but I have not thought it necessary to crowd the pages by noticing every trifling variation which the quartos and the folios exhibit. Two of the plays,-The Honest Man's Fortune and The Humorous Lieutenant,—have been greatly amended by means of MSS.

As to the memoir of the authors,-while I have endeavoured to state, with more precision than has hitherto been aimed at, the particulars already known concerning themselves and their writings, I have had the good fortune to discover, among some other new facts of less importance, the date and place of Fletcher's birth. With the biographical details I have mingled such observations as were suggested to me by repeated perusals of the poets' works.

To George Craufurd Heath, Esq., I owe my best acknowledgments for the unsolicited loan of a manuscript commentary on Beaumont and Fletcher, written, soon after the appearance of ed. 1750, by Benjamin Heath, whose Note on the Greek tragedians, and Revisal of Shakespeare's Text, are familiar to many readers. From that commentary (in which Heath has anticipated not a few of the corrections made by the Editors of 1778 and by Monck Mason) I have derived, as will be seen, considerable benefit.

To the following gentlemen I beg leave to return my thanks for assistance of various kinds received during the progress of these volumes through the press;-the Rev. John Mitford; the Rev. Henry Cooper, Vicar of Rye; W. Courthope, Esq.; W. H. Black, Esq.; J. P. Collier, Esq.; and Peter Cunningham, Esq.

A. D.

SOME ACCOUNT

OF

THE LIVES AND WRITINGS OF BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

DURING the reigns of Elizabeth and James, while distinguished statesmen, warriors, and divines occasionally received the honours of biography soon after their decease, it was not the fashion to gratify the curiosity of readers with the private history of individuals who had attained celebrity by literature alone. When even the most illustrious poets went down to the grave, their relatives and friends paid them perhaps the tribute of some elegiac verses, but left the particulars of their lives unrecorded, except in the inscriptions which they placed upon their tombs a. We learn, indeed, that Heywood long meditated ̄a extensive work, which would have conveyed to posterity much valuable information concerning the men of genius who had been his contemporaries, and most of them, very probably, his intimate associates— "the Lives of all the Poets, foreign and modern, from the first before Homer to the novissimi and last "b: but, though he continued to write

a

an

A little tract which appeared in 1577, Whetstone's metrical Life of Gascoigne, is (to say nothing of the meagreness of its details) unique in its kind.

b That Heywood was engaged on this work as early as 1614, we know from a piece by Brathwait published during that year. Heywood thus notices his design in The Hierarchie of the blessed Angells, &c., 1635: "But I had almost forgot myself; for in proceeding further, I might haue forestalled a Worke, which hereafter (I hope) by Gods assistance to commit to the publick view, namely, the Liues of all the Poets, Forreine and Moderne, from the First before Homer, to the Novissimi and last, of what Nation or Language soeuer; so farre as any Historie or Chronologie will giue me warrant." p. 245.—Malone (Life of Shakespeare, p. 6, ed. Boswell), and others, have mentioned that Browne, the author of Britannia's Pastorals, &c., intended to write "the Lives of the English Poets" but his work (if he ever signified an intention of composing it, which seems very doubtful) would have comprised only the poets of his native county. Let us hear what Carpenter

at a very advanced age, he never accomplished the design; and his manuscript collections have unfortunately perished. The Theatrum Poetarum of Phillips, 1675, added something to criticism, but very little to biography: Langbaine's Account of English Dramatic Poets, 1691, treats much less of the authors than of their plays: and it was not to be expected that Wood, with all his own research and the assistance of Aubrey, should recover more than a few comparatively unimportant facts relating to those earlier poets whom the plan of his Athence embraced.-Hence the lamentable dearth of materials for such memoirs as the present, which, in spite of antiquarian diligence, are generally mere catalogues of the writers' works, with some incidental notices derived from the pages of their contemporaries.

