tions-are powerful rudders of opinion. Many persons admire old books, because old, just as still more admire new, because new. Others dislike Elizabethan poetry, because it appears semi-barbarous to minds imbued with the classical spirit of Queen Anne's school-or deem this latter style no poetry at all, because its rythm runs like a dry wheel for ever in one rut, and its subject-matter is compact, not of imagination, but refined sense. Some hold Pastorals in horror, from having seen maudlin compositions so called by Pope, Cunningham, Shenstone, &c., peopled with outlandish shepherds and shepherdessesDamons and Daphnes, no more proper to England than oran-otans-and stuffed with affected discourse about gods and goddesses, sacrifices of goats and lambkins, plaintive philomels, purling streams, Tyrian fleeces, &c.—which makes the gorge rise at the very name Eclogue ever after. Various such prejudices beset on each side the course a critic has to steer, till he resembles the venturous mariner who attempts to sail through a continued strait of rocks serried so close, that in weathering one he falls foul of its opposite, or has to tack as often and quick as a butterfly, if he would flutter along with as little earnestness of purpose. I cannot expect long-cherished prejudices, handed down, it may be, like precious heir-looms, from generation to generation, will give way before principles, however demonstrable: what then remains for me? Hannibal's Alpine route is perhaps the best model for most courses-to go straightforward through all obstacles, and rather than turn aside use fire and vinegar. Such accessories would indeed alone become Hannibal critics; but the main part of the maxim recommends itself strongly for my particular adoption under existing circumstances, still more than for general practice. A Bourbon Queen of Spain's sarcasm against Stuart, Duke of Berwick, her intractable mareschal, has always struck me as rather a compliment—“ C'est un grand diable d' Anglais sec, qui va toujours droit devant lui!" Subducting the devilish feature, it were well, perhaps, if all Englishmen, critics or not, resembled this portrait: the most amiable mask Proteus ever put on is, in my mind, far more repulsive. To the subjoined brief critique further preamble would be superfluous. Beaumont and Fletcher rank, as dramatists, next below Shakspeare: once they ranked above him, two of their plays being performed for one of his, when Dryden wrote his "Essay on Dramatic Poesy," in 1666. New-fangledness, their plays having all a cast, and most of them a date, more modern than Shakspeare's, occasioned much of this preference, a fact scarce credible now, and marvellous indeed, if the vane of popular opinion had ever stood firm to Heaven's sweetest breath rather than veer to its foulest. But a concurrent cause was the revolution and decadence of English manners which took place about that time; an effect of advancing civilisation, hastened by our freer intercourse with foreign kingdoms, especially France and Spain, whose corrupt practical ethics, less primitive pastimes, and less earnest literature, began to find much favour among us under the first Stuarts. It is quite a mistake to imagine Sybaritism did not commence in England till the reign of Charles the Second, when it was rather at its climax : he simply rebuilt its Temple, on a basis indeed almost as broad as the whole land, brought together again the scattered flock of Thammuz, and with them for ministers, himself being well suited for High Priest, made proselytes of almost the whole people, prone enough to conversion. But even under James the First, and his pious son, it was more than a poetical fiction that Comus kept an itinerant court within this isle, had full as many secret partisans of his principles as John Calvin, and found but few Lady Alices and Lord Bracklys among the may-bushes and myrtle-groves to discountenance him either by their precepts or examples. "Nothing but wandering frailties, Wild as the wind, and blind as death or ignorance, Knight of Malta, Act III., Sc. 4. Voluptuaries are always numerous enough, and vicious characters more so; but a glance beneath the historical surface of those two reigns will discover how depraved, though softened and civilised (to use the common term), our manners had become since Elizabeth's sterner times. This circumstance illustrates much I shall have to observe regarding Beaumont and Fletcher. It rendered these dramatists, whose works are light, gay, and amorous, greater favourites than Shakspeare, who wrote with a depth, nerve, and intense passion, which made his Comedy itself too sterling for a mere amusement, and his Tragedy far too high-souled for a very gallant age, but not at all a romantic. Exalted imaginations and profound enthusiasm were confined to the Puritans, no play-goers. Time has settled the question between Shakspeare and our two poets, at least apparently, as we cannot well contemplate a period when public caprice will raise it again. : But I doubt whether in strict justice the next place to him on the dramatic scale belongs to them: or let us allow that it does, by reason of their Drama being