The most

have lived in Scotland; and the other to have be- are very characteristically displayed in another come a dependent, and afterwards a pensioner of group, which may be described as romantic or the ducal family of Ormond. At the time of his poetical comedies. They are, one and all of them, death, Beaumont was certainly not more than novels thrown into a dramatic form. They contain thirty-one years of age, and perhaps even younger. much poetic fire and beauty, and much also that is His affectionate brother, and his shrewd friend Cor-interesting in character and in story. bet, agreed in assigning the same cause for his successful of these are the pleasingly conceived plays premature decay. The ever-active mind had worn of "The Pilgrim" and "The Beggars' Bush." out its infirm tabernacle. "Wit's a disease con- There remains to be mentioned among Fletcher's sumes men in few years.' later pieces, another class, distinct from the two A generation later, another tribute was paid to last-his comedies of intrigue. No plays of the his memory; a tribute, too, poor in poetic worth, series were so popular in their own day, and in the but precious as coming from a brave and gentle time of Charles II.; none have contributed so spirit. It was penned by his kinsman the gallant much to maintain the name of Fletcher on the Lisle, him of whom Clarendon says, that he never stage; and none are so well known to casual readhad an enemy. We think, as we persue it, of the ers of the old English drama. These comedies frightful struggle which was about to convulse present us with humorous scenes and personages England, and of the bloody grave in which, within modelled from ordinary life. Considered in their a few months, the writer was to sleep. When we poetical aspect, they possess little value; they are read some of the other commendatory verses pre- not remarkable either for the nature or consistency fixed to the first collected edition of these dramas, of their characters, or for skill in the management we are painfully reminded of some of the darkest of the plots. Several of them, however, make a features which must have deformed the face of con- nearer approach to excellence in their class, than temporary society. It is absolutely startling to hear our authors could attain while serving a more seBeaumont and Fletcher commended, not only for vere and ambitious muse. Accordingly, two or poetical and dramatic excellence, but also for moral three of these plays have been held, by many purity, and for a steady design to promote the critics, to be the best of the collection. The sto cause of virtue. Such praises are lavished on ries are felicitously selected for exciting a light and them, not only by Lovelace and other rakish cava-passing interest; and they abound in striking situaliers, but by thoughtful and serious men like Hab- tions, successfully carried through for the purposes ington and Thomas Stanley. The verdict of the of the stage. With their airy wit, their overflowlaity is confirmed by the clerical authority of Cart- ing animal spirits, their colloquial diction, and their wright and Mayne, and receives an Episcopal playful characters, what more can the regular fresanction from Bishop Earle. We do not know quenters of a theatre desire? We will mention whether Beaumont had been a restraint on his some of them: For instance, "The Woman's friend; but it is certain that Fletcher afterwards Prize," in which the woman-tamer Petruchio is pandered to the evil tendencies of the time with resuscitated in order to meet with his match; "The less reserve. There is no ascertained date to Chances," perhaps the best acting play of the se"The Custom of the Country," the most immoral ries; "Monsieur Thomas," which is full of jovial play of the series, though at the same time one of humor and broad drollery; "The Wildgoose the most ingenious. But several pieces, known to Chase," plundered and transprosed by Farquhar; belong to Fletcher's later years, display a syste-"The Spanish Curate," a comedy of remarkable matic grossness, of which the earlier works, repre- merit in point of art, and of very great demerit hensible though they are in parts, offer no example. in point of morality; "The Elder Brother," conThe licentiousness, indeed, is such, that a parallel verted with another of our plays into a comedy by must be sought, not in the older and higher works Cibber; "Rule a Wife and have a Wife," which, of our drama, but in those of its approaching de- with a few needful alterations, keeps its place on cay; not in the coarsely stern morality of Jonson the stage, in virtue of the acting capabilities of the and Massinger, nor even in the less pure works of character of Leon. Webster, Middleton, and Ford, but in the lubricity Fletcher's life of labor closed in his forty-sixth of the representations, to which the court of year. In August, 1625, designing to pay a visit in Charles the First appears to have turned aside for Norfolk, he delayed his journey till he should be relaxation, if not for comfort, when desirous of for- furnished with a suit of new clothes. The plague getting for a time the threatening realities out of then raged in London; he was seized with it and doors. Indeed, there is but a short step from Shir- died. He was buried, without monument or inley, or from Fletcher in his latter days, to Wych-scription, in the church of Saint Saviour's in erley and Congreve-from the morality of "The Southwark. Not twenty years afterwards, the Spanish Curate" and "The Lady of Pleasure,' ,"unfortunate Massinger was buried in the same to that of "The Country Wife" and "The Double cemetery; and, if we are to accept literally the asDealer.' But this is a repulsive theme. It is sertion of one of their admirers, the two poets now more pleasant to mark the genius which inspires so warmly the best of Fletcher's later works, and which is never entirely wanting in the very lowest of them.

lie together in the same unknown grave!

