general improbability of the less humorous plot, and the weakness of the connexion between the two plots, are scarcely surpassed in any later play. On the whole, considering the severe test that Fletcher has to abide, owing to the larger number of his plays and to their rapid production, the superiority of Beaumont's judgment is not clear; unless indeed we make the big assumption that the superior construction of The Maid's Tragedy' and 'A King and no King,' in comparison, say, with that of 'Valentinian,' is wholly his due. But genius and judgment are not identical, and no credit at all can be given to the further tradition that Beaumont's rôle was merely the judicious restraint of Fletcher's overflowing wit and invention. Cartwright gives expression to this tradition in his verses among the tributes prefixed to the first folio; and it appears later in Aubrey's 'Lives,' on the authority of Dr John Earle. But Earle's own verses in the folio, 'On Mr Beaumont. (Written thirty years since, presently after his Death),' are particularly enthusiastic, and even refer to certain plays and characters as if they were his alone-a circumstance probably not implying anything more than that the writer was young and the tribute an elegy. By the help of certain indications of the separate individualities at work, beyond what tradition or any of the features so far considered can give, modern criticism has reached a distinct and high conception of the genius of Francis Beaumont, and discovers in him a mind of more seriousness and weight than his colleague's. It is possible to press too relentlessly the valuable criterion afforded by the characteristics of Fletcher's verse, with its excessive proportion of feminine endings and resulting peculiarities of structure-characteristics identified as his by their entire or principal occurrence in plays excluded by their dates from Beaumont's participation-and by such further guides as the substitution of this verse for prose as the medium for comic scenes. But the critic least willing to accept nice and confident distinctions on this kind of evidence is likely to agree with certain general conclusions. When all allowances have been made for whatever Beaumont may owe to a stimulating corrivalry, and when Fletcher's poetry and pathos, and his fine enthusiasm for what is best and noblest, have been fully recognised, we miss, in the plays written after Beaumont's death, a poet much more nearly allied in style, romantic feeling, and instinctive knowledge of the human heart, to the greater Elizabethans than Fletcher, judged by those plays only, is found to be. Fletcher suffers some loss from his verse, less responsive to every shade of feeling, less deep in sound and varied in music, in proportion as it succeeds in creating a semblance of informal speech; and though, when we remember things like the anguished appeal of Edith for her father's life in 'The Bloody Brother,' or the noble spirit shown by Caratach throughout ‘Bonduca,' the statement must be made with reserves and qualifications, Fletcher's tragedies and tragi-comedies leave, on the whole, by comparison, an impression of loud but superficial passions, and of expression too swift and fluent for us to feel that the heart beats out every word. "The Coxcomb' takes a humble position among the plays in which Beaumont shares; but perhaps none convinces a reader more surely of his insight, and of the gentleness which rendered him peculiarly in sympathy with, and capable of interpreting, the hearts of romantic youths and innocent girls in the grip of love in his unkindest moods. The latter are profoundly feminine beings who can suffer but not punish, and only pathetically resent; characters of a type apparently seldom and, in comparison, ineffectively attempted by Fletcher, as, for example, in his Alinda in 'The Pilgrim,' and Aminta in 'The Sea Voyage.' Fletcher's real strength lies in drawing girls better able to cope with men on their own ground, fine creatures possessed of knowledge and a gift of language adequate for that purpose-sometimes too much so-but at their best delightful. Such a figure is Celia, the brave and witty child of the noble Seleucus in 'The Humorous Lieutenant,' whose transference to court under false pretences and roguish management of Antiochus is Fletcher's companion picture in tragi-comedy to the fatal betrayal of Lucina in 'Valentinian.' Viola, in 'The Coxcomb,' like Aspasia in The Maid's Tragedy,' Eufrasia (Bellario) in 'Philaster' and Violante in The Triumph of Love,' has none of these dashing qualities. Viola, like Aspasia, is profoundly struck by the gulf between the sexes-the vile dishonest trick in man, More than in woman' (The Maid's Tragedy,' v, 4), the injustice 'that men and ་ · women should be match'd together' (ibid.)