poets were 'servile jure divino Royalists,' and that all their women are represented with the minds of strumpets, 'except a few irrational humourists'-a judgment several critics have jealously rebutted. As Mr St Loe Strachey says, for dramatic interest, sustained and heightened by every resource of stagecraft, Beaumont and Fletcher have no peers after Shakespeare. Nobler poetry, deeper thoughts and sentiments, may be found in the other dramatists; but judged as plays, the Maid's Tragedy and Philaster stand above all else that is not Shakespeare's.

The later works of Fletcher are chiefly comic. His plots are sometimes inartificial and loosely connected, but he is always lively and entertaining, and the dialogue is witty, elegant, and amusing. Yet with all their excellences, nobody remembers the plots of Beaumont and Fletcher's dramas. Shakespeare's are ineffaceably stamped on the memory, but those of Beaumont and Fletcher seem 'writ in water.' Dryden held that they understood and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better than Shakespeare; and he tells us that their plays were, in his day, the most pleasant and frequent entertainments of the stage-'two of theirs being acted through the year for one of Shakespeare's or Jonson's.' It was different some forty years earlier. In 1627 the King's Company bribed the Master of the Revels with £5 to prevent the players of the theatre called the Red Bull from performing the dramas of Shakespeare. One cause of the preference for Beaumont and Fletcher may have been the license of their dramas (suited to the perverted taste of the court of Charles II.), and the spirit of intrigue which they adopted from the Spanish stage and naturalised on the English. 'We cannot deny,' said Hallam, 'that the depths of Shakespeare's mind were often unfathomable by an audience; the bow was drawn by a matchless hand, but the shaft went out of sight. All might listen to Fletcher's pleasing though not profound or vigorous language; his thoughts are noble, and tinged with the ideality of romance; his metaphors vivid, though sometimes too forced; he possesses the idiom of English without much pedantry, though in many passages he strains it beyond common use; his versification, though studiously irregular, is often rhythmical and sweet; yet we are seldom arrested by striking beauties. Good lines occur in every page, fine ones but rarely. We lay down the volume with a sense of admiration of what we have read, but little of it remains distinctly in the memory. Fletcher is not much quoted, and has not even afforded copious materials to those who cull the beauties of ancient lore.' His comic gift was much greater than his tragic power. Massinger impresses the reader more deeply, and has a moral beauty not possessed by Beaumont and Fletcher; in comedy he falls infinitely below them. Though their characters are deficient in variety,

their knowledge of stage effect and contrivance, their fertility of invention, and the airy liveliness of their dialogue provide the charm of novelty and interest. The Knight of the Burning Pestle, mainly Beaumont's, is an admirable burlesque of the taste of the citizens of London for false chivalry and pseudo-romantic adventures, not without a specific reference to Heywood's Four Prentices of London; but it lacks the rich and genial humanity of Shakespeare's comedies. The vast variety and luxuriance of Beaumont and Fletcher's work lift it above Jonson's, though neither of them had his regularity and solidity, and brings them to the borders of the 'magic circle' of Shakespeare. The confidence and buoyancy of youth are visible in their plays they had not tasted of adversity, like Jonson or Massinger; and they had not the profoundly meditative spirit of their great

master.

Bonduca is a version of the story of the British warrior-queen, Boadicea, Bonduca, or (better) Boudicca. Caratach is the patriot now familiar to us under the Romanised name of Caractacus (Welsh, Caradawg). The play opens with a scene in which Caratach enters from behind, while Bonduca is speaking exultantly to Nennius and other British warriors:

Bonduca. The hardy Romans!-oh, ye gods of Britain ! The rust of arms, the blushing shame of soldiers! Are these the men that conquer by inheritance? The fortune-makers? these the Julians, That with the sun measure the end of nature, Making the world but one Rome and one Cæsar ? Shame, how they flee! Cæsar's soft soul dwells in 'em, Their mothers got 'em sleeping, Pleasure nursed 'em ; Their bodies sweat with sweet oils, love's allurements, Not lusty arms. Dare they send these to seek us, These Roman girls? Is Britain grown so wanton? Twice we have beat 'em, Nennius, scattered 'em : And through their big-boned Germans, on whose pikes The honour of their actions sits in triumph, Made themes for songs to shame 'em and a woman, A woman beat 'em, Nennius; a weak woman, A woman beat these Romans ! Caratach [coming forward]. So it seems A man would shame to talk so. Bond. Car.

