Pal. No tumour of an iron vein. The causes shall not come again. Cho. But, as of old, all now be gold. Move, move then to the sounds; And do not only walk your solemn rounds, [The first Dance.] Pal. Already do not all things smile? Ast. But when they have enjoy'd awhile Age. That every thought a seed doth bring, Pal. The earth unplough'd shall yield her crop, Pure honey from the oak shall drop, The fountain shall run milk: The thistle shall the lily bear, Cho. The very shrub shall balsam sweet, [Here the main Dance. After which,] Pal. But here's not all: you must do more, Or else you do but half restore, The Age's liberty. Poe. The male and female us'd to join, That pure simplicity. Then Feature did to Form advance, And every Grace was by: It was a time of no distrust, So much of love had nought of lust; The language melted in the ear, They liv'd with open vow. Cho. Each touch and kiss was so well plac'd, They were as sweet as they were chaste, [Here they dance with the ladies.] Ast. What change is here? I had not more Desire to leave the earth before, Than I have now to stay; My silver feet, like roots, are wreath'd Of all there seems a second birth; And Jove is present here. This, this, and only such as this, Where she would pray to live; [Here they dance the Galliards and Corantos. Pallas ascending, and 'Tis now enough; behold you here, What Jove hath built to be your sphere, You hither must retire. And as his bounty gives you cause, Like lights about Astræa's throne, That by your union she may grow, Who vows, against or heat or cold, To write your names in some new flower, Cho. To Jove, to Jove, be all the honours given. That thankful hearts can raise from earth to heaven. Beaumont and Fletcher, in the order of our dramatic investigations, next require our attention. The literary partnerships of the drama which we have had occasion, in the course of our remarks, to notice, were generally brief and incidental, being confined to a few scenes, or a single play. In Beaumont and Fletcher, however, we have the interesting spectacle of two young men of exalted genius, of good birth and connections, living together for ten years, and writing in union a series of dramas, passionate, romantic, and comic, thus blending together their genius and their fame in indissoluble connection. Shakspeare was, beyond a doubt, the inspirer of these kindred spirits. They appeared when his genius was in its meridian splendor, and they were completely subdued by its overpowering influence. They reflected its leading characteristics, not as slavish copyists, but as men of high powers and attainments, proud of borrowing inspiration from a source which they could so well appreciate, and which was at once ennobling and inexhaustible. FRANCIS BEAUMONT was descended from the ancient family of Beaumont of Grace-Dieu, in Leicestershire, and was born in 1586. His grandfather, John Beaumont, was master of the rolls, and his father, Francis, one of the judges of the common pleas. Having completed his collegiate studies at Cambridge, young Beaumont entered the Inner Temple, London, as a student of law; but his passion for the muses prevented him from making any great proficiency in his legal studies. He married the daughter and coheiress of Sir Henry Isley, of Kent, by whom he had two daughters. The tenor of his brief life was even and uninterrupted, and his death occurred on the sixth of March, 1615, before he had attained the thirtieth year of his age. He was buried on the ninth of the same month, at the entrance of St. Benedict's chapel, Westminster Abbey. Thus, in the beautiful language of Hazlitt, was youth, genius, aspiring hope and growing reputation, cut off like a flower in its summer pride, or like the 'lily in its stalk green,' which inclines us to repine at fortune, and almost at nature, that seem to set so little store by their greatest favorites. The life of poets is, or ought to be, if we judge of it from the light it lends to others, a golden drama, full of brightness and sweetness, rapt in Elysium; and it gives one a reluctant pang to see the splendid vision, by which they are attended in their path of glory, fade like a vapor, and their sacred heads laid low in ashes, before the sand of common mortals has half run out. JOHN FLETCHER was of equally distinguished parentage with Beaumont, being the son of Dr. Richard Fletcher, bishop of Bristol, and afterward of Worcester. He was born in Northamptonshire, in 1576, and educated at Bennet College, Cambridge. Though he was ten years older than Beaumont, yet comparatively nothing is known of him from the time at which he left the university, until the thirtieth year of his age, when he seems to have commenced his career of dramatic authorship, conjointly with his youthful and gifted associate. His life was as quiet and as unmarked by striking incidents, as was that of his partner in his early literary labors; and he died of the great plague in 1625, in the fiftieth year of his age. For some reason, not now known, his remains were not honored with a resting-place in Westminster Abbey, but were buried in St. Mary Overy's church, Southwark. The dramas of Beaumont and Fletcher were fifty-two in number; but as the greater part of them were not published till 1647, it is impossible to ascertain the dates at which they were respectively produced. Dryden remarks that Philaster was the first play that brought them into esteem with the public, though they had previously written two or three others. It is improbable in plot, but highly interesting in character and situations. The jealousy of Philaster is forced and unnatural; the character of Euphrasia, disguised as Bellario, the page, is a copy from Viola, yet there is something peculiarly delicate in the following account of her hopeless attachment to Philaster: My father oft would speak Your worth and virtue; and, as I did grow Yet far from lust; for could I but have lived My birth no match for you, I was past hope By all the most religious things a maid Whilst there was hope to hide me from men's eyes, For other than I seem'd, that I might ever Abide with you: Then sat I by the fount Where first you took me up. Philaster had previously described the circumstances under which he found the disguised maiden by the fount, and the description is highly poetical and picturesque : Hunting the buck, I found him sitting by a fountain-side, Of which he borrow'd some to quench his thirst, And paid the nymph again as much in tears. A garland lay him by, made by himself, Dwell in his face, I ask'd him all his story. Express'd his grief: and to my thoughts did read The prettiest lecture of his country art That could be wish'd; so that methought I could Who was as glad to follow. The Maid's Tragedy, supposed to have been written soon after 'Philaster' was produced, is a powerful, but unpleasing drama. The purity of female virtue in Amintor and Aspatia, is well contrasted with the guilty boldness of Evadne; and the rough soldier-like bearing and manly feeling of Melantius, render the selfish sensuality of the king, more hateful and disgusting. Unfortunately, there is much licentiousness in this fine play-whole scenes and dialogues are disfigured by this master vice of these authors. Their dramas are 'a rank unweeded garden,' which grew only the more disorderly and vicious as it advanced to maturity. Besides the plays already mentioned, these writers had produced before Beaumont's death, three tragedies, King and no King, Bonduca, and The Laws of Candy; also five comedies, The Woman Hater, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Honest Man's Fortune, The Coxcomb, and The Captain. Fletcher afterwards wrote three tragic dramas and nine comedies, the best of which are The Chances, The Spanish Curate, The Beggar's Bush, and Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife. He also wrote an exquisite pastoral drama, The Faithful Shepherdess, which Milton followed pretty closely in the design, and partly in the language and imagery, in his Comus. In The Two Noble Kinsmen, another dramatic production of these joint authors, they are represented to have had the aid of Shakspeare; but as the play is not superior to many other of their performances, the statement is, certainly, not sustained by internal evidence. To the dramas which Beaumont and Fletcher wrote conjointly, it is impossible to determine what share each took in contriving the plots, and filling up the scenes; but the general impression is, that Beaumont had the greater judgment and the severer taste, and was chiefly employed in retrenching and correcting the luxuriances of Fletcher's wit and fancy. The genius of the former is also said to have leaned more to tragedy than that of the latter. The later works of Fletcher are chiefly of a comic character; and in these the plots are often inartificial and loosely connected, though he is always lively and entertaining. The incidents rapidly succeed each other, and the dialogue is witty, elegant, and amusing. Dryden considered that Fletcher understood and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better |