Fletcher had toiled in his vocation till his dying hour. In the last three years of his life, he certainly brought upon the stage twelve or thirteen The list contains several tragedies. Of these plays; and he appears also to have been occupied "The Bloody Brother," "The False One," and in the composition of others, which, finished per"The Double Marriage," are the most attractive. haps by surviving writers, were not produced till Some of the later plays, while essentially comic, after his death. In one of these, "The Lover's trespass on the domain of tragedy. Women Progress," ," which in its present shape contains Pleased," and "A Wife for a Month," are among passages that have been attributed to Massinger, the best. The worst pieces of this class are, there is a scene-that of the merry ghost of the "The Sea-Voyage" and "The Island Princess." innkeeper-which used to be read with great deThe poet's tendencies, both to good and to evil, light by Sir Walter Scott.

The dramas of Beaumont and Fletcher continued | interesting, though somewhat eccentric and overlong to be the most popular, or rather perhaps the subtle. most fashionable, of all stage pieces. They were

The text of Beaumont and Fletcher is in a much in high favor till the shutting of the theatres on the worse state than that of Shakspeare. In very breaking out of the civil war; and, after the Res- many passages it is corrupted beyond the possibility toration, we are told, that two of them were of remedy. But amendment was attainable in vaacted for one of Shakspeare's or of Jonson's. Dry-rious places, where the editors had not attempted it, den assigns, as a reason, the sprightliness of the or had failed in the attempt. No man living is comedies, and the pathos of the tragedies; but better qualified to supply their shortcomings than there were other causes less creditable to the the gentleman whose laborious edition is now comworks and to the age. In fact, they were displaced pleted, and under whose guidance, readers of from the stage only by plays surpassing them in Beaumont and Fletcher, in all coming time, will those moral defects, by which, we fear, much more enter upon their delightful task with means and than by their genius, they were recommended to appliances never before enjoyed. Mr. Dyce's repthe playgoers of the time of Charles the Second. utation, as a profound student of the old English Meanwhile, a large proportion of the plays were drama, and as a rational and acute verbal critic, has known only to the frequenters of the theatres. been firmly established by his reprints of Webster, Nine of the earlier of them, and no others, were Peele, and Middleton, and by his remarks on the printed successively in quarto, during Fletcher's text of Shakspeare. lifetime; and seven others were subsequently His collation of the old copies of Beaumont and printed in the same form before 1647. In this year, Fletcher has been unwearied; and has removed the theatres being closed, (a fortunate event for the not a few serious difficulties. His own suggestions preservation of many of our old dramas,) the play-of new readings are almost always cautious and ers published a folio volume, containing thirty-four sensible, and, so far as we can judge, sometimes plays not previously printed, with a preface by the very happy. As much, in short, has been done dramatist Shirley; which has severely tantalized for the text as the nature of the case admits of, exlater editors, by the writer's profession of possessing information which he does not condescend to communicate. Another play having afterwards appeared separately, the list was made up to fifty-one in the folio edition of 1679. This edition was reprinted in 1711, in seven octavo volumes, with the addition of the tragi-comedy of " The Coronation," now attributed to Shirley. In 1750 appeared the earliest critical edition, in ten octavo volumes. It was begun by Theobold, and completed by Sympson and Seward. Most of the notes and criticisms are feeble; and the editors are justly declared by Mr. Dyce to have taken "the most unwarrantable liberties with the text"-liberties, however, which, like Theobold's emendations on Shakspeare, include two or three lucky conjectures. A second critical edition, that of 1778, in ten volumes, was chiefly edited by George Colman the elder. Its criticism is of a higher order than that of its predecessor; while, in regard to the text, its principal merit lies in its having restored most of the older readings. Monck Mason next worked upon our poets, but published only "Notes" upon them in 1798.

