he has created characters of real distinction. He followed the fashion of the time in collaborating with other dramatists. _The Virgin Martyr_, produced jointly with Dekker, is perhaps the most important of this class of play. =2. John Ford (1586–1640)= was born in Devonshire, educated at Oxford, and studied, though he seems never to have practiced, law. He became an active producer of plays, chiefly tragedies, both on his own account and in collaboration with other playwrights. In his nature Ford had a morbid twist which gave him a strange liking for the horrible and the unnatural. His plays are unequal in quality; but the most powerful of them are prevented from being revolting by their real tragic force and their high literary aims. In _The Broken Heart_ (acted in 1629) he harrows the reader’s feelings almost beyond endurance; his _Perkin Warbeck_ (1634), a historical tragedy, is reckoned to be the best historical drama outside of Shakespeare; and in _The Witch of Edmonton_ (about 1633) he collaborated with Dekker and Rowley to produce a powerful domestic drama. Others of the sixteen plays attributed to him are _The Lover’s Melancholy_ (1629), _Love’s Sacrifice_ (1633), and _The Fancies Chaste and Noble_ (1638). SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605–82) Browne may be taken as representative of the best prose-writers of the period. =1. His Life.= He was born in London, educated at Winchester and Oxford, and studied medicine. For a time he practiced in Oxfordshire; then he traveled abroad, receiving his degree of M.D. at Leyden. Returning to London (1634), he soon removed to Norwich, where for the remainder of his life he successfully practiced as a doctor.