mont's father was a Judge of the Common Pleas; Fletcher was the son of Dr. Richard Fletcher, Bishop of London. The eagerness of the period for theatrical amusements threw in a dramatic direction a considerable quantity of the talent reared in Oxford and Cambridge (Gifford). The custom of copartnery in the production of pieces was frequent, but Beaumont and Fletcher carried it to an unexampled extent. Their united works amount to about fifty dramas. The share of each in their joint productions cannot be ascertained; but Fletcher, who survived Beaumont ten years, bears by far the greater portion of their voluminous labours. Their dramas are prized for elegance of language, sprightliness of wit, and luxuriance of poetical ornament; but censured for the loose conduct of their plots, the frequent repulsiveness of their subjects, and their immoral tendency. 66 They are not safe teachers of morality," says Hazlitt; "they tamper with it like an experiment in corpore vili. The tone of Shakespeare's writings is manly and bracing; theirs is at once insipid and meretricious in the comparison. The dramatic paradoxes of Beaumont and Fletcher are to all appearance tinctured with an infusion of personal vanity and laxity of principle. I do not say that this was the character of the men, but it strikes me as the character of their minds. The two things are very distinct. (They) were the first who laid the foundation of the artificial diction and tinsel pomp of the next generation of poets." But in counterpoise to this censure he writes; "They are lyrical and descriptive poets of the highest order; every page of their writings is a florilegium. There is hardly a passion which they have not touched in their devious range, and whatever they touched, they adorned with some new grace or striking feature; they are masters of style and versification, in almost every variety of which they are capable; in comic wit and spirit they are scarcely surpassed by any writers of any age.' Their plays were popular in the age of Charles II. They share with Ben Jonson the honour of the second rank in English dramatic literature, but Shakespeare was their model.

*

*

FROM "THE FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS,"
by Fletcher.

PERIGOT TO AMORET.

Act I. Scene 2.

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 hither was to plight our troths,
With interchange of mutual chaste embraces,
And ceremonious tying of our souls.

For to that holy wood is consecrate

A virtuous well,1 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
1 The fairies were supposed to be attached to wells and brooks.

FROM THE FALSE ONE.

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.
By this fresh fountain, many a blushing maid
Hath crown'd the head of her long-loved shepherd
With gaudy flowers, whilst he happy sung
Lays of his love and dear captivity.

CHLOE TO THENOT.

Act 1. Scene 3.

Whither goest thou?

159

Here be woods as green
As any, air likewise as fresh and sweet
As where smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet
Face of the curléd streams, with flowers as many
As the young spring gives, and as choice as any.
Here be all new delights; cool streams and wells;
Arbours o'ergrown with woodbines; caves and dells;
Choose where thou wilt, while I sit by and sing,
Or gather rushes to make many a ring

For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love;
How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove,

First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes
She took eternal fire that never dies;

How she conveyed him softly in a sleep,
His temples bound with poppy, to the steep

Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night,
Gilding the mountain with her brother's light,
To kiss her sweetest.

FROM "THE FALSE ONE."

CÆSAR'S LAMENTATION OVER POMPEY'S HEAD.
Act II. Scene I.

Oh thou Conqueror,

Thou glory of the world once, now the pity;

Thou awe of nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus?
What poor fate follow'd thee and pluck'd thee on
To trust thy sacred life to an Egyptian?

1 The fable of the loves of Endymion and Diana in the Carian Mount Latmos has always been a favourite with the poets. Cic. Tusc. Quest. i. 38. See Keats's Endymion-Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Act V. Sc. 1.

2 Apollo.

The moon sleeps with Endymion,
And would not be awaked."

3 Pompey having fled to Egypt after his defeat at Pharsalia, was murdered on the shore by the ministers of Ptolemy Dionysius, then a minor.

