[59] Stiefel, _Zeitschr. f. Vergl. Litt._, XII (1898), 248; _Engl.
Stud._, XXXVI; Hatcher, _Anglia_, Feb. 1907; and Macaulay, _C. H. L._, VI, 156.
[60] _French Influence in English Literature_, pp. 300, 308.
[61] Adapted from Cartwright in the _Commendatory Poems_, Folio of _B.
and F._, 1647.
[62] Details in Inderwick, _op. cit._, Vols. I and II, passim.
CHAPTER VII
THE "BANKE-SIDE" AND THE PERIOD OF THE PARTNERSHIP
As we shall presently see, Beaumont during his career in London retained his connection with the Inner Temple, which would be his club; and it may be presumed that up to 1606 or 1607, his residence alternated between the Temple and his brother's home of Grace-Dieu. About 1609, however, he was surely collaborating with his friend, Fletcher, in the composition of plays. And we may conjecture that, in that or the previous year, our Castor and Pollux were established in those historic lodgings in Southwark where, as Aubrey, writing more than half a century later, tells us, they lived in closest intimacy. That gossipy chronicler records the obvious in his "there was a wonderfull consimility of phansey between him [Beaumont] and Mr. Jo. Fletcher, which caused that dearnesse of friendship between them";[63] but when he proceeds "They lived together on the Banke-side, not far from the Play-house, both batchelors; lay together (from Sir James Hales, etc.); had one wench in the house between them, which they did so admire, the same cloaths and cloake, etc., between them," we feel that so far as inferences are concerned the account is to be taken with at least a morsel of reserve.
Aubrey was not born till after both Beaumont and Fletcher were dead; and, as Dyce pertinently remarks, "perhaps Aubrey's informant (Sir James Hales) knowing his ready credulity, purposely overcharged the picture of our poets' domestic establishment." To inquire too closely into gossip were folly; but it is only fair to recall that sixty years after Fletcher's death, popular tradition was content with conferring the "wench," exclusively upon him. Oldwit, in Shadwell's play of _Bury-Fair_ (1689) says: "I myself, simple as I stand here, was a wit in the last age. I was created Ben Jonson's son, in the Apollo. I knew Fletcher, my friend Fletcher, and his maid Joan; well, I shall never forget him: I have supped with him at his house on the Banke-side; he loved a fat loin of pork of all things in the world; and Joan his maid had her beer-glass of sack; and we all kissed her, i' faith, and were as merry as passed."[64] It is hardly necessary, in any case, to surmise with those who sniff up improprieties that the admirable services of the original "wench," whether Joan or another, far exceeded the roasting of pork and the burning of sack for her two "batchelors."
To the years 1609 and 1610 may be assigned with some show of confidence Beaumont and Fletcher's first significant romantic dramas _The Coxcombe_ and _Philaster_. The former was acted by the Children of her Majesty's Revels, I think before July 12, 1610. If at Blackfriars, before January 4, 1610; if at Whitefriars, after January 4. There are grounds for believing that it was the play upon which Fletcher and Beaumont were engaged in the country when Beaumont wrote a letter, justly famous, probably toward the end of 1609, to Ben Jonson; and, since the play was not well received, that it was one of the unsuccessful comedies which as Dryden says preceded _Philaster_. _Philaster_ was acted at the Globe and Blackfriars by the King's Men, for the first time, it would appear, between December 7, 1609 and July 12, 1610. My reasons in detail for thus dating both of these dramas are given later. But a word about the _Letter to Ben Jonson_ may be said here.
