It is impossible to allot to the years in which they were first performed, Bonduca, The Knight of Malta, Valentinian, The Queen of Corinth, and The Mad Lover: we are only sure that, as Burbadge acted a character in each, they must all have been produced before 13th March 1618-19, when his death took place; and that one of them, The Queen of Corinth, as it contains an allusion to Coryate's Crudities, 1616, was not written till after the publication of that notorious work. In the composition of Bonduca I believe that Beaumont had no share, though Weber is inclined to consider it as a joint essay of our poets. Hazlitt reckons it among the best of their tragedies; "2 Mr, Darley speaks of it in terms much less favorable.3-It opens finely; but it wants continuity of action; and, while the serious scenes frequently teem with grandeur of thought and beauty of imagery, the comic portions are deformed with humor of the very worst description. The interest of the play centres in Caratach and his nephew the boy Hengo. Of all the attempts in these volumes to delineate the brave, blunt, high-minded soldier, Caratach is, I think, the most successful: he is entirely free from any of those traits which, though not intended by the authors for unamiable, lessen to a certain degree the syinpathy of the reader; he commands our increasing respect throughout all his fortunes. Some touches, perhaps, may be discovered in the picture of Hengo which are hardly true to the simplicity of childhood: but, on the whole, that "bud of Britain " has a delicious freness; and who can be insensible to the pathos of the scene in which he slowly breathes out his life in the arms of Caratach? Next to these, Ponius is the best-drawn character; the other personages, though more than one of them have splendid things to utter, are deficient in strong and distinctive features. - Among the dramas on this portion of British history which have been put forth by later writers, the Caractacus of Mason alone deserves men So, while they liv'd and writ together, we Equal to both (pardon Comparison), And suffer'd not the Globe and Black-Friers Stage Poems, p. 91, ed. 1662. "To Mr Humphrey Mo ley, and Mr. Humphrey Robinson. In Beaumonts and in Fletchers name, why in't It appears, therefore, that Sir Aston knew nothing of W. Rowley's having assisted Fletcher in The Maid in the Mill, and most probably in other pieces. There is a striking resemblance between a couplet of this scribbling knight and one of Mr. Wordsworth's. Sir Aston's epigram "of Naples " begins with — "Naples, the Romans' old Parthenope, (Built under hills, upon the Midland-Sca),” &c. Ibid., p. 109. Mr. Wordsworth's noble sonnet "On the departure of Sir Walter Scott for Naples" concludes with "Be true, Ye winds of ocean and the midland-sea, Wafting your charge to soft Parthenope! "· 1 See Collier's Mem. of the Principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare, p. 44. 2 Lectures on the Dram. Lit. of Age of Eliz., p. 152. ed. 1840. Fatrod, to the Works of B. and F., p. 1. 4 "The opening scene," however, is not what Boaden calls it" by many degrees the best in the English drama.” Mem. of Mrs. Siddons, i. 161. * See, for instance, Boadicea by Charles Hopkins, 1697, and Boadicia by Glover (the author of Leonidas), 1753. In the prefatory remarks on Bonduca (page 756) I omitted to mention an earlier drama in which Caratach figures under the name of Caradoc,- The Valiant Welshman, or The True Chronicle History of the Life and Death of Caradoc the Great, King of Cambria, now called Wales. As it hath beene sundry times Acted by the Prince of Wales his seruants. Written by R. Armin], Gent. 1615. It is a miserable piece. tion. is a tragedy formed with great care on the Grecian model; from the commencement to the close it has a very imposing tone of solemnity; and its choral odes occasionally flash with true poetic fire: but its general frigidity, its finical phraseology, and its redundant ornament are not a little repulsive; and its hero, when contrasted with the Caratach of the elder piece, fades into a shadow. According to Weber, the second of these plays, The Knight of Malta, is partly by Beaumont: but I think that the critic is mistaken. - We may say of this tragi-comedy, as of several other pieces in the collection, that, with a rambling plot and very few characters which are vigorously delineated, it has some highly dramatic and interesting scenes, and a profusion of beautiful writing. Concerning the third of these plays, Valentinian, Mr. Darley conjectures that, though "not brought out till after Beaumont's death, it may have been planned, and partly or wholly written, with his cooperation before it." I Weber assigns the entire play to Fletcher, and, I apprehend, rightly. This tragedy ought to have concluded with the death of Valentinian, for the incidents which follow that event, in themselves badly managed, have a tendency to mar the effect of the whole. But, notwithstanding the injudicious prolongation of the story, and some minor blemishes, it is a very impressive drama, with great variety of character, and sustained loftiness of style. Coleridge observes that Beaumont and Fletcher's "chaste ladies value their chastity as a material