In 1812 there appeared, in fourteen volumes, the edition by Weber: one of those favorite designs of Sir Walter Scott, which promised so much benefit to our literature, and ended so disastrously for the projector and his associates. Weber printed for the first time "The Faithful Friends," a play of doubtful authorship and small value. In his edition a good deal is done towards the improvement of the text; but in his dealing with disputed readings, as well as in his critical remarks, he is very unequal-although hardly more than might be expected in an editor to whom our language and literature were not native. The hand, or prompting, of Weber's patron, may be detected in a few notes, historical and antiquarian.

In 1839 Mr. Moxon reprinted Weber's text in two very handsome volumes, which still form the only edition moderate enough in cost to be within the reach of a large class of readers. An introduction by Mr. Darley is prefixed, ingenious and

cept perhaps occasionally in the distribution of the versified lines; we think his ear has not always caught their loose and buoyant structure. His foot-notes are commendably brief, and usually instructive. They are written, too, with as much good temper and forbearance as it is possible to expect; considering, that he evidently entertains for his predecessors not a little of the contempt which possesses every new editor of our early dramas. But he has been able to keep the feeling wonderfully in check. Indeed, it seldom breaks out further than to the disfigurement of his punctuation with ironical marks of admiration.

In his prefaces to the several plays we have been a little disappointed, from not finding there all the information we had expected concerning the origin of each. He has, indeed, traced several of them to novels not previously noticed; but he has left untouched the curious question suggested by Mr. Hallam, of the obligations of their authors, especially in the comedies, to the Spanish stage. This is a mine as yet unwrought; and Beaumont and Fletcher are not the only dramatists of our old schools, whose works might derive considerable illustration from the opening of it.

The introductory "Account of the Lives and Writings" of the poets, is excellent. We learn there, for the first time, several new facts, such as the date and place of Fletcher's birth, and sundry particulars, carefully collected from many quarters, which had not been previously brought to bear on the biography of our poets. The critical remarks on the several plays are judicious and modest; and the observations adopted from other critics are scrupulously referred to their rightful sources.

In a word, Mr. Dyce has performed with unusual merit and effect all that he has attempted; nor is it likely that any one else will successfully attempt more. Every gentleman who pretends to have a library, and to care for English poetry, should provide himself with a publication, in which our two greatest dramatists, after Shakspeare, appear for the first time in a form worthy of their fame.

BROWNE'S WHALING CRUISE.

From the Edinburgh Review.

Etchings of a Whaling Cruise, with Notes of a Sojourn on the Island of Zanzibar; and a Brief History of the Whale Fishery, in its past and present condition. By J. Ross BROWNE. With Numerous Engravings and Woodcuts. London:

1846.*

conclusion that pluck may compensate for weight, and boldly presented themselves to the agent upstairs.

"Well, you think we'll do?' 'Oh, no doubt about it. I'm willing to risk you, though I may Whaling, gentlemen, is lose something by it.

tolerably hard at first, but it's the first business in the world for enterprising young men. If you are A YOUNG American of education, taste, and ac- determined to take a voyage, I'll put you in the complishment, gifted (or cursed) with warm sensi- way of shipping in a most elegant vessel, well bility and a lively fancy, is determined to see some-fitted-that's the great well-fitted Vigilana, and thing of the romance of life before sobering down activity will insure you rapid promotion. I haven't to its realities. His plan is to earn money enough the least doubt but you'll come home boat-steerers. I sent off six college students a few days ago, and a in a year, to pay the expenses of a journey across Europe to the East, in the course of which he is to poor fellow who had been flogged away from home visit all the favored lands of poetry and song, and by a vicious wife. A whaler, gentlemen,' continhaply make his fortune by marrying a European ned the agent, rising in eloquence, a whaler is a duchess or Arabian princess on the way. The place of refuge for the distressed and persecuted, a money is to be earned at Washington by reporting school for the dissipated, an asylum for the needy. debates in congress; and one of the anticipated ad- There's nothing like it. You can see the worldvantages of this mode of supplying the required you can see something of life."" outfit is, the intimate acquaintance which it is to give him with the habits and characters of the great. Glowing with enthusiasm, his mind expanded by the constant contemplation of patriotism and philanthropy, and his memory stored with electric bursts of eloquence, he would carry to the old world the freshest feelings and impressions of the new, and perchance promote the entente cordiale of the rival hemispheres. He learns shorthand, is hired as a reporter for a session, earns just enough to keep himself from hand to mouth, and is completely disabused of his illusions regarding statesmen and statesmanship.