[Illustration: THE TEMPLE From Ralph Agas's Map of London, about 1561]
It was first printed at the end of a play called _The Nice Valour_ in the folio of 1647. Owing to a careless acceptance of the rubric prefixed to it by the publishers of that folio, historians have ordinarily dated its composition at too early a period. The poem itself mentions "Sutcliffe's wit," referring to three controversial tracts of the Dean of Exeter, printed in 1606; but Beaumont might jibe at the Dean's expense for years after 1606. The rubic inscribed a generation after the death of both our dramatists, and therefore of but secondary importance, tells us that the _Letter_ was "written, before he [Beaumont] and Master Fletcher came to London, with two of the precedent comedies, then not finish'd, which deferr'd their merry meetings at the Mermaid." We know that the young men had been in London for years before 1606. If the rubric has any meaning whatever, it is merely that the customary convivialities at the Mermaid, as described in the _Letter_, had been interrupted by a visit to the country during which they were finishing two of the comedies which precede _The Nice Valour_ in the folio; and it indicates a date not earlier than 1608, for the writing of the letter, and probably not later than July 1610. For only three of the fifteen plays which appear in the folio before _The Nice Valour_ could have been completed during the career of Beaumont as a dramatist, and none of the three antedates 1608. In two of these Beaumont had no hand: _The Captaine_, which may have been composed as late as 1611, and _Beggars'
Bush_,[65] which shows the collaboration of Massinger, but Fletcher's part of which may have been written in 1608. The only one of the "precedent comedies" in which we may be sure that Beaumont collaborated is _The Coxcombe_. If, as I believe, it was acted first between December 1609 and July 1610[66] it may well have been written in the country during the latter half of 1609, while the plague rate was exceptionally high in London. Both _Beggars' Bush_ and _The Coxcombe_ abound in rural scenes; but the latter especially, in scenes that might have been suggested by Grace-Dieu and its neighborhood.
The rubric prefixed to the _Letter_ by the publishers is of negligible authority. The 'me' and 'us' of the _Letter_ itself do not necessarily designate Fletcher as the companion of Beaumont's rustication: they stand at one time for country-folk; at another for the Mermaid circle, Jonson, Chapman, Fletcher, probably Shakespeare, Drayton, Cotton, Donne, Hugh Holland, Tom Coryate, Richard Martin, Selden (of Beaumont's Inner Temple), and other famous wits and poets; at another for Jonson and Beaumont alone. The date of the poem must be determined from internal evidence. It is written with the careless ease of long-standing intimacy. It is of a genial, jocose, and fairly mature, epistolary style. It betrays the literary assurance of one whose reputation is already established. Beaumont is in temporary banishment from London, for lack of funds--therefore, considerably later than 1606, when he was presumably well off; for in that year he had just come into a quarter of his brother, Sir Henry's, private estate. He longs now for the stimulus of the merry meetings in Bread-street, as one whose wit has been sharpened by them for a long time past:
Methinks the little wit I had is lost Since I saw you; for Wit is like a Rest Held up at Tennis, which men do the best With the best gamesters; ...
up here in Leicestershire "The Countrey Gentlemen begin to allow My wit for dry bobs." "In this warm shine" of our hay-making season, soberly deferring to country knights, listening to hoary family-jests, drinking water mixed with claret-lees, "I lye and dream of your full Mermaid Wine":
What things have we seen Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtill flame, As if that every one from whence they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And had resolv'd to live a foole, the rest Of his dull life. Then, when there hath been thrown Wit able enough to justifie the Town For three daies past,--wit that might warrant be For the whole City to talk foolishly Till that were cancell'd,--and, when that was gone, We left an Aire behind us, which alone Was able to make the two next Companies Right witty; though but downright fooles, more wise.
When he remembers all this, he "needs must cry," but one thought of Ben Jonson cheers him:
Only strong Destiny, which all controuls, I hope hath left a better fate in store For me thy friend, than to live ever poore, Banisht unto this home. Fate once againe Bring me to thee, who canst make smooth and plaine The way of Knowledge for me, and then I, Who have no good but in thy company Protest it will my greatest comfort be To acknowledge all I have to flow from thee.
Ben, when these Scaenes are perfect, we'll taste wine; I'll drink thy Muses health, thou shalt quaff mine.
The _Letter_ was written after Beaumont's Muse had produced something worthy of a toast from Jonson,--the _Woman-Hater_ and the _Knight_, for instance (both marked by wit and by the discipline of Jonson); but not later than the end of 1612, for during most of 1613 Jonson was traveling in France as governor to Sir Walter Raleigh's "knavishly inclined" son; and after February of that year Beaumont wrote so far as I venture to conclude but one drama, _The Scornful Ladie_; and that does not precede this _Letter_ in the folio of 1647; is not printed in that folio at all.