:

Who's that?

I.

Bond. Cousin, do you grieve my fortunes?
Car. No, Bonduca ;

If I grieve, 'tis the bearing of your fortunes:
You put too much wind to your sail : discretion
And hardy valour are the twins of honour,
And, nursed together, make a conqueror;
Divided, but a talker. 'Tis a truth,

That Rome has fled before us twice, and routed;
A truth we ought to crown the gods for, lady,
And not our tongues; a truth is none of ours,
Nor in our ends, more than the noble bearing;
For then it leaves to be a virtue, lady,
And we, that have been victors, beat ourselves,
When we insult upon our honour's subject.
Bond. My valiant cousin, is it foul to say
What liberty and honour bid us do,

And what the gods allow us?

Car.

No, Bonduca ;
So what we say exceed not what we do.
You call the Romans-fearful, fleeing Romans,
And Roman girls, the lees of tainted pleasures:
Does this become a doer? are they such?
Bond. They are no more.
Car.
Where is your conquest, then?
Why are your altars crowned with wreaths of flowers?
The beasts with gilt horns waiting for the fire?
The holy Druidès composing songs
Of everlasting life to victory?

Why are these triumphs, lady? for a May-game?
For hunting a poor herd of wretched Romans?
Is it no more? Shut up your temples, Britons,
And let the husbandman redeem his heifers;
Put out your holy fires, no timbrel ring;
Let's home and sleep; for such great overthrows
A candle burns too bright a sacrifice,

A glow-worm's tail too full a flame.—Oh, Nennius,
Thou hadst a noble uncle knew a Roman,

And how to speak him, how to give him weight
In both his fortunes!

I love an enemy; I was born a soldier;

And he that in the head on's troop defies me,
Bending my manly body with his sword,
I make a mistress. Yellow-tressed Hymen
Ne'er tied a longing virgin with more joy,

Than I am married to that man that wounds me:
And are not all these Roman? Ten struck battles
I sucked these honoured scars from, and all Roman;
Ten years of bitter nights and heavy marches
(When many a frozen storm sung through my cuirass,
And made it doubtful whether that or I

Were the more stubborn metal) have I wrought through,
And all to try these Romans. Ten times a-night
I have swam the rivers, when the stars of Rome
Shot at me as I floated, and the billows
Tumbled their watry ruins on my shoulders,
Charging my battered sides with troops of agues;
And still to try these Romans, whom I found
(And, if I lie, my wounds be henceforth backward,
And be you witness, gods, and all my dangers!)
As ready, and as full of that I brought,
(Which was not fear, nor flight) as valiant,
As vigilant, as wise to do and suffer,
Ever advanced as forward as the Britons,

Their sleeps as short, their hopes as high as ours,
Ay, and as subtle, lady. 'Tis dishonour,
And, followed, will be impudence, Bonduca,
And grow to no belief, to taunt these Romans.
Have not I seen the Britons-

I have seen thee run too; and thee, Nennius;
Yea, run apace, both; then when Poenius
a Roman capta
(The Roman girl!) cut thorough your armed carts,
And drove 'em headlong on ye, down the hill;
Then when he hunted ye, like Britain foxes,
More by the scent than sight; then did I see
These valiant and approved men of Britain,
Like boding owls, creep into tods of ivy,
And hoot their fears to one another nightly.
Nennius. And what did you then, Caratach?
Car.

I fled too:

But not so fast,-your jewel had been lost then,
Young Hengo there; he trashed me, Nennius:
For, when your fears out-run him, then stept I,
And in the head of all the Roman fury
Took him, and with my tough belt to my back
I buckled him; behind him my sure shield;
And then I followed. If I say I fought
Five times in bringing off this bud of Britain,
I lie not, Nennius. Neither had you heard
Me speak this, or ever seen the child more,
But that the son of virtue, Ponius,
Seeing me steer through all these storms of danger,
My helm still in my hand (my sword), my prow
Turned to my foe (my face), he cried out nobly,
'Go, Briton, bear thy lion's whelp off safely ;
Thy manly sword has ransomed thee; grow strong,
And let me meet thee once again in arms;
Then, if thou stand'st, thou art mine."
offer,

And here I am to honour him.