thing, - not as an act or state of being; and this mere thing being imaginary, no wonder at all their women are represented with the minds of strumpets, except a few irrational humorists, far less capable of exciting our sympathy than a Hindoo, who has had a basin of cow-broth thrown over him; - for this, though a debasing superstition, is still real, and we might pity the poor wretch, though we cannot help despising him. But Beaumont and Fletcher's Lucinas are clumsy fictions," 2 &c. Now, Coleridge assuredly must have had a very imperfect recollection of the present tragedy, when he classed Lucina among our authors'" clumsy fictions:" her character, on the contrary, is remarkable for truth and delicacy of painting; and it would be difficult to point out in any tragedy a scene which works more powerfully on our feelings than that wherein she makes known her dishonor to her husband, and bids him an eternal farewell. "An instance," says Weber, "of great want of judgment is the entire change of the character of Maximus, which, in the preceding parts, raises our admiration and conciliates our affection; but, in the conclusion, entirely destroys it [them?] and leaves nothing in the mind of the reader but disgust. We come utterly unprepared, not for his being elected emperor, but for the sudden disclosure of his having planned the dishonor of his wife, and the death of his friend, the noble Aecius."3 In one particular only, these remarks of Weber are incorrect. We find, indeed, that Maximus, when newly raised to the empire and married to the widow of Valentinian, flatters his bride by declaring that in order to obtain her hand he had "himself prepared the way, nay, made the rape" of Lucina; but we have also his own confession that this was nothing more than a falsehood, uttered, for the occasion, in the heat of joy and wine.4 Aëcius is another leading character which disappoints us as the play progresses, his fidelity to the emperor, so finely pictured in the earlier scenes, degenerating at last into absurdity. On the subordinate personages the author has bestowed more than usual pains. Among the lyrics in this tragedy, two are eminently beautiful, the invocation to Sleep, sung beside the couch of the dying Valentinian, and the Bacchanalian ditty, "God Lyæus, ever young," &c. There appears to be good grounds for Weber's conjecture, that the fourth of these plays, The Queen of Corinth, was not written wholly by Fletcher; and I apprehend that his unknown coadjutor was William Rowley, who (as we shall see) assisted him in The Maid in the Mill, and, most likely, in The Bloody 6 "From some difference, especially in the third and part of the fourth act, of the versification in particular, it may be conjectured," &c. Pref. remarks on the play. • Concerning William Rowley, who was both dramatist and actor, little is known. He is mentioned as a performer Brother also. The probability that Rowley wrote a portion of this tragi-comedy is rendered greater by the fact that in several passages it resembles The Old Law, which he composed in partnership with Middleton and Massinger. The chief incident in The Queen of Corinth, the rape of Merione, gives rise to two scenes of no ordinary power and pathos (act ii. sc. 1, 3); but there is little else to admire; the serious characters are, on the whole, not strongly painted, and the comic are altogether vapid. The fifth of these plays, The Mad Lover, was written by Fletcher alone. - From the praise with which this tragi-comedy is mentioned in the Commendatory Verses, we may conclude that it was highly suc cessful on its first representation; and we know that it found favor with the audiences of a later and more critical age. Yet, from beginning to end, it is little else than a tissue of extravagance. Memnon, an old and victorious general, whose time has been wholly occupied in fighting, arrives at the court of his sovereign, the King of Pathos. Having never before seen "a woman of great fashion," he falls desperately in love with the king's sister as soon as he beholds her, declares his passion, and (publicly) asks her for a kiss. She, as might be expected, treats him with ridicule: upon which he goes stark mad, is with difficulty prevented from having his heart cut out that it may be sent to the princess, and does not recover his senses till the close of the play, when he determines that henceforth the war "shall be his mistress." Nor is Memnon the only one of the dramatis persona that has a love-fit "at first sight," the air of Paphos, perhaps, rendering them peculiarly susceptible of amorous impressions: the moment that Syphax catches a glimpse of the princess, he is ready to die for her; and she, as instantaneously, is smitten with Polydore. - -The character of Memnon, by far the most important figure in the piece, is very carefully finished; yet is it altogether ineffective; for Fletcher only wasted his powers when he labored on the minutiae of a portrait which had no truth of outline. 