Nor was this _Letter_ of a disciple written later than the great Beaumont-Fletcher plays of 1610-1611, for then Jonson was praising Beaumont for "writing better" than he himself. If there is any truth at all in the rubric to the _Letter_, the "scenes" of which Beaumont speaks as not yet "perfect" were of _The Coxcombe_; and evidence which I shall, in the proper place, adduce convinces me that that was first acted before March 25, 1610, perhaps before January 4. The play would, then, have been written about the end of 1609.
I do not wonder that, as the Prologue in the first folio tells us, it was "condemned by the ignorant multitude," not only because of its length, a fault removed in the editions which we possess, but because the larger part of the play is written by Fletcher, and in his most inartistic, and irrational, licentious vein. Beaumont, though admitted to the partnership, had not yet succeeded in hanging "plummets" on his friend's luxuriance. He contented himself with contributing to a theme of Boccaccian cuckoldry the subplot of how Ricardo, drunk, loses his betrothed, and finds her again and is forgiven,--a little story that contains all the poignancy of sorrow and poppy of romance and poetry of innocence that make the comedy readable and tolerable.
As to the first production of the _Philaster_ a word must be said here, because the event marks the earliest association, concerning which we have any assurance, of the young dramatists with Shakespeare. Until about 1609 they appear to have written for the Paul's Boys, who acted, probably in their singing-school, until 1607; and for the Queen's Revels' Children who, under various managements, had been occupying Richard Burbadge's theatre of Blackfriars since 1597. Their association with the Paul's Boys would of itself have brought them into touch with other Paul's dramatists, Dekker, Webster, Middleton, and Chapman. In their association with the Queen's Revels' Children they had been thrown closely together with Chapman again, with Jonson, and with John Day, all of whom wrote for Blackfriars; and with Marston, who not only wrote plays for the Children but had a financial interest in the company. Some of these dramatists,--Jonson, for instance, and Webster,--had occasionally written for Shakespeare's company during these years; but we have no proof that Beaumont and Fletcher had any connection with the King's Players of Shakespeare's company, as long as the Children's companies continued in their usual course at St. Paul's singing-school and Blackfriars. After 1606, however, the Paul's Boys were on the wane.
Perhaps they are to be indentified with the new Children of the King's Revels, and an occupancy of Whitefriars, in 1607; but that clue soon disappears. And as to the Queen's Revels' Children, we find that in April 1608 they were suppressed for ridiculing royalty upon the stage.[67] Their manager, Henry Evans, to whom with three others Richard Burbadge had let Blackfriars in 1600, now sought to be set free from the contract; and in August 1608, the Burbadges (Richard and Cuthbert), Shakespeare, Heming, Condell, and Slye of the King's Company, took over the lease which still had many years to run.[68] Shakespeare's company had been acting at the Burbadges' theatre of the Globe since 1599,--as the Lord Chamberlain's till 1603; after that, as his Majesty's Servants.
Now Shakespeare's company took charge of Blackfriars, as well; and, under their management, for about a month between December 7, 1609 and January 4, 1610 the Queen's Revels' Children, being reinstated in royal favour, resumed their acting at Blackfriars. On the latter date, the Children as reorganized, opened at Whitefriars under the management of Philip Rossiter and others; and among the first plays presented by them, there, were Jonson's _Epicoene_ and, I believe, Beaumont and Fletcher's _The Coxcombe_.
But, in the process of readjustment at Blackfriars, our young partners in dramatic production must have been drawn into professional relationship with the members of Shakespeare's company and undoubtedly with Shakespeare himself. From the first quarto of _Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding_, published in 1620, we learn that this, the earliest of their great tragicomedies, was acted not by the Queen's Revels'
Children, but by the King's Players, and at the Globe. From the second quarto, of 1622, we learn that it was acted also at Blackfriars: it may indeed have been first presented there. Our earliest record of the play shows that it was in existence before October 8, 1610. _The Scourge of Folly_ by John Davies of Hereford, entered for publication on that date, contains an epigram to "the well deserving Mr. John Fletcher," which runs--
_Love lies a-Bleeding_, if it should not prove Her utmost art to show why it doth love.