Oh, cousin,

I took his

Bond. From what a flight of honour hast thou checked me! What wouldst thou make me, Caratach?

The noble use of others in our losses.
Does this afflict you? Had the Romans cried this,
And, as we have done theirs, sung out these fortunes,
Railed on our base condition, hooted at us,

Made marks as far as the earth was ours, to show us
Nothing but sea could stop our flights, despised us,
And held it equal whether banqueting

Or beating of the Britons were more business,
It would have galled you.

Bond.
Let me think we conquered.
Car. Do; but so think as we may be conquered;
And where we have found virtue, though in those
That came to make us slaves, let's cherish it.
There's not a blow we gave since Julius landed,
That was of strength and worth, but, like records,
They file to after ages. Our registers
The Romans are, for noble deeds of honour;
And shall we burn their mentions with upbraidings?
Bond. No more; I see myself. Thou hast made me
cousin,

More than my fortunes durst, for they abused me,
And wound me up so high, I swelled with glory:
Thy temperance has cured that tympany,

And given me health again, nay more, discretion.
Shall we have peace? for now I love these Romans.

Car. Thy love and hate are both unwise ones, lady.

From 'The Maid's Tragedy.'
Evadne. I thank thee, Dula. Would thou couldst instil
Some of thy mirth into Aspatia!
Nothing but sad thoughts in her breast do dwell;
Methinks a mean between you would do well.

Dula. She is in love: hang me, if I were so,
But I could run my country. I love too
To do those things that people in love do.

Aspatia. It were a timeless smile should prove my cheek;

It were a fitter hour for me to laugh,
When at the altar the religious priest
Were pacifying the offended powers

With sacrifice, than now. This should have been
My night, and all your hands have been employed
In giving me a spotless offering

To young Amintor's bed, as we are now
For you: pardon, Evadne; would my worth
Were great as yours, or that the King, or he,

Or both thought so! Perhaps he found me worthless;
But till he did so, in these ears of mine-

These credulous ears- he poured the sweetest words
That art or love could frame. And if I did want
Virtue, you safely may forgive that too,

For I have lost none that I had from you.

Evad. Nay, leave this sad talk, madam.
Asp.

Then should I leave the cause.

Would I could!

Madam, good-night; may no discontent
Grow 'twixt your love and you; but if there do,
Inquire of me, and I will guide your moan;
Teach you an artificial way to grieve,

To keep your sorrow waking. Love your lord
No worse than I; but if you love so well,
Alas! you may displease him; so did I.
This is the last time you shall look on me.-
Ladies, farewell; as soon as I am dead,

Come all, and watch one night about my hearse;
Bring each a mournful story and a tear
To offer at it when I go to earth:
With flattering ivy clasp my coffin round,
Write on my brow my fortune, let my bier
Be borne by virgins that shall sing by course
The truth of maids and perjuries of men.
Evad. Alas! I pity thee.

[Enter Amintor.

Asp. Go, and be happy in your lady's love. May all the wrongs that you have done to me

Be utterly forgotten in my death!

I'll trouble you no more, yet I will take

A parting kiss, and will not be denied. [Kisses Amintor. You'll come, my lord, and see the virgins weep

When I am laid in earth, though you yourself
Can know no pity. Thus I wind myself
Into this willow garland, and am prouder
That I was once your love-though now refused-
Than to have had another true to me.

So with my prayers I leave you, and must try
Some yet unpractised way to grieve and die.

(Act II. sc. i.)

The opening song from the Two Noble Kinsmen has been given above (page 373) as having 'the true Shakespearean ring.' The following scene (Act II. sc. i.) is one of those in which Coleridge detected Shakespeare's hand, and other critics have supported this view. Mr Sidney Lee and most recent authorities assign it to Fletcher's The Kinsmen are the heroes (to be pronounced Pal'amon and Ar-sight) of Chaucer's Knightes Tale' (see above at page 70); and of the story it is said in the introduction:

own pen.

It has a noble breeder and a pure,

A learned; and a poet never went

More famous yet 'twixt Po and Silver Trent: Chaucer, of all admired, the story gives,

Then constant to eternity it lives.