—and she exclaims in a moment of disillusion: 'It may be all the best was cut away To make the woman, and the naught was left (iii, 1.) The story of Viola and her lover Ricardo, in 'The Coxcomb,' apparently Beaumont's share of the double plot, has no known source, and is itself unworn and arresting. The gentle girl waits in the street past midnight to elope with her lover; and he, beguiled by his companions to wait the hour in a tavern, and by degrees unwillingly drawn into a carouse (which is painted with extraordinary truth and force, seriousness and humour), comes with them in a shape and mood that drive her to flee from him anywhither, frightened and horrified. She cannot return to her father's house; and, being timidly refused admittance at a neighbour's as a cut-throat using a feigned voice and plea to get the door open, she is presently intercepted by a tinker and his wench, who leave her partially stripped and tied to a tree. A gentleman riding into the country releases her and carries her with him-a really courteous and humane man, but in the shallow degree that cannot persist disinterestedly; and when she refuses his offer of conditional protection he leaves her politely, but with a callous indifference to her fate, subsequently realised and regretted. No character could be less in extremes than this well-drawn Valerio, who can talk artfully but prettily of love as an extream desire, That's not to be examin'd, but fulfill'd' (iii, 1). A meeting with two kindly milkmaids gains Viola a harbour in the service of a rather harsh mistress, where she ultimately receives and forgives her lover, whose repentance in its sincerity and sharpness is made a powerful warning against his sin. The reconciliation is perfect. Ricardo kneels— 'because it is An action very fit and reverent, Viola refuses to impose any penance to gain forgiveness : 'But to come hither and take me and it, Or else I'll come and beg, so you will grant, That you will be content to be forgiven' (v, 1). Violante and Gerard, in 'The Triumph of Love,' are better known because celebrated by Lamb, but not more lovable. It is when the general conclusion, supporting the results of a rigid application of verse-tests and the further distinguishing marks which that method has brought to light, is used to exclude Fletcher almost or even entirely from certain plays,* that many will feel a reluctance to push the separation so far, and will repeat questions in their nature not very capable of answer. They will ask, on the one hand, why Beaumont, unlike even the veteran Jonson, may not occasionally have essayed his friend's novel style; and on the other, whether none of the blank verse in the manner which, in the nature of things, must have been Fletcher's earliest, is extant save in 'The Faithful Shepherdess'; also whether, becoming master of two styles, he never reverted to the earlier for any whim or purpose. In early plays, as his innovation in verse was admittedly intentional, he might be chary of introducing it to the stage at all, or in any noticeable quantity, till his command of it and his hold on the public seemed sufficiently sure. There are also other considerations. The impact of another mind may liberate latent qualities in a poet-on which an excellent comment is Mr Arthur Symons' attractive re-statement of the influence of William Rowley on Middleton in the Cambridge volume, chapter iii †—and, as Prof. Thorndike says ('The Maid's Tragedy and Philaster,' Introd. p. xliii), 'The separation of the verse of the two authors by no means determines the exact share of each in the total creative work. * The publication of two plays in the 'Belles-Lettres' Series without Fletcher's name seems to imply, in the editor's opinion, that Fletcher had nothing to do with them, but in reality he does not go quite so far. + Zeitlin's Shakespeare und Rowley,' Anglia, vol. iv, 1881, has found its way into the bibliography to this chapter, but really refers to Samuel Rowley. Who invented? who suggested? and who corrected? are questions that even they themselves might have found it difficult to answer.' When, again, a type of character so prominent and successful in the joint plays as that of Eufrasia and her like is encountered in pale reflections in the later, these reflections are as much an evidence against as for their author's share in the originals; but, when a type ably developed by Fletcher and indeed regarded as peculiarly his, is found so early as in Oriana in 'The Woman-Hater,' either the two poets are nearer akin than is admitted, or the ascription of this early play to Beaumont alone is too confident. When Fletcher shows himself so capable of drawing old men of various tempers as he invariably does, are we justified in saying that he had nothing to do with Old Merrythought in The Knight of the Burning Pestle'? Sebastian in 'Monsieur Thomas,' with his similar love of ballad ends, is no copy of Merrythought, but a related creation of humorous paternity which qualifies its author to compete for a share in anything in any way comparable with it. There are other points among those which determine the varying views of critics either as between Fletcher and Beaumont, or Fletcher and other coadjutors, which do not seem to be altogether satisfactory. It is observed that Fletcher uses little rhyme except occasionally at the end of scenes; and for this reason Mr Fleay suggests that some actor, perhaps Field, inserted rhyming passages in 'Bonduca' ii, 1, and iv, 4; and Mr Macaulay* appears to concur. Mr Oliphant, remarking that the scenes are 'full of rhyme' (ii, 1, for instance, has really seven couplets out of about 128 lines), and that the verse is altogether very crude (which cannot apply to very many lines), thinks that Fletcher has altered these scenes from Beaumont, leaving little of the original. But there are single incidental couplets, not ending scenes, in several other parts of Bonduca'; and in two places there are rhymes which the ear cannot miss, though there is a line between them. It seems unkind not to allow an author who does use rhyme a little more caprice. . * Cambridge Hist. of Lit.,' Appendix to Chap. v. Though † Englische Studien, 'The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher,' ii, 335. |