Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 3, Athens-BOI

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER
and the plays which, we owe solely to Fletcher. To others
this line has always appeared in almost every case unmis¬
takable. Were it as hard and broad as the line which
marks off, for example, Shakespeare’s part from Fletcher’s
in The Two Noble Kinsmen, the harmony would of course
be lost which now informs every work of their common
genius, and each play of their writing would be such another
piece of magnificent patchwork as that last gigantic heir of
Shakespeare’s invention, the posthumous birth of his part¬
ing Muse which was suckled at the breast of Fletcher’s as
a child of godlike blood might be reared on the milk of
a mortal mother—or in this case, we might sometimes be
tempted to say, of a she-goat who left in the veins of the
heaven-born suckling somewhat too much of his nurse
Amalthsea. That question however belongs in any case
more properly to the study of Shakespeare than to the
present subject in hand. It may suffice here to observe
that the contributions of Fletcher to the majestic temple
of tragedy left incomplete by Shakespeare show the lesser
workman almost equally at his best and at his worst, at his
weakest and at his strongest. In the plays which we know
by evidence surer than the most trustworthy tradition
to be the common work of Beaumont and Fletcher, there
is indeed no trace of such incongruous and incompatible
admixture as leaves the greatest example of romantic
tragedy—for Cymbeline and the Winter's Tale, though not
guiltless of blood, are in their issues no more tragic than
Pericles or the Tempest—an unique instance of glorious
imperfection, a hybrid of heavenly and other than heavenly
breed, disproportioned and divine. But throughout these
noblest of the works inscribed generally with the names of
both dramatists we trace on every other page the touch of
a surer hand, we hear at every other turn the note of a
deeper voice, than we can ever recognize in the work of
Fletcher alone. Although the beloved friend of Jonson,
and in the field of comedy his loving and studious disciple,
yet in that tragic field where his freshest bays were gathered
Beaumont was the worthiest and the closest follower of
Shakespeare. In the external but essential matter of ex¬
pression by rhythm and metre he approves himself always
a student of Shakespeare’s second manner, of the style in
which the graver or tragic part of his historical or romantic
plays is mostly written ; doubtless, the most perfect model
that can be studied by any poet who, like Beaumont, is
great enough to be in no danger of sinking to the rank of
a mere copyist, but while studious of the perfection set
before him is yet conscious of his own personal and proper
quality of genius, and enters the presence of the master not
as a servant but as a son. The general style of his tragic
or romantic verse is as simple and severe in its purity of
note and regularity of outline as that of Fletcher’s is by
comparison lax, effusive, exuberant. The matchless fluency
and rapidity with which the elder brother pours forth the
stream of his smooth swift verse gave probably the first
occasion for that foolish rumour which has not yet fallen
duly silent, but still murmurs here and there its suggestion
that the main office of Beaumont was to correct and contain
within bounds the over-flowing invention of his colleague.
The poet who while yet a youth had earned by his unaided
mastery of hand such a crown as was bestowed by the
noble love and the loving “ envy ” of Ben Jonson was,
according to this tradition, a mere precocious pedagogue,
fit only to revise and restrain the too liberal effusions of
his elder in genius as in years. Now, in every one of the
plays common to both, the real difficulty for a critic is not
to trace the hand of Beaumont, but to detect the touch of
Fletcher. Throughout the better part of every such play,
and above all of their two masterpieces, Philaster and The
Maid's Tragedy, it should be clear to the most sluggish or
cursory of readers that he has not to do with the author of
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Valentinian and The Double Marriage. In those admirable
tragedies the style is looser, more fluid, more feminine.
From the first scene to the last we are swept as it were
along the race of a running river, always at full flow of
light and buoyant melody, with no dark reaches or perilous
eddies, no stagnant pools or sterile sandbanks; its bright
course only varied by sudden rapids or a stronger ripple
here and there, but in rough places or smooth still stirred
and sparkling with summer wind and sun. But in those
tragic poems of which the dominant note is the note of
Beaumont’s genius a subtler chord of thought is sounded,
a deeper key of emotion is touched, than ever was struck
by Fletcher. The lighter genius is palpably subordinate
to the stronger, and loyally submits itself to the impression
of a loftier spirit. It is true that this distinction is never
grave enough to produce a discord : it is also true that the
plays in which the predominance of Beaumont’s mind and
style is generally perceptible make up altogether but a
small section of the work that bears their names conjointly ;
but it is no less true that within this section the most
precious part of that work is comprised. Outside it we
shall find no figures so firmly drawn, no such clearness of
outline, no such cunning of hands as we recognize in the
three great studies of Bellario, Evadne, and Aspatia. In
his male characters, as for instance in the parts of Philaster
and Arbaces, Beaumont also is apt to show something of
that exaggeration or inconsistency for which his colleague
is perhaps more frequently and more heavily to blame;
but in these there is not a jarring note, not a touch
misplaced; unless, indeed, a rigid criticism may condemn
as unfeminine and incongruous with the gentle beauty of
her pathetic patience the device by which Aspatia procures
herself the death desired at the hand of Amintor. This is
noted as a fault by Mr Dyce; but may well be forgiven for
the sake of the magnificent scene which follows, and the
highest tragic effect ever attained on the stage of either
poet. That this as well as the greater part of those other
scenes which are the glory of the poem is due to Beau¬
mont might readily be shown at length by the process of
comparison. The noble scene of regicide, which it was
found expedient to cancel during the earlier years of the
Restoration, may indeed be the work of Fletcher; but the
part of Evadne must undoubtedly be in the main assigned
to the more potent hand of his fellow. There is a fine
harmony of character between her naked audacity in the
second act and her fierce repentance in the fourth, which is
not unworthy a disciple of the tragic school of Shakespeare ;
Fletcher is less observant of the due balance, less heedful
of the nice proportions of good and evil in a faulty and
fiery nature, compounded of perverse instinct and passionate
reaction. From him we might have had a figure as
admirable for vigour of handling, but hardly in such
perfect keeping as this of Beaumont’s Evadne, the mur-
deress-Magdalen, whose penitence is of one crimson colour
with her sin. Nor even in Fletcher’s Ordella, worthy as
the part is throughout even of the precious and exquisite
praise of Lamb, is there any such cunning touch of
tenderness or delicate perfume of pathos as in the parts of
Bellario and Aspatia. These have in them a bitter sweet¬
ness, a subtle pungency of mortal sorrow and tears of
divine delight, beyond the reach of Fletcher. His highest
studies of female character have dignity, energy, devotion
of the heroic type; but they never touch us to the quick,
never waken in us any finer and more profound sense than
that of applause and admiration. There is a modest pathos
now and then in his pictures of feminine submission and
slighted or outraged love; but this submission he is apt to
make too servile, this love too dog-like in its abject
devotion to retain that tender reverence which so many
generations of readers have paid to the sweet memories of