In an Address to the Reader, prefixed to the folio of Beaumont and Fletcher's Plays, 1647, Shirley observes; "It is not so remote in time, but very many gentlemen may remember these authors; and some, familiar in their conversation, deliver them upon every pleasant occasion so fluent, to talk a comedy. He must be a bold man that dares undertake to write their lives d" ; and the passage has been understood as if Shirley, either from modesty or from some less worthy feeling, had declined the office of their biographer. I apprehend, however, (for the whole Address is rather affected and rhetorical,) that the words "He must be a bold man that dares undertake to write their lives ", were introduced solely for the sake of impressing the reader with the most exalted notions of the genius and talent which, even in the common intercourse of society, distinguished the dramatic pair; nor do I believe that Shirley had ever been expected, much less solicited, to undertake the task which, with all possible disadvantages, I must attempt to execute. But, first, it may be well to dispose of a question which has been frequently asked, viz., why that collection of dramas, in which Beaumont

says on this subject: "Many inferiour faculties are yet left, wherein our Dæuon hath displaied her abilities, as well as in the former, as in Philosophers, Historians, Oratours, and Poets, the blazoning of whom to the life, especially the last, I had rather leaue to my worthy friend Mr. W. Browne; who, as hee hath already honoured his countrie [sic] in his elegant and sweete Pastoralls, so questionles will easily bee intreated a litle farther to grace it, by drawing out the line of his Poeticke Auncesters, beginning in Josephus Iscanus, and ending in himselfe." Geographie, p. 263. ed. 1635.

c Winstanley's Lives of the most Famous English Poets, 1687, is a very worthless compilation.

d Vol. i. v.—The expression, "some familiar in their conversation," would seem to prove that Shirley had not been personally acquainted with Beaumont and Fletcher.—We find a similar character given of Fletcher's conversational powers in the Prologue to a revival of The Chances and in R. Brome's verses To his Memory, both which will be cited afterwards.

had a comparatively small share, should be called "Beaumont and Fletcher's instead of "Fletcher and Beaumont's " ?-None of Beaumont's dramatic pieces, with the exception of The Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn (1612), were given to the press till after his decease. Three plays only, The Scornful Lady (1616), A King and No King (1619), and Philaster (1620), were printed during Fletcher's lifetime as the joint-productions of himself and Beaumont; and the titlepages of those three dramas set forth that they were written by "Beaumont and Fletcher",-the name of Beaumont standing first, either because he was known to have composed the larger portion of them, or because that precedence was considered as a mark of respect due to a deceased writerf. At a later date no one was willing to disturb an arrangement which had become familiar to the reader; and hence, on the title-pages of the subsequently-published quartos and of the two folio collections, the name of Beaumont retained its usual place.

I shall now proceed with separate biographical accounts of the two poets, till the period of their dramatic union, and shall commence with that of Fletcher, who was born several years earlier than Beaumont.

Richard Fletcher, the father of our poet, is generally said to have been a native of Kent ;-in which county his father, who was also named Richard, held at different times two benefices 1. In 1563 the younger Richard Fletcher was a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, having probably been admitted there during the preceding year. In

e As early as 1612, Webster, in the Preface to his White Devil, mentions "the no less worthy composures of the both worthily excellent Master Beaumont and Master Fletcher".

f In the publication of A King and No King and of Philaster, Fletcher was certainly not concerned; nor, most probably, in that of The Scornful Lady. Indeed, it would seem that the only piece which he himself gave to the press was The Faithful Shepherdess.

8 “Richard Fletcher was born in this County," &c. Fuller's Worthies (Kent), p. 72, ed. 1662, where there is a marginal note, " So his near relation informed me." -"Richard Fletcher D.D. is generally said to have been a native of Kent, and as such is placed by Fuller among the Worthies of that County, where that name has been very common; otherwise, from his having been one of the first Fellows here upon Abp. Parker's Foundation, I should rather have imagined he must have been either of Norwich or Norfolk, those Fellowships being solely appropriated thereto." Masters's Hist. of Corpus Christi Coll., &c., p. 284, ed. 1753 (a work to which I have considerable obligations).