Thou being the _Subject_ (now), It raignes upon, Raign'st in _Arte, Judgement, and Invention:_ _For this I love thee; and can doe no lesse_ _For thine as faire, as faithfull_ Sheepheardesse.
Since there is nothing in _Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding_, to indicate a date of composition earlier than 1608, and since this is the first of Beaumont and Fletcher's dramas to be performed by Shakespeare's company, we may be fairly certain that the performance followed the readjustment of affairs between the Globe and Blackfriars in August of that year. Now, there had been regulations for years past of the City authorities and the Privy Council in accordance with which theatre in the City proper and the suburbs of Surrey and Middlesex were closed whenever the number of deaths by plague exceeded a certain limit per week. In and after 1608 this limit was set at forty; and it is probable that, in accordance with a still older regulation, the ban was not lifted until it was evident that the decrease in deaths was more than temporary.[69] That actors sometimes performed at Court while the plague rate was still prohibitive in and about the City, does not by any means justify us in assuming that they were ever allowed at such times to play in theatres thronged by the public.[70] Between August 8, 1608 and October 8, 1610, the only continuous period in which plays might have been presented by Shakespeare's company at the Globe or Blackfriars, without violating the plague law, was from December 7, 1609 to July 12, 1610; and we therefore conclude that it was during those months that Beaumont and Fletcher's _Philaster_ was first acted. The only other abatement of the plague that might have given promise of continuance was between March 2 and 23, 1609; but on March 9 the rate of deaths rose again above forty, and it is not likely that the authorities would have permitted the theatres to resume operations during those three weeks.[71]
[Illustration: THE GLOBE THEATRE, WITH ST. PAUL'S IN THE BACKGROUND From Vischer's long view of London, 1616]
With _Philaster_ Beaumont and Fletcher leaped into the foremost rank as dramatists. I have so much to say of this tragicomedy in my discussion of the authorship of its successive scenes, that but a word may here be said concerning the reasons for its success. Hitherto, practically Shakespeare alone had written for the King's Servants romantic comedies of a serious cast; and they were generally based upon some well-known story. Here was a comedy of serious kind with a romantic and original plot, by authors comparatively new to the general public, written in a style refreshingly unhackneyed, and played in the best theatres and by the best company that London possessed. The Hamlet-like hero seeking his kingdom and his princess--the daughter of the usurper--and, through misunderstandings and misadventures, tragic apprehensions, swiftly succeeding crises, bloodshed, riot, and surprising reversals of fortune, attaining both birth-right and love; the pathetic innocence and nobly futile devotion of his girl-page; the triangular affair of the affections; the humour of the secondary characters; the allurements of spectacle and masque; the atmosphere of the palace, heroic,--of the country, idyllic,--of Mile-end and its roarers of the borough, somewhat burlesque,--the diapason of the poetry from bourdon to flute,--all combined to win immediate and long continuing favour, both of the City and the Court. Beaumont had, here, become to some extent "the sobriety of Fletcher's wit"; he had restrained "his quick free will,"--not, however, so much by pruning what Fletcher wrote as by admitting him to but one-quarter of the composition. Something of the intrigue, the bustle, the spectacle, the easy conversation are Fletcher's; and his, such sexual vulgarity--very little--as stamps a scene or two. The rest is Beaumont's. As in the two great romantic dramas which followed, and in Beaumont's subplot of _The Coxcombe_, the story is of the authors'
own invention. It is not necessary to trace the girl-page and her devotion to the Diana of Montemayor, or to Bandello, or even to Sidney's _Arcadia_. The girl-page was a commonplace of fiction at the time; and the differences in the conduct of this part of the story are greater than the resemblances to any one of those sources. Much more evidently is the devoted Euphrasia-Bellario a younger sister of Shakespeare's Viola. But, in general, external influences bear upon details of character, situation, and device, not upon the construction of the play as a whole.