1 The Loyal Subject, wholly by Fletcher, was brought upon the stage in 1618. — Though the plot is not badly developed, and the characters are not deficient in spirit and distinctness, — particularly that of Ar early in the reign of James the First; and he probably lived till about the commencement of the civil wars. In 1637 he was married, at Cripplegate Church, to Isabel Tooley. See Collier's Mem. of the Principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare, p. 233. Whether he was related to Samuel Rowley, also a dramatist and actor, has not been ascertained. (Malone, I think, has proved — Life of S akespeare, p. 172, — that, when Meres, in Palladis Tamia, 1598, notices "Maister Rowley, once a rare scholar of learned Pembroke Hall in Cambridge," as among "the best [writers] for comedye," he alludes to neither of these Rowleys, but to a Ralph Rowley.) Several of William Rowley's plays have perished. Not to mention those in which he assisted Fletcher, his extant dramas are, four wholly by himself, A New Wonder, a Woman never Vext, 1632, All's lost by Lust, 1633, A Match at Midnight, 1633, A Shoomaker a Gentleman, 1638,-one in conjunction with Day and Wilkins, The Trucailes of the Three English Brothers, &c., 1607,-four in conjunction with Middleton, A Fair Quarrel, 1617, The World tos at Tennis, 1620, The Changeling, 1653, The Spanish Gipsey, 1653, -one in conjunction with Massinger, The Parliament of Love (first printed by Gifford), - —one in conjunction with Massinger and Middleton, The Old Law, 1656, -one in conjunction with Heywood, Fortune by Land and Sea, 1655, - -one in conjunction with Dekker and Furd, The Witch of Edmonton, 1658,- two in conjunction with Webster, A Cure for a Cuckold, 1661, The Thracian Wonder, (of doubtful authorship), 1661, and (in conjunction with Shakespeare, as the title-page erroneously sets forth) The Birth of Merlin, 1662. (The dates given to the plays just enumerated are those of the earliest editions, not those of their original representation.) We have also from his pen a prose tract called A Search for Money, 1609, and A Funerall Elegie (a broadside) on Hugh Atwell, a player, who died in 1621. The following story, in which William Rowley figures, has never been quoted: it is silly enough; but, as the slightest notices of our early dramatists are now eagerly sought for, it will probably be acceptable to many readers. "Of Rape Seed. A Handsome yong fellow hauing seene a Play at the Curtaine, comes to William Rowly after the Play was done, and intreated him, if his leisure serued, that hee might give him a Pottle of Wine, to bee better acquainted with him. He thankt him, and told him, if heo pleased to gue as farre as the Kings Head at Spittlegate, hee would, as soone as he had made himselfe ready, follow him, and accept of his kindnesse. He did so; but the Wine seeming tedious betwixt two, and the rather because the young fellow could entertaine no discourse, Rowly beckoned to an honest fellow ouer the way to come and keepe them company; who promised to be with them instantly. But not comming at the second or third calling, at last he appeares in the roome, where William Rowly begins to chide him because he had staid so long. He presently craued pardon, and begins to excuse himselfe, that he had beene abroad to buy Rape seed, and that he stayd to feed his birds. At the very word of Rape seed, the man rose from the Table with a changed countenance, being very much discontented, and said, Mr. Rowly, I came in curtesie to desire your acquaintance, and to bestow the Wine vpon you, not thinking you would baue called this fellow vp to taunt mee so bitterly.' They wondring what hee meant, hee proceeded; "Tis true indeed, the last Sessions I was arraigned at Newgate for a Rape; but I thanke God I came off like an honest man, little thinking to be twitted of it here.' Both began to excuse themselues, as not knowing any such thing, as well as they might. But he that gaue the offence, thinking the better to expresse his innocence, 'Young Gentleman,' saith he, 'to expresse how far I was from wronging of you, looke you here; as I haue Rape seed in one Pocket for one Bird, so here is Hempe seed on this side for another.' At which word Hempseed, saith the young man, ' Why, villaine, doest thou thinke I haue deserued hanging?' and took vp the Pot to fling at his head; but his hand was stayed and as errour and mistake began the quarrell, so Wine ended it." Moderne Jests, Witty Jeers, &c., p. 64. (The copy of the very rare little volume from which I quote, has lost the title-page.) 1 Gifford (Massinger's Works, iv. 506, ed. 1813) notices these parallelisms, but without drawing from them the inference which I have made. chas, ith his indomitable loyalty under all the severities inflicted on him by his prince, this play, I think, can only be ranked among the second-rate productions of Fletcher. Langbaine was the first to notice that the plot of Heywood's Royal King and Loyal Subject "extreamly resembles that of Fletcher's Loyal Subject:"1 and Mr. Hallam observes that from Heywood's play, "The general idea of several circumstances of The Loyal Subject has been taken. That Heywood's was the original, though the only edition of it is in 1637, while The Loyal Subject was represented in 1615 [1618,] cannot bear a doubt. The former is expressly mentioned in the epilogue as an old play, belonging to a style gone out of date, and not to be judged with rigor. Heywood has therefore the praise