pleasing, and it may still be read with profit. In 1841 he visited Italy, and spent two winters in Rome on account of his health. He delighted to tell how, 'Polybius in hand,' he walked over the battlefield of Thrasimene, which he had surveyed with Arnold seventeen years before. He was back at Ormsby in 1844. In 1846 he declined an offer from Bishop Phillpotts [q. v.] of Exeter to exchange into that diocese with the prospect of appointment to the first vacant arch-deaconry. He was collated to the prebendal stall of Thorngate in Lincoln Cathedral by Bishop Kaye, 15 May 1847, and was made chancellor and canon residentiary by Bishop Jackson, 11 Dec. 1862.
From an early period he had been a strenuous advocate for the revival of the deliberative functions of convocation. In 1833 he published 'Reasons for a Session of Convocation,' and when that object was attained he was one of its most active members, first as proctor for the parochial clergy in 1857, and subsequently, in 1868, for the chapter. He frequently sat on committees and drew up their reports, and took a large share in the debates, proving himself a persuasive, if prolix, speaker. As chancellor of Lincoln he directed his efforts to the increase of the practical efficiency of the cathedral. Together with other minor reforms, he was the first to institute an afternoon nave sermon, and during successive Lents he delivered courses of lectures on the prayer-book and on church history. He died in London of congestion of the lungs on 5 Dec. 1872, and was buried at South Ormsby.
On 15 Jan. 1839 he married at Putney Church Fanny, eldest daughter of William Baring, esq., M.P., and granddaughter of Sir Francis Baring, bart. [q. v.] He left two sons: Francis Burrell, captain 5th lancers; and William Oswald, rector of Ormsby since 1873. He was a typical high churchman of the school of John Keble, and in politics was a strong tory.
Besides many occasional sermons, pamphlets, letters, and printed speeches on ecclesiastical subjects, of which a catalogue is given in Bloxam's 'Magdalen College Register' (vii. 273), his chief literary works, apart from his 'English leaders of the Reformation' (1842), were:
- 'The Educational and Missionary Work of the Church in the Eighteenth Century,' 1857.
- 'The Law of the Church and the Law of the State,' 1859.
- 'Lectures on the Prayer Book,' 1864.
- 'Sermons on Unity, with an Essay on Religious Societies,' 1868, 8vo.
[Bloxam's Magdalen College Register, vii. 272-279; private information.]
MASSINGER, PHILIP (1583–1640), dramatist, was son of Arthur Massinger, a member of an old Salisbury family, who was confidential servant or house-steward at Wilton to Henry Herbert, second earl of Pembroke [q. v.], and retained the post under his first master's son, William, third earl [q. v.], the patron and friend of Shakespeare. The elder Massinger is certainly identical with the Arthur Massinger who graduated B.A. from St. Alban Hall, Oxford, in 1571 (M.A. 1577), and became fellow of Merton in 1572; he was subsequently M.P. for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis (1588–9 and 1593) and for Shaftesbury in 1601. In 1587 his master, who regarded him highly, recommended him for the office of examiner in ‘the court of the marches toward South Wales,’ and in 1597 he was conducting the negotiations for a marriage between Lord Pembroke's son and a daughter of Lord Burghley (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. iii. 52; cf. Sydney Papers, ii. 93). ‘Many years he happily spent in the service of your honourable house, and died a servant to it,’ wrote Philip Massinger (1624), when dedicating his ‘Bondman’ to Philip Herbert. He seems to have died in 1606 (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714, p. 1004; Brodrick, Memorials of Merton College, p. 270). Walter, a brother of the elder Massinger, was also a student at St. Alban Hall about 1572.
Philip, perhaps named after Sir Philip Sidney, brother of the second Earl of Pembroke's wife [see Herbert, Mary], was baptised at St. Thomas's, Salisbury, on 24 Nov. 1583. Gifford supposes him to have been a page at Wilton in his youth, and Wood conjectures that he was supported at the university by Henry Herbert, second earl of Pembroke, until he offended his patron by adopting the Roman catholic religion, but of his religious conversion little is known. On 14 May 1602, ‘Philip Messinger,’ described as a Salisbury man and son of a gentleman, was entered at St. Alban Hall, Oxford, where his father and uncle had already been educated. According to Wood, ‘he applied his mind more to poetry and romances for about four years or more than to logic and philosophy,’ and he left Oxford in 1606 without taking a degree, probably at the time of his father's death.
Coming to London, Massinger seems to have sought the society of writers for the stage, and soon made a reputation for himself as a playwright. The extent of his work it is difficult to define. Many of his dramas are lost, and in accordance with the custom of the time he wrote in association with his friends very much that he did not publicly