h Richard Fletcher, the elder, was appointed vicar of Bishop's Stortford in Hertfordshire, 19th June, 1551 (Clutterbuck's Hist. of Hertf. iii. 254 : “12 Junii 1551," according to an extract by Kennet from Reg. Bonner, in a note on Wood's Fasti Oxon., Part First, p. 190, ed. Bliss; but see Kennet's Coll., MS. Lansd. 982, fol. 241, where the date is "19 Junii "); and deprived before 23d Febr., 1555 (see the same authorities, ibid). In 1555 he was vicar of Cranbrooke in Kent (Hasted's

1569 he took the degree of A.M., and was elected Fellow of Bene't College; and on the 15th of July, 1572, he was incorporated A.M. of Oxford. On the 30th of September following he was instituted to the prebend of Isledon (Islington) in the Church of St. Paul, London, which he held together with his fellowship. In 1573 he was chosen President of Bene't College; but he left Cambridge soon after, carrying with him testimonials of his learning and good conduct, and of the credit with which he had acquitted himself in the college, in the Public Schools, and in the pulpit. In 1574 we find him officiating as minister of Rye in Sussex; where he was still resident in December 1579, and where several of his children were born. In 1581 he proceeded D.D. and became chaplain to the queen; and in 1583 the deanery of Peterborough was conferred upon him by her majesty. In 1585 he received the prebend of Long Sutton in the Church of Lincoln; he was also parson of Alderkirk (Algarkirk) in the same diocese; and in 1586 he was presented by Sir Thomas Cecil to the church of Barnack in Northamptonshire. As Dean of Peterborough, he attended Mary Queen of Scots during the fatal scene at Fotheringay, on the 8th of February, 1586-7, and rendered himself conspicuous by the zeal with which he urged that unfortunate princess to renounce the faith of Rome.

On the 14th of December, 1589, Richard Fletcher was consecrated Bishop of Bristol; and, if report may be credited, he obtained that promotion on condition of leasing out the lands to certain greedy courtiers, by which the bishopric was not a little impoverished. On the 5th of February, 1590-1,

Hist. of Kent, iii. 55): “The martyrdom of Christopher Wade in Kent, in July 1555 [is] related by Mr. Fox upon this authority; 'Spectatores præsentes, Richardus Fletcher pater, nunc minister ecclesiæ Cranbrook, Richardus Fletcher filius, minister ecclesiæ Riensis.' Act. Mon. vol. 3. p. 382 [ed. 1641]", quotation from Kennet's papers, note on Wood's Fasti Oxon., ubi supra. He was inducted rector of Smarden in the same county, 19th July, 1566 (Hasted's Hist. of Kent, iii. 237 : Kennet from MS. Batley (ubi supra) gives, "Mr. Ric. Fletcher vicarius de Cranbrook et rector de Smarden ex patronatu Archiepi. 1569").

Masters (Hist. of Corpus

i Wood's Fasti Oxon., Part First, p. 190, ed. Bliss. Christi Coll., &c., p. 285, ed. 1753) says "on the 15th of June."

"Upon Mr. Norgate's promotion to the Mastership." Masters, ubi supra. Norgate succeeded to the Mastership “ 22 Aug. 1573.” Id. p. 113.

66

k On the margin of the Rye-Registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths, the words "Ric. Fletcher, Minister" are inserted, under the year 1574: and see the extracts from the Rye-Register of baptisms in a later part of this memoir.

1 "Consecratus est in Episcopum Bristoliensem (superstite adhuc Bullinghamo) decimo quarto Decembris 1589 [Registr. Whitg. f. 62], cum sedes (nisi quatenus a Commendatariis administrata est) vacasset annos 32." Godwin De Præsul. Angliæ, ii. 144, ed. Richardson, 1743.-" I remembred before how Ely had been long vacant, almost 20 years, and Bristol and Oxenford, though both new erected Bishopricks (saved as it were out of the ruines and ashes of the Abbies), were thought in some