of having conceived the character of Earl Marshal, upon which Fletcher somewhat improved in Archas."2 Now, between two dramas, the one of which is founded on the other, a striking resemblance may be invariably traced in particular passages, if not in entire scenes: but this is certainly not the case with the pieces in question; and, though I make no doubt that Heywood's is much the earlier of the two, I am not disposed to believe that it contributed any thing to our poet's play. The Royal King and Loyal Subject was not printed till long after the death of Fletcher; it is in all respects a very poor production; 3 and, if Fletcher had ever seen it represented on the stage, it was no more likely to have impressed his memory than any other of the innumerable dramas which, during his career of authorship, had been exhibited at various theatres, and which, after serving for the attraction of a few nights, had been consigned to the dust and oblivion of the prompter's shelves. The general resemblance of these two plays, and the partial agreement of their titles, may, I think, be accounted for by supposing that the materials of both were derived from a common source, some novel or romantic history. In laying the scene at Moscow, in the chief circumstances of the piece, and in the names assigned to several of the characters (to say nothing of the incidental mention of the Tartar warrior, Olin,) I apprehend that Fletcher followed the novel. Heywood locates the scene in England, —having transferred it thither perhaps with the idea of rendering his play more interesting to the audience, - and he gives us a royal family, designated only as "King," "Prince," and "Princess," while his hero has no other appellation than "The Marshal." If Fletcher had founded his Loyal Subject on Heywood's play, is it likely that—when he so studiously endeavored to conceal his obligations by changing the place of action, altering the events, and adding new characters, he would have committed such an oversight as to retain verbatim a portion of the old title? The dates of The False One and The Double Marriage may perhaps be fixed later than March 1618-19, as the name of Burbadge, who died on the 13th of that month, is absent from the list of the original performers in these two tragedies. Both the prologue and the epilogue attest that The False One was composed by more than one author; and from the comparative regularity of the plot, as well as from the versification in several scenes, Weber conjectures, with much probability, that a portion of it is by Massinger. — The dramatis personæ of this tragedy, both the chief and the subordinate, are firmly drawn and well distinguished. Cleopatra is brought before us in the fresh morning of her youth; not indeed delineated with those exquisitely subtle touches of character which Shakespeare gave her and which he alone could give, but still with "her great mind express'd to the height," and in all respects a fit object to captivate the master of the world. The portrait of Cæsar is equal, if not superior, to any of the representations of him by other dramatists. The two counsellors, Achoreus and Photinus, are happily contrasted, and stand beside the feeble Ptolemy like his good and evil angels. Perhaps the talent of the author (or authors) is no where more conspicuous than in those parts of the play which relate to the cold-blooded murderer Septimius, whose repentance, produced chiefly by the abhorrence and contempt with which he finds himself regarded by the world, lasts only till promises of advancement have tempted him to new crime. In The False One, amidst the general elevation of its style, we meet with passages which rise even to sublimity; and where the Pharsalia is imitated, the nervous poetry (or rather, rhetoric) of Lucan is paralleled to the full. The second of these plays, The Double Marriage, is, in all likelihood, the unassisted work of Fletcher. The plot of this tragedy is at least free from confusion; the incidents have not more improbability than may be allowed to the romantic drama; and the dialogue has often much vigor and felicity of expression. The character of Juliana, on which the chief interest depends, is greatly praised by Campbell; 4 but, with all its striking beauty, it has a defect common to some other portraitures of heroines by Beaumont and Fletcher, it is not a little overstrained. The very attempt to render it a picture of female excellence "beyond humanity " has to a certain degree debased it. When Virolet comes back to Naples, accompanied by Martia, whom he has sworn to marry because she had preserved his life, he immediately 1 Acc. of English Dram. Poets, p. 28. 2 Introd. to the Lit. of Europe, iii. 103. ed. 1843. 3 It has little character, except of an extravagant kind; and no beauty of writing. The slavish compliance of the Marshal with the monstrous demands of the King is downright foolishness. 4 Spec. of Brit. Poets, p. lxxvi. ed 1841. divorces Juliana from his bed and house; and, without a murmur, she submits to this unworthy treatment from a husband who owed her his eternal gratitude; —in other words, she altogether compromises the dignity of her character as a wife by a submission which is more akin to abjectness and imbecility of mind than to exalted virtue. Still, there is no denying that the poet's art has thrown round Juliana a sort of saint-like glory; and that it is rather on after-reflection than while we are reading The Double Marriage that we become fully sensible of the impropriety of her conduct. Throughout the whole play her purity and her devotedness to Virolet have an irresistible fascination; and there is undoubtedly a deep pathos in the scene where, mistaking him for Ronvere, she stabs him to the heart, and then, sitting down upon the ground, silently expires from the violence of her emotions. The Humorous Lieutenant, a tragi-comedy of uncertain date, may positively be ascribed to Fletcher alone. When Cartwright, speaking of our poet's plots, declared that "all [i. e. the spectators] stand wondering how The thing will be, until it is,"1 we may presume that he had forgotten the present piece, in which the discovery of Celia's rank is most injudiciously anticipated by the author; indeed, nothing can be worse than the conduct of the story from first to last. The character of the Lieutenant (like that of La-Writ and some other characters already noticed) is conceived in the style of those dramatized "humors which Jonson had so successfully elaborated; and, though it wants the nice strokes and the perfect keeping by which Ben imparted a reality to personages whose eccentricities might possibly have had types in human nature, it produces, on the whole, a very comic effect. Celia is so devoid of delicacy and refinement, that, in spite of her playfulness and occasional depth of feeling, she fails to command our fullest sympathy.2 Among several scenes in this play distinguished for their truth and animation, the best perhaps is the parting of the two lovers (act i. sc. 2), which has been praised by more than one editor. Individual passages might be selected which have all the picturesque luxuriance of Fletcher. Women Pleased is also of uncertain date: there is every reason to believe that it was composed by Fletcher alone. - For its incidents he is indebted to three novels of Boccaccio and a tale of Chaucer, the whole being combined with the nicest art, and the interest of the piece very happily sustained. Like many other of his plays, however, it bears marks of haste and carelessness. The hungry Penurio, a kind of Justice Greedy in humble life (but with a better excuse for his voracity than Massinger's cormorant) is the most original character in this very entertaining tragi-comedy. The reader will smile at the compensation which thuthor finds it necessary to make the Duke of Sienna for the loss of his young and beautiful mistress, viz., her mother's hand in marriage: but this is not the only drama in which Fletcher has consoled a disappointed lover by wedding him to a respectable matron; see the conclusion of The Queen of Corinth. The Woman's Prize, or, The Tamer Tamed, was "an ould play " in 1633:3 how much earlier was its appearance on the stage, would be a vain inquiry. It is wholly by Fletcher. This comedy forms a sequel to The Taming of the Shrew, and represents that Petruchio, who had hitherto "been famous for a woman-tamer," as completely subjugated by his second wife, - - the scene being transferred to England, and an English woman having the honor of that great achievement. But every one must perceive that the Petruchio of Fletcher is Shakespeare's Petruchio only in the name; for the hero of the elder comedy would have been as much proof against the artful contrivances of Maria as against the violence of Katherine. That some of the situations, though grossly improbable, are exceedingly well imagined, is perhaps the highest praise which The Woman's Prize can claim. 1 Commend. Poems, p. 77. * On the character of King Antigonus in this play Mason has the following remarks: "Theobald is much offended with the poets [poet] for making a king, of illustrious character, degrade himself by lewdly hunting after a young girl; which, he says, might easily have been avoided. It might, indeed, have been avoided by totally changing the plot of the play, but not otherwise. The king, however, is not represented as a vicious character: his first intention, and a laudable intention, was to discover whether Celia was a proper object for his son's affection; and, for that purpose, to try ber to the test, as he terms it. On beholding her, he becomes unwarily captivated with her charms, and wishes that he had not seen her." Comments on the Plays of B. and F., p. 99. But the habitual licentiousness of the king is put beyond all doubt by a portion of act ii. sc. 1, which is given in the present ed. from a manuscript, and which was unknown to Mason: see vol. ii. p. 111. * See vol. ii. p. 178. 4 From the admirable speech of Katherine at the conclusion of The Taming of the Shrew we should have felt confident that she and her husband settled down into the happiest of couples, had not Fletcher taken care to inform us that the case was very different: his Petruchio has nothing but painful recollections of the days he passed with Katharine! see act iii. sc. 3, vol. ii. 199, “Was I not well-warn'd," &c. - Somewhat akin to this, I mean, in its being opposed to the VOL. II. 5 |