so bulky, for books as well as mountains take an importance from their magnitude, still, though much better theatrical writers than Ben Jonson, Webster, Ford, &c., they were, perhaps, less imbued with the genuine dramatic spirit. Comedy is said to be their forte, yet which of their comedies approaches "The Fox," "The Alchemyst," or "Every Man in his Humour?" Where have they developed a plot or group of characters so skilfully, so consistently, so harmoniously, as Ben Jonson has in these three dramas? Compared with them, "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife," seems less a comedy than an olla-podrida of comicalities. "The Little French Lawyer," "Wit without Money," "Elder Brother," "Spanish Curate," "Scornful Lady," are all distinguished by the same perpetual attention to, and recollection of, a mixed audience before them, the same solicitude for stage-effect, but by little artistic power, or even purpose, by little care how those ends-popular gratification, present success-may be obtained, so that they shall be obtained: which power, which purpose, which care, as opposed to that solicitude, constitute I submit the very features distinguishing the true dramatist from the mere theatrical playwright. Again what is Bessus to Bobadil, or Michael Perez to Volpone, or Lazarillo to Sir Epicure Mammon,-where is the single character delineated by our authors with the force, thorough understanding, perfect contexture, and uniform self-sustainment, of any principal portrait by Ben? Among their best-drawn personages some are acknowledged imitations after his models, imitations servile enough to mark their own sense that he was their master. In tragedy, which they seldomer tried, Mr. Hallam thinks they succeeded worse ;* except for this opinion I would say without hesitation, far better. "Valentinian," "Thierry and Theodoret," ,” “King and no King," "Philaster," "The Maid's Tragedy," are tragic dramas, and much surpass their most select comic; those I believe every reader admits to be their chefs-d'œuvre how then can it be contended that they succeeded best in Comedy? Their age's caprice or their own made them desert the tragic walk, their grander, earlier, and perhaps as earlier more native vein,-a circumstance which to me is very regrettable. For another "Philaster," I could sacrifice many such whiffling drolleries as "The Chances." But with all the poetic charm of these tragedies, do they excel, do they equal, those of Webster and Ford in the essence itself of drama-impassioned action ? Our two authors are not "Forcible Feebles," but they are oftentimes Feeble Forcibles when they attempt to control the demon whom they have unchained upon the scene. They cannot ride in the whirlwind, and direct the storm of passion which they have raised themselves. A shock of great events crushes them who brought it about. They are insects on the thigh of a great character, unable to comprehend it wholly. Their furor poeticus is apt to become ambitious fustian, their action unfanciful extravagance, both signs of energies over-taxed. A certain gentle and almost feminine pathos was their forte; with it they make our heart-strings thrill, yet in a tone of pleasant mournfulness. We are never made to exclaim, like Lear, "O how this mother swells up toward my throat!" as in "Vittoria Corrombona" or "The Broken Heart." * Introduction to Literature, vol. iii. chap. 6. However, they had a keen theatrical, if not dramatical, spirit: that is, if we limit the term theatrical to a talent for composing such plays as will fill theatres. Beaumont and Fletcher (especially Fletcher) seldom lose any time, like Shakspeare, upon grand effusions of abstract poetry fitter for the closet, or upon materials beyond or above their simple stage-object, popular applause. Mr. Hallam alludes to this peculiar talent of our authors; and if his expressions imply no more than it, mine are but an echo of his. If, however, by asserting Fletcher "superior to Shakspeare in his knowledge of the stage," he meant not what fills theatres, but what ought to fill them, issue might be joined on the question. Fletcher's liveliness, bustle, his easy-flowing, ear-catching language, felicitous jumble of piquant details, are sure to titillate a mixed audience, though they would often fatigue a reader; while Shakspeare's plays, represented as written, would oppress such an audience under the load of their intellectuality, and put half of it to sleep or to flight. But in skilful and nice conduct of his plot, in harmonious combination of effective circumstances, in poetical (not to speak of moral) decorum, clear development of characters, omnipotent command over the passions, ubiquitous insight into nature,-Shakspeare has almost every pretension, Fletcher almost none. Now these, and not the other, are the supreme theatrical qualities, evince true artistic knowledge of the stage. Shakspeare catered for the popular taste, Fletcher pandered to it, without thought or reck whether it was vicious or not: the one would have raised his audience to him, the other lowered himself to his audience. Shakspeare knew what the stage required, Fletcher what the spectators. Public intellectual taste has perhaps always a tendency to decline, and it is the proper business of writers to counteract this: being left unperformed by Fletcher, if we cannot thence conclude he was ignorant of a stage-author's function, we have no right to infer his knowledge. Comedy has been defined by some critics the representation of the manners. Such a definition, if accepted, would have the singular luck of excluding our very best comedic dramas from the list of comedies, and admitting our worst into it: Shakspeare's "Twelfth Night," "As You Like It," &c., are not representations of manners; but Etherege's "Love in a Tub," Wycherley's "Gentleman Dancing-Master," Rowe's "Biter," are. The definition is applicable to superficial comedy alone that which represents human nature under the disguise of art, and represents little more than the disguise itself. None of this outside comedy exists in Shakspeare, for in him the man always becomes visible under the manners: even his "Merry Wives of Windsor," and other idealised realities, give us far more than the contemporaneous appearances and behaviour of men and women. Jonson seems to have led the way, or beaten it smooth, as a Manner-Comedist, by his delineations of humours, prevalent enough at his time. Beaumont and Fletcher depict humours with less strength, richness, and raciness, but represent the general manners of their age with more pliancy, variety, fidelity. This, although the merit of inferior minds, has a value which Shakspeare's profounder, nature-loving comedy wants. It affords illustrative matter to the historian, curious or useful to the antiquary, agreeable to the idle reader. Our two poets place a mirror of their period before our eyes, which reflects it much better than Shakspeare's mirror of all time does his own particular one: they had not his imagination to throw its splendid discolourment over all realities, or to intermix new features which modified them, or to teach them that the essence of actual things was more positive than the things themselves, more imperishable. Our poets, nevertheless, are by no means without imagination; nay, in a certain sense, they idealise farther than he; that is, they unnaturalise, often making beautiful chimeras of their virtuous characters, such as Ordella, Juliana, Shamont, and hideous or grotesque monsters of their bad, as Brunehalt, Megra. But several among their fancy-portraits, as Bellario, Aspasia, Aëcius, have a sufficient groundwork of truth: these, however, are almost all tragic personages. We may trace the progressive decline of Great or General Comedy into Superficial Comedy, or the Comedy of Manners, through Shakspeare, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Shirley, Vanbrugh, Congreve, Wycherley, Farquhar. Fletcher is the Farquhar of our ancient stage. Both are sketchers rather than draughtsmen; keep upon the surface of their objects instead of penetrating them; represent the caprices, oddities, fashions, manias, of artificial life rather than genuine human nature, the world as it was, rather than as it ever will be; fill their scene with motion rather than action; are gay and brilliant, but seldom either without being licentious. Farquhar's kindred genius often led him to plagiarise from his prototype: the "Inconstant," for example, is a plain spoliation of the "Wildgoose-Chace." But our eldern dramatist was a decided poet, which our modern was not, being only a prose maker; sprightliness in the former tends to pertness in the latter, buoyancy to flippancy; nature makes some part of the man in Fletcher's dramas, manners the whole man in Farquhar's. Yet Farquhar has this advantage, he never talks "skimble-skamble stuff," for its own pure sake, like Fletcher ; he has always, like Swift, "when particularly tedious, some design under it." Our present poet is bytimes a veritable Gratiano,-" speaks an infinite deal of nothing," and to no end save exhalement of superfluous animal spirits ; "His glass of life ran wine." Beaumont and Fletcher seldom may be said to conduct their plots, nor to push them, nor even pursue them as they would naturally unwind themselves. Most imaginative authors, perhaps, commence random-wise, and letting each part beget a successor, save themselves the trouble of a total invention at first. But our dramatists do not often permit their plot to grow of itself thus spontaneously-they cut it short, and graft upon the stump any exotics that lie near, till their play becomes a plica dramatica, one intertangled knot of heterogeneous ramification, which, though sometimes beautiful, has almost as little radical connectedness as a nosegay, and but the tie of a name to keep it together. Such also are for the most part their characters-neither developed by the authors, nor suffered to develop themselves, but reared up to a certain bulk, like Nebuchadnezzar's image, with gold, silver, brass, iron, and clay, none of which materials cleave well together—each personage being rather portions of many characters than one character itself. Some few form exceptions, and the best of these, whether fables or characters, in the works betraying a double hand: let Beaumont have been what he may, right hand or left, his co-operation told upon them; albeit even that did not produce plots or portraits by any means impeccable. There are besides these exceptions certain personified Humours, as Bessus, Cacafogo, Gondarino, which furnish marks of premeditation and a formative process; such evince better keeping, more individuality. But development of character seems to have been at best an effort with our authors; even these factitious characters are rather forced out than drawn out, elaborated painfully like Ben Jonson's, yet, unlike his, not skilfully. The grand fault committed by Beaumont and Fletcher, a fault that no retail merits can compensate, was their mistaking particular nature for general (which alone is true nature), founding their plots and characters on the possible instead of the probable (which alone is the true natural). Hence they too often come under the class Lusus Naturæ, not, as they should, Opera Naturæ. Notwithstanding we can hardly pronounce the angelic Ordella, or the supersanctified Juliana "A faultless monster which the world ne'er saw," she is no less a monster, if the world has seen her too seldom. How strange, that Caliban, a creature who could not exist, should be more natural than Ordella and Juliana, who could! Because he, impossible as an existence, appears probable as a character, while they appear improbable as characters, though possible as existences. If we look for the compound perfection of poetry-beautiful nature enhanced by beautiful art-we shall find no very large measure of it in Beaumont and Fletcher. Their accumulated works deserve much more than Shakspeare's to be intitled “ un fumier' -but a fumier filled with jewels of the brightest, often of the purest, most celestial lustre, which a little rooting will discover. These make the real value, and form the real attraction, of their "plays," altogether unplayable now; even in their own time it made their chief merit, I repeat, maugre their stage-effectiveness. For if stage-effectiveness be the proper test of stage-merit, a sentimental melo-drama that acts like a mere onion on the public eyes, will be superior to "Macbeth," and "The Tempest," as an opera-to "The Tempest" as Shakspeare wrote it. Let us take that test-the Drama degenerates at once! A fine stage-drama must be effective; but convert this proposition and say, an effective stage-drama must be fine, no conclusion is less legitimate. Such conclusion Beaumont and Fletcher seem to have drawn. Had they only reflected that drama, however frivolous, superficial, or tasteless, may yet prove effective, upon an audience more frivolous, superficial, and tasteless still, they would have discovered the unsoundness of their creed and the error of their practice. Were anything else requisite to establish the above truth, it may perhaps be found in this-stage-effectiveness is a most variable test, (changing with the knowledge and judgment of the audience,) while the test of stage-merit ought to resemble the test of every other real merit, in being fixed. Macbeth," "Lear," and "Hamlet," had always the same intrinsic stage-merit, though when public taste was degraded, these dramas were less stage-effective than those of Beaumont and Fletcher : private discriminative taste even then recognised that merit. If not so very immoral, the plays before us might "have a run" at present, like Maturin's "Bertram," or "Tom and Jerry," or those favourite quadrupedal performances of Astley's or Van Amburgh's corps dramatique. Would this stage-effectiveness demonstrate their stagemerit? I thought well to enlarge thus upon a dangerous doctrine held by almost every one, and of late apparently pronounced orthodox by an influential writer upon our literature. With only this subordinate stage-merit, with a morale which unsuits them even for our Minor Theatres, Beaumont and Fletcher's works are to be considered rather as dramatic poems than plays. They would prove also in my opinion more agreeable if read desultorily than consecutively. We have all remarked how well extracts read when tolerable; and how apt the whole original is to destroy our idea of their beauty. A good instance may be given from the present volume: Jasper's ghost thus threatens the worldly-minded father of his beloved Luce "When thou art at the table with thy friends, How are we struck by this awful picture, by its visionary character so well harmonising with the words which sound as if heard in a terrific dream? How are we disappointed when we find the ghost is but Jasper who has had "his face mealed," and the passage itself extracted from a mock-heroic play, "The Knight of the Burning Pestle?" volume resembles some once-cultivated wilderness "Crowned with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds, Our where, if the corn be scanty, mildewed, and little worth, the flowers are of rare splendour, the herbs often of great virtue, nay, the weeds themselves have betimes a sweetness of scent amidst all their rankness, and colours as fresh if not as heavenly as those of the rainbow. I recommend the reader to rush into this labyrinth and lose himself; if he travel it by c 2 |