Toward the end of 1610 or early in 1611, the partner-dramatists gave Shakespeare's company another play,--in many respects their greatest,--_The Maides Tragedy_. Here, again, the novelty of the plot attracted, in a degree heightened even beyond that of _Philaster_. The terrible dilemma of the duped husband between allegiance to the King who has wronged him and assertion of his marital honour, the astounding effrontery of his adulterous wife, her gradual acquirement of a soul and her attempted expiation of lust by murder, the mingled nobility and unreason of her brother and her husband, and the pathetic devotion and self-provoked death of the hero's deserted sweetheart, will be sufficiently discussed elsewhere. This was the highly seasoned fare that the Jacobean public desiderated, served in courses, if not more novel, at any rate of more startling variety than even Shakespeare had offered--whose devices, restrained within limit, these young dramatists were exaggerating to the _n_-th degree. As four-fifths of the composition of this tragedy was Beaumont's, so, too, we may be sure, four-fifths of the conception and invention of the plot.[72] I have remarked, incidentally, that none of the great Beaumont-Fletcher plots is borrowed. Nearly every play, on the other hand, which Fletcher contrived alone, or in company with others than Beaumont, borrows its plot, major and minor, from some well known source, classical, historical, French, Spanish, or Italian. Mr. G. C. Macaulay states the bare truth, when he says that "in constructive faculty, at least, Beaumont was markedly superior to his colleague." Here there are traces, indeed, of external suggestion: something of Aspatia's career in relation to Amintor, who has deserted her, may be an echo of Parthenia's in the _Arcadia_; and the quarrel of Melantius and Amintor reminds one of that between Brutus and Cassius in _Julius Caesar_; but the plot has no definite source.
The characterization and the poetry, "the strength and sweetness, and high choice of brain" are Beaumont's; so, too, the marvelous subtlety of dramatic device. Save in that one-fifth to which Fletcher was admitted.
There Fletcher, in beauty and in tragic power, is giving us the best that he has so far produced: over-histrionic, to be sure, but of victorious excellence. And that one-fifth, for the first and almost only time in Fletcher's career as a dramatist is "untainted by obscenity."
In an anecdote preserved by Fuller, who was seventeen years of age when Fletcher died, we may fancy that we catch a glimpse of our bachelors at work upon this very play. The dramatists "meeting once in a Tavern to contrive the rude draught of a Tragedy, Fletcher undertook to _Kill the King_ therein; whose words being overheard by a listener (though his Loyalty not to be blamed herein) he was accused of high Treason, till the mistake soon appearing, that the plot was only against a Drammatick and Scenical King, all wound off in merriment."[73] History and fable have fastened similar stories upon famous men; but if this one is authentic it undoubtedly refers to the writing of _The Maides Tragedy_, for, as we shall see, the killing of its King was one of the few scenes contributed by Fletcher. And the story adds colour to the ridicule which Beaumont in 1607 had heaped upon the intelligencer that lives in ale-houses and taverns; ... "and brings informations picked out of broken words in men's common talk."
The connection thus formed with Shakespeare's company was continued by Beaumont, at any rate, until 1612, and by Fletcher as long as he lived.
Before the end of 1611 the King's Players had presented to the public the last of this trio of dramatic masterpieces, _A King and No King_. In terrible fascination, this story of a man and woman struggling against love because they think they are brother and sister is as powerful as _The Maides Tragedy_. In poetry and in characterization, as well as in humour, it is grander than _Philaster_. But in beauty and pathos its subject did not permit it to equal either; and in denouement, tragicomic and perforce somewhat strained, it is surpassed by the _Tragedy_. Of its defects as well as merits, I have so much to say later, that I must refrain now. The plot is as striking an example of constructive invention as those that had preceded. Some of the names are to be found in Xenophon's _Cyropaedeia_ (Books III-VI) and in Herodotus (Book VII); and hints for situation and characterization may have been derived from these sources, and the passion of Arbaces for his supposed sister from Fauchet's account of Thierry of France,--but such indebtedness is naught.[74] Three-quarters of the play is Beaumont's; and that large portion includes the majestic passion and conflict, the tragic irony and suspense, of _A King and No King_; in fact,--the whole serious plot, and part of the humorous by-play. Fletcher's slight contribution is principally of complementary scenes and low comedy. In these the curb upon his fanciful rhetoric and hilarious wit has been somewhat relaxed.
In the character of the roaring Bessus, Beaumont himself gives rein with the _elan_ of the comic artist; for the Bessus of Beaumont's scenes would have gone on a strike if he had not been suffered to "talk bawdy"
between brags. Beaumont for all his sobriety and clean mirth was not a prude; and he wasn't writing the psalms of Robert Wisdom.