The language of the recruiting officer is the same all the world over; and to be roused from a dream of love or glory by the rope's-end of the boatswain or the rattan of the corporal, is the inevitable transition state of the military or naval aspirant. Our two adventurers find themselves cramped up in a small vessel with a tyrannical captain and a ruffianly crew; they are very sea-sick at first, and more than half starved afterwards; one sinks under the continued effects of illness and ill-treatment, but Mr. Ross Browne bears up gallantly against all, and comes back to hold up his own and his friend's sufferings as a warning, as well as to use them as "As the session advanced, much of my youth- a means for bringing about a complete reform in ful enthusiasm began to wear away. A nearer ac- the whale fishery. "There. are now," he says, quaintance with the distinguished political leaders" in active employment, more than seven hundred by no means increased my respect for them. At whaling vessels belonging to the New England first I could not approach a great man without states, manned by nearly twenty thousand hardy trembling. I never felt my utter insignificance, and intrepid men. It is a reproach to the American till, with uncovered head and downcast eyes, I people that, in this age of moral reform, the prostood in the presence of those renowned statesmen tecting arm of the law has not reached these daring and orators whose names I had learned to revere. adventurers. History scarcely furnishes a parallel I was not so young, however, but that I could soon for the deeds of cruelty committed upon them dursee into the hollowness of political distinction; the ing their long and perilous voyages. The startling small trickery practised in the struggle for power, the increase of crime," he adds, in the whale fishery overbearing aristocracy of station, and the heartless demands a remedy. Scarcely a vessel arrives in and selfish intrigues by which public men maintain port that does not bring intelligence of a mutiny. their influence. I became thoroughly disgusted Are the murderous wrongs which compel men to with so much hypocrisy and bombast. It required no sage monitor to convince me that true patriotism does not prevail to a very astonishing extent in It is a step towards the redress of national abuses the hearts of those who make the most noise about it. The profession I had chosen enabled me to see to make them known in other countries, especially behind the scenes, and study well the great ma-in rival countries; for the spirit of emulation or the chinery of government, and I cannot say that I saw a good deal to admire."

Still, though the enthusiasm is on the wane, and the money is wanting, the yearning for foreign climes is as strong as ever; and a friend is found smitten with the same passion, and endowed with about the same amount of qualifications, mental, moral, and pecuniary. The following announcement attracts the notice of the pair, as they are strolling about together in New York

"Wanted, immediately, six able-bodied landsmen to go on a whaling voyage from New Bedford. Apply up stairs before five o'clock, P. M."

After a short conference, turning chiefly on the question whether they came fairly within the description of able-bodied men, they arrived at the

* Harper & Brothers, New York.

rise up and throw off the burden of oppression, unworthy of notice? Will none make the attempt to arrest their fearful progress?"

sense of shame may succeed, where the sense of justice has been appealed to in vain. We therefore think it a duty to make known the main object of the author. But we must be excused for turning to more attractive matter than the sufferings of Mr. Ross Browne and his shipmates, particularly when we have only just space enough to give a fair specimen of the distinctive portions of his book.

His description of the process of whale-catching is illustrated by woodcuts and engravings of the instruments employed, the boats in chase, the whale in his dying struggle, the whale about to be cut up, &c.; and for ourselves, we own that we have felt as much interested while reading one of his spirited sketches of an actual pursuit and capture, as when (with our feet on the fender) we were following Colonel Hawker across the Ooze, or clearing the Whissendine with Nimrod. The crew themselves

find some compensation for their miseries in the a gale, and the heavy black clouds were scattering excitement, and There she blows! the whaler's view halloo, has the same effect on his nervous system as Tally-ho! on a fox-hunter's. To enter fully into the feeling, it must be borne in mind that the pay is proportioned to the quantity of oil procured; that success depends on coolness, courage, and dexterity; and that long periods of despondency commonly intervene between what may be denominated the bursts. The monotony of a calm is suddenly broken by the long-expected cry: