There is, however, little contact between Ben Jonson and Massinger. Their births were separated by only ten years, but a much longer period than that seems to divide them. Friend of the great as he was, Ben Jonson was yet an Aristophanic, nay, a Rabelaisian democrat; Massinger is a gentleman and a courtier. The one has the vigour and immaturity of the Elizabethan age, and in him we feel in contact with the obsolete Mystery and Morality plays;(431) the other has the refinement and romance of the Caroline era. The one is a powerful satirist and a pugnacious fighter; the other lives in an ideal world. On the one side is _vis consili expers_; on the other, a more limited intellect with a surer artistic sense. If I may venture to say so, they differ from one another as an apple from a pear. I do not deny that Ben Jonson was the greater man, but I find him more archaic and more difficult to read than Massinger. Much of the interest of his plays is dead for us, his local colour and topical allusions, which require so many notes, are more tedious; his personal likes and dislikes, his egotism, his vanity, are wearisome; and though his blank verse is strong and manly, it is not so melodious as Massinger’s. The older man stands foursquare and solitary; the younger man reaches forward to posterity, and we feel him to be linked by his art and grace to ourselves. Though Dryden never mentions Massinger, there is a dignified capacity which is common to the two authors. Massinger’s chief rival in the latter part of his life was Shirley. Shirley’s plays are full of interest; his graceful style rises occasionally into poetry, at which the author himself seems to smile; his plots are full of ingenious turns; his female characters are more confidently developed than Massinger’s, nor is he unable to draw a lifelike man, as we see from Lorenzo in _The Traitor_ and Columbo in _The Cardinal_. He excels in the battledore and shuttlecock of love-making; he tells us far more of the manner of well-bred contemporary society than Massinger. Indeed, it is probable that he had a greater success in his day than his rival, and was more in touch with Court circles, though even the loyal Shirley discreetly satirizes from time to time the government of Charles I. He is not devoid of humour and epigram; his dialogue is light and sprightly. He reaches back to Fletcher and forward to Dryden; we seem, as we read his plays, to be a long way removed from the labour of Jonson, the pomp of Chapman, the vernal simplicity of Heywood. On the other hand, we miss in him the breadth and strength, the dignity, the nobility, and the fire of Massinger. He is more of a photographer than a painter. Though his style has eloquence, the thought is often far from clear, and the long sentences are clumsy. There is something slight and unsubstantial about the whole thing, while the metre is continually careless and lame.