329 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. THESE HESE names, united by friendship and confederate genius, ought not to be disjoined. Francis Beaumont was the son of Judge Beaumont of the Common Pleas, and was born at Grace-Dieu, in Leicestershire, in 1586. He studied at Oxford, and passed from thence to the Inner Temple; but his application to the law cannot be supposed to have been intense, as his first play, in conjunction with Fletcher, was acted in his twenty-first year, and the short remainder of his life was devoted to the drama. He married Ursula, daughter and co-heiress of Sir Henry Isley of Kent, by whom he had two daughters, one of whom was alive, at a great age, in the year 1700. He died in 1616, and was buried at the entrance of St. Benedict's chapel, near the monument of the Earl of Middlesex, in the collegiate church of St. Peter, Westminster. As a lyrical poet, F. Beaumont would be entitled to some remembrance independent of his niche in the drama. His John Fletcher was the son of Dr. Rich. Fletcher, bishop of London: he was born probably in the metropolis, in 1576, and was admitted a pensioner of Bennet college about the age of fifteen. time and progress at the university have not been traced, and only a few anecdotes have been gleaned about the manner of his life and death. Before VOL. II. the marriage of Beaumont, we are told by Aubrey, that Fletcher and he lived together in London, near the Bankside, not far from the theatre, had one bench in the same house between them, the same clothes, cloak, &c. Fletcher died in the great plague of 1625. A friend had invited him to the country, and he unfortunately staid in town to get a suit of clothes for the visit, during which time he caught the fatal infection. He was interred in St. Saviour's, Southwark, where I fear that his grave, like that of Beaumont's in Westminster, is without an inscription, Fletcher survived his dramatic associate by ten years; and he was all along the more fertile composer of the two. Of about sixty pieces, published under their joint names, eighteen are ascribed to them conjointly, thirty to Fletcher alone, and the remainder to Fletcher, assisted by other authors, such as Shirley, Massinger, &c. The general account is, that Fletcher contributed the greater proportion of fancy and invention for their pieces, and that Beaumont, though he was the younger, dictated the cooler touches of taste and judgment. This tradition is rather exaggerated in the verses of Cartwright, who says to Fletcher, "Beaumont was fain "To bid thee write more dull; that's, write again, "And bate some of the fire that from thee came "In a clear, bright, full, but too large a flame." Many verses to the same effect might be quoted, but the tradition derogatory to Beaumont's genius, is * contradicted by other testimonies of rather an earlier date, coming from writers who must have known the dramatists themselves, at least as well as Cartwright. Ben Jonson speaks of Beaumont's originality with the emphasis peculiar to the expression of his opinions, and Earl, the intimate friend of Beaumont, ascribed to him, while Fletcher was alive, the exclusive merit of three plays, which contain some of the most beautiful passages in their theatre, viz. the "Maid's Tragedy," "Philaster," and "King and no King." If Beaumont had the sole or chief merit of those pieces, he could not have been, what Cartwright would make us believe, the mere pruner of Fletcher's luxuriancies, an assessor who made him write again, and more dully. Indeed, with reverence to their memories, nothing that they have written has the appearance of having been twice written; and the management of their stories would lead us to suspect that neither of the duumvirate took much trouble about correctness. It is not probable that their departments in writing would be formally divided. Still the scanty lights which enable us to guess at what they respectively wrote, seem to warrant that distinction of their genius which is made in the poet's allusion to "Fletcher's keen treble, and deep Beaumont's base." Beaumont was the deeper scholar. Fletcher is said to have been more a man of the world. Beaumont's vein was more solemn; but he was not without humour, for the mock heroic scenes in one or two of their plays, which are excellent, are, with probability, ascribed to him. EVADNE'S PENITENCE TO AMINTOR. FROM THE MAID'S TRAGEDY. Amint. How now? Evad. My much abused lord, I do not kneel to live-I dare not hope it, Amint. Stand up. This is a new way to beget more sorrow, Heaven knows I have too many! Do not mock me; Amint. Sure I dazzle; There cannot be a faith in that foul woman. * * Would there were any safety in thy sex, And all things that are in it, that I fear Evad. My lord, Give me your griefs; you are an innocent, Know to be tougher than the hand of Time Drest in the shames I lived in, the same monster, Till you, my dear lord, shoot your light into me, FROM THE SAME. Aspatia, forsaken by her lover, finds her maid Autiphila working a picture of Ariadne. The expression of her sorrow to Antiphila and the other attendant thus concludes: THEN, my good girls, be more than women wise, Weeps for the ruin'd merchant when he roars; |