SOURCE: Ellis, Havelock. Introduction to John Ford (Five Plays), pp. xi-xvi. New York: Hill and Wang, 1957.

In the following essay, originally published in 1888, Ellis maintains that while Ford was a master of dramatizing passionate emotions, the rest of his technique was careless and uninspired.

Deep in a dump John Forde was alone got, With folded arms and melancholy hat. 

That vivid touch of portraiture is the one record that has come down to us concerning Ford. His shy and reserved temperament corresponds to his artistic position: he stands alone. Of himself he has nothing to tell us beyond one early and perhaps not over-serious allusion, in the youthful Fame's Memorial, to an unkind mistress—

                                                                                The goddess whom in heart I serve Though never mine, bright Lycia the cruel, The cruel-subtle. 

Little, also, is recorded of him; of that little nothing that is not to his honour; while the...