The dialogue cited below takes place when the cousins are prisoners in Greece:

How do you, sir?

Palamon. How do you, noble cousin?
Arcite.
Pal. Why, strong enough to laugh at misery,
And bear the chance of war yet; we are prisoners,
I fear for ever, cousin.

Arc.
I believe it,
And to that destiny have patiently
Laid up my hour to come.

Pal.
Oh, cousin Arcite,
Where is Thebes now? where is our noble country?
Where are our friends and kindreds? Never more
Must we behold those comforts, never see
The hardy youths strive for the games of honour,
Hung with the painted favours of their ladies,
Like tall ships under sail; then start amongst them,
And as an east wind leave them all behind us
Like lazy clouds, whilst Palamon and Arcite,
Even in the wagging of a wanton leg,
Outstript the people's praises, won the garlands
Ere they have time to wish them ours. Oh, never
Shall we two exercise, like twins of Honour,
Our arms again, and feel our fiery horses
Like proud seas under us! our good swords now
(Better the red-eyed god of war ne'er ware)
Ravished our sides, like age, must run to rust,
And deck the temples of those gods that hate us;
These hands shall never draw them out like lightning
To blast whole armies more!

Arc.
No, Palamon,
Those hopes are prisoners with us; here we are,
And here the graces of our youths must wither
Like a too timely spring; here age must find us,
And, which is heaviest, Palamon, unmarried;
The sweet embraces of a loving wife
Loaden with kisses, armed with thousand Cupids,
Shall never clasp our necks; no issue know us,
No figures of ourselves shall we e'er see,

To glad our age, and like young eagles teach them
Boldly to gaze against bright arms, and say,
'Remember what your fathers were, and conquer!'
The fair-eyed maids shall weep our banishments,
And in their songs curse ever-blinded Fortune,
Till she for shame see what a wrong she has done
To youth and nature. This is all our world:
We shall know nothing here but one another;
Hear nothing but the clock that tells our woes.
The vine shall grow, but we shall never see it :
Summer shall come, and with her all delights,
But dead-cold Winter must inhabit here still.

Pal. 'Tis too true, Arcite. To our Theban hounds,
That shook the aged forest with their echoes,
No more now must we halloo; no more shake
Our pointed javelins, whilst the angry swine
Flies like a Parthian quiver from our rages,
Struck with our well-steeled darts!
(The food and nourishment of noble minds)
In us two here shall perish: we shall die
(Which is the curse of honour) lastly,
Children of Grief and Ignorance.

All valiant uses

Pal.

How, gentle cousin?
Arc. Let's think this prison a holy sanctuary,
To keep us from corruption of worse men!
We are young, and yet desire the ways of honour,
That liberty and common conversation,
The poison of pure spirits, might, like women,
Woo us to wander from. What worthy blessing
Can be, but our imaginations

May make it ours? And here being thus together,
We are an endless mine to one another;

We are one another's wife, ever begetting

New births of love; we are father, friends, acquaintance; We are, in one another, families;

I am your heir, and you are mine; this place

Is our inheritance; no hard oppressor

Dare take this from us: here, with a little patience,
We shall live long, and loving; no surfeits seek us;
The hand of War hurts none here, nor the seas
Swallow their youth. Were we at liberty,
A wife might part us lawfully, or business;
Quarrels consume us; envy of ill men
Crave1our acquaintance; I might sicken, cousin,
Where you should never know it, and so perish
Without your noble hand to close mine eyes,
Or prayers to the gods: a thousand chances,
Were we from hence, would sever us.

I thank you, cousin Arcite !—almost wanton
With my captivity: what a misery

It is to live abroad, and everywhere!

'Tis like a beast, methinks! I find the court here, I am sure, a more content; and all those pleasures, That woo the wills of men to vanity,

I see through now; and am sufficient
To tell the world, 'tis but a gaudy shadow,
That old Time, as he passes by, takes with him.
What had we been, old in the court of Creon,
Where sin is justice, lust and ignorance

The virtues of the great ones? Cousin Arcite,
Had not the loving gods found this place for us,
We had died, as they do, ill old men, unwept,
And had their epitaphs, the people's curses.
Shall I say more?

From The Faithful Shepherdess.'