The life and light of Rome to a blind stranger
That honourable war ne'er taught a nobleness,1
Nor worthy circumstance show'd what a man was?
That never heard thy name sung but in banquets
And loose lascivious pleasures?—to a boy
That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness,
No study of thy life to know thy goodness?-
And leave thy nation, nay, thy noble friend,
Leave him distrusted, that in tears falls with thee-
In soft relenting tears? Hear me, great Pompey,
If thy great spirit can hear, I must task thee,
Thou hast most unnobly robb'd me of my victory,

My love and mercy.
*

Egyptians, dare ye think your highest pyramids,
Built to outdure the sun, as you suppose,

Where your unworthy kings lie raked in ashes,
Are monuments fit for him? No, brood of Nilus,
Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven;
No pyramids set off his memories,

But the eternal substance of his greatness,
To which I leave him."

FROM "THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN."

ARCITA TO PALAMON IN PRISON.
Act II. Scene 1.

Let's think this prison a holy sanctuary
To keep us from corruption of worse men.
We're 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're 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

May take this from us; here, with a little patience,

We shall live long and loving; no surfeits seek us;

1 Fletcher's verse is very frequently marked by double and triple terminations.

2 On this passage Hazlitt remarks, "It is something worth living for to write or even read such poetry as this."

3 This drama is founded on Chaucer's Knight's Tale. The first act has been attsibuted to Shakespeare.

• Compare Shakespeare, Rich. II. Act I. Sc. 3. "All places," etc.

FROM NICE VALOUR.

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

Crave1 our 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.

FROM "NICE VALOUR."

MELANCHOLY.

Hence all you vain delights.
As short as are the nights

Wherein you spend your folly!
There's nought in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see't,
But only melancholy!

Welcome folded arms, and fixed eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,

A look that's fasten'd to the ground,
A tongue chain'd up, without a sound!

Fountain heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale Passion loves!
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls!
A midnight bell, a parting groan!—
These are the sounds we feed upon;

161

Then stretch our bones in a still, gloomy valley;
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy!

JOHN FORD.
(1586-1639.)

FORD is one of the most respectable of the second-class dramatic poets of the reigns of James and Charles I. He was of good birth; he devoted himself to the study of law, but does not appear to have practised at the bar. He was a man of a quiet and contemplative disposition. His tragic lyre does not sound the heart-stirring tones of some of his contemporaries; and he disfigures his plays by the interjection of attempts at comic underplots, for which his genius was totally unfitted. He is,

1 Theobald proposes craze; Sympson, carve; Seward, reave; and Mason, cleave. The old text is not, however, inexplicable. Arcita may say-The envious disposition of ill men may crave their acquaintance in order to sow dissensions between them.Weber.

however, elegant and harmonious, and powerful in the delineation of the passion of love. He wrote eleven plays; and shared the authorship of

several more with Dekker and others.

FROM "THE LOVER'S MELANCHOLY.

THE RIVAL MUSICIANS.

Act I. Scene 1.

Menaphon, Amethus.

Men. Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales
Which poets of an elder time have feign'd
To glorify their Tempe, bred in me

Desire of visiting that paradise.

To Thessaly I came, and living private,

"

Without acquaintance of more sweet companions
Than the old inmates of my love, my thoughts,
I day by day frequented silent groves
And solitary walks. One morning early
This accident encountered me: I heard
The sweetest and most ravishing contention
That art and nature ever were at strife in.

Amet. I cannot yet conceive what you infer
By art and nature.

Men. I shall soon resolve you.

A sound of music touched mine ears, or rather,
Indeed, entranced my soul: As I stole nearer,
Invited by the melody, I saw

This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute,
With strains of strange variety and harmony,
Proclaiming, as it seem'd, so bold a challenge,
To the clear choristers of the woods, the birds,
That, as they flock'd about him, all stood silent,
Wondering at what they heard. I wonder'd too.
Amet. And so do I; good! on-

Men. A nightingale,

Nature's best skill'd musician, undertakes

The challenge; and, for every several strain

The well-shaped youth could touch, she sung her own

He could not run division' with more art

Upon his quaking instrument, than she,
The nightingale, did with her various notes
Reply to: for a voice, and for a sound,
Amethus, 'tis much easier to believe

That such they were than hope to hear again.
Amet. How did the rivals part?
Men. You term them rightly;

1 The dividing of a tone into small notes:

"In your sweet dividing throat."-Carew. See p. 167.