This play was as popular as those that had preceded. The King's Players acted it at Court in December of the year in which it had been first performed. And between October 1612 and March 1613, assisting in the festivities for the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with the Elector Palatine, they presented before royalty all three of the great Beaumont-Fletcher plays. These were numbers in a series of thirteen that included, as well, the _Much Ado_, _Tempest_, _Winter's Tale_, _Merry Wives_, _Othello_, and _Julius Caesar_ of Shakespeare. They also presented about the same time, in a series of six acted before the King (including _I Henry IV_, _Much Ado_, and _The Alchemist_), one of Fletcher's comedies of manners and intrigue, _The Captaine_, and a play utterly lost, called _Cardenna_, in which it is supposed that Fletcher collaborated with the Master himself.
That our dramatists, however, after their association was formed with Shakespeare and his company, by no means severed their connection with the company for which they had written in their younger days, the Children of the Queen's Revels, appears from the fact that during the same festivities a tragedy written by them about 1611, _Cupid's Revenge_, was played by the Children three times, and their romantic comedy, _The Coxcombe_ twice; and that, in 1615 or the beginning of 1616, the Children presented at the new Blackfriars what was, probably, the last product of the Beaumont-Fletcher partnership, _The Scornful Ladie_.
Neither _Cupid's Revenge_ nor _The Scornful Ladie_ (though the latter, at least, was very popular and had a long life upon the stage) is a drama of high distinction. The former is a blend of two stories from Sidney's _Arcadia_,--the story of the vengeance of Cupid upon the princess Erona (Hidaspes in the play) who caused to be destroyed the images and pictures of Cupid, and was consequently doomed to an infatuation for a base-born man,--and the painful career of Plangus (Leucippus in the play) who, having an intrigue "with a private man's wife" (the monstrous Bacha of the play) gave her up to his father, swearing to her virtue, only to find that she should attempt to renew her _liaison_ with him and, failing, scheme his downfall. The dramatists made considerable alteration, and added to the sources. But though the main plot--that of Leucippus and Bacha--offered magnificent possibilities, they fail of realization. Beaumont wrote about one-half of the play, and it is in his scenes that whatever there is of moral struggle and sublimity, of pathetic irony and of poetry, appears.
_The Scornful Ladie_, which I assign to this late date partly because of an allusion to the negotiations for a Spanish marriage, 1614-1616, is principally of Fletcher's composition. It is of the type of his earlier and later comedies of intrigue. Like most of them it is extremely well contrived for presentation upon the stage and it was, as I have said, most successful. The merit of the play lies, not in any element of poetry or vital romance, but in humorous and realistic characterization, easy dialogue, and clever device. The dramatists deserve all credit for the ingenious invention, for here again there is no known source.
Beaumont's contribution, about one-third, is distinguished by the observation and the _vis comica_ already displayed in the _Woman-Hater_ and the _Knight of the Burning Pestle_ and _King and No King_. But he is not dominating the details. When they wrote a comedy of intrigue, Fletcher sat at the head of the table. It is possible, however, that some of the "rules and standard wit" which Francis was so soon to leave to his friend "in legacy" were here applied; for the play is less exuberantly reckless in tone than several which Fletcher wrote alone.
The three masterpieces of romantic drama, Beaumont controlled in composition, and revised. Of this play he did not finish the revision.
It was written about 1614 or 1615, after he had settled in the country with his wife, and not long before his death.[75]
FOOTNOTES:
[63] Aubrey's _Brief Lives_, Ed. Clark, I, 94-95.
[64] Dyce, _B. and F._, I, XXVI, _n_.
[65] Based upon Dekker's _Bellman of London_, 1608. Acted at Court, 1622.
[66] See Chapter XXV, below.
[67] Despatch of the French Ambassador in London, April 5, 1608, quoted by Collier, _Hist. Eng. Dram. Poetry_, I, 352.
[68] Answer of Heming and Burbadge to Kirkham's complaint, 1612, _Greenstreet Papers_ in Fleay, _Hist. Stage_, p. 235.