To CLORIN in the wood, enter a SATYR with fruit,

Satyr. Through yon same bending plain
That flings his arms down to the main,
And through these thick woods, have I run,
Whose bottom never kissed the sun,

Since the lusty spring began.
All to please my master Pan,
Have I trotted without rest,
To get him fruit; for at a feast
He entertains, this coming night,
His paramour the Syrinx bright:
But behold a fairer sight!
By that heavenly form of thine,
Brightest fair, thou art divine,
Sprung from great immortal race
Of the gods; for in thy face
Shines more awful majesty
Than dull weak mortality
Dare with misty eyes behold,
And live therefore, on this mould
Lowly do I bend my knee,

:

In worship of thy deity.
Deign it, goddess, from my hand
To receive whate'er this land
From her fertile womb doth send
Of her choice fruits; and but lend
Belief to that the Satyr tells-
Fairer by the famous wells,
To this present day ne'er grew,
Never better, nor more true.
Here be grapes whose lusty blood
Is the learned poets' good,

Sweeter yet did never crown

The head of Bacchus ; nuts more brown

[Seeing Clorin

Than the squirrel whose teeth crack them; Deign, O fairest fair, to take them!

For these, black-eyed Dryope
Hath oftentimes commanded me
With my clasped knee to climb:

See how well the lusty time

Hath decked their rising cheeks in red,
Such as on your lips is spread!

Here be berries for a queen,
Some be red, some be green;
These are of that luscious meat

The great god Pan himself doth eat:

All these, and what the woods can yield,

The hanging mountain or the field,

I freely offer, and ere long

Will bring you more, more sweet and strong;

Till when, humbly leave I take,

Lest the great Pan do awake,

That sleeping lies in a deep glade,

Under a broad beech's chade.

I must go, I must run,

Swifter than the fiery sun.

Clorin. And all my fears go with thee!

What greatness, or what private hidden power,

Is there in me to draw submission

From this rude man and beast? Sure I am mortal,
The daughter of a shepherd; he was mortal,
And she that bore me mortal; prick my hand
And it will bleed; a fever shakes me, and

[Exit.

The self-same wind that makes the young lambs shrink,

Makes me a-cold: my fear says I am mortal.
Yet I have heard (my mother told it me)
And now I do believe it, if I keep

My virgin flower uncropt, pure, chaste, and fair,
No goblin, wood-god, fairy, elf, or fiend,
Satyr, or other power that haunts the groves,
Shall hurt my body, or by vain illusion

Draw me to wander after idle fires;

Or voices calling me in dead of night

To make me follow, and so tole me on
Through mire and standing pools, to find my ruin.
Else why should this rough thing, who never knew
Manners nor smooth humanity, whose heats
Are rougher than himself and more misshapen,
Thus mildly kneel to me? Sure there's a power
In that great name of virgin that binds fast
All rude uncivil bloods, all appetites
That break their confines. Then, strong Chastity,
Be thou my strongest guard; for here I'll dwell
In opposition against fate and hell!

PERIGOT and AMORET.

draw

(From Act 1. sc. i.)

Peri. I take it as my best good; and desire, For stronger confirmation of our love, To meet this happy night in that fair grove, Where all true shepherds have rewarded been For their long service: say, sweet, shall it hold? Amo. Dear friend, you must not blame me if I make A doubt of what the silent night may do. . . . Maids must be fearful.

Peri. Oh, do not wrong my honest simple truth;
Myself and my affections are as pure

As those chaste flames that burn before the shrine
Of the great Dian: only my intent

To draw you thither was to plight our troths,
With interchange of mutual chaste embraces,
And ceremonious tying of ourselves.
For to that holy wood is consecrate

A virtuous well, about whose flowery banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds
By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying flesh and dull mortality.
By this fair fount hath many a shepherd sworn
And given away his freedom, many a troth
Been plight, which neither Envy nor old Time
Could ever break, with many a chaste kiss given
In hope of coming happiness: by this
Fresh fountain many a blushing maid

Hath crowned the head of her long-loved shepherd
With gaudy flowers, whilst he happy sung
Lays of his love and dear captivity.

(From Act 1. sc. ii.)

The lyrical pieces scattered throughout Beaumont and Fletcher's plays are generally in the graceful style of the Faithful Shepherdess: