CHAPTER XVII

THE DELIMITATION OF THE FIELD

The plays contained in the first folio of Beaumont and Fletcher's _Comedies and Tragedies_, 1647, are _The Mad Lover_, _The Spanish Curate_, _The Little French Lawyer_, _The Custome of the Countrey_, _The Noble Gentleman_, _The Captaine_, _The Beggers Bush_, _The Coxcombe_, _The False One_, _The Chances_, _The Loyall Subject_, _The Lawes of Candy_, _The Lovers Progresse_, _The Island Princesse_, _The Humorous Lieutenant_, _The Nice Valour_, _The Maide in the Mill_, _The Prophetesse_, _The Tragedy of Bonduca_, _The Sea Voyage_, _The Double Marriage_, _The Pilgrim_, _The Knight of Malta_, _The Womans Prize_ or _The Tamer Tamed_, _Loves Cure_, _The Honest Mans Fortune_, _The Queene of Corinth_, _Women Pleas'd_, _A Wife for a Moneth_, _Wit at Severall Weapons_, _The Tragedy of Valentinian_, _The Faire Maide of the Inne_, _Loves Pilgrimage_, _The Maske of the Gentlemen of Grayes Inne, and the Inner Temple, at the Marriage of the Prince and Princesse Palatine of Rhene_ written by Francis Beaumont, Gentleman, _Foure Playes_ (or _Moralle Representations_) _in One_.

Of these thirty-five, which purport to be printed from "the authours originall copies," only one, as I have already said, _The Maske_, had been published before.

The second folio, entitled _Fifty Comedies and Tragedies_, 1679, contains, beside those above mentioned, eighteen others, one of which, _The Wild-Goose Chase_, had been published separately and in folio, 1652. The remaining seventeen said to be "published from the Authors' Original Copies," are printed from the quartos. They are _The Maides Tragedy_, _Philaster_, _A King and No King_, _The Scornful Ladie_, _The Elder Brother_, _Wit Without Money_, _The Faithfull Shepheardesse_, _Rule a Wife and Have a Wife_, _Monsieur Thomas_, _Rollo_, _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, _The Night-Walker_, _The Coronation_, _Cupids Revenge_, _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, _Thierry and Theodoret_, and _The Woman-Hater_.

In addition to these fifty-three plays, one, _The Faithful Friends_, entered on the Stationers' Registers in 1660, as by Beaumont and Fletcher, was held in manuscript until 1812, when it was purchased by Weber from "Mr. John Smith of Furnival's Inn into whose possession it came from Mr. Theobald, nephew to the editor of Shakespeare," and published.

According to the broadest possible sweep of modern opinion, the presence of Beaumont cannot by any _tour de force_ be conjectured in more than twenty-three of the fifty-four productions listed above. The twenty-three are (exclusive of _The Maske_) _The Woman-Hater_, _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, _Cupids Revenge_, _The Scornful Ladie_, _The Maides Tragedy_, _A King and No King_, _Philaster_, _Foure Playes in One_, _Loves Cure_, _The Coxcombe_, _The Captaine_, _Thierry and Theodoret_, _The Faithful Friends_, _Wit at Severall Weapons_, _Beggers Bush_, _Loves Pilgrimage_, _The Knight of Malta_, _The Lawes of Candy_, _The Nice Valour_, _The Noble Gentleman_, _The Faire Maide of the Inne_, _Bonduca_, and _The Honest Mans Fortune_. With regard to the last twelve of these plays beginning with _Thierry and Theodoret_ there is no convincing proof that more than the first four were written before February 1613, when after preparing the _Maske_ for the Lady Elizabeth's marriage to the Elector Palatine, Beaumont seems (except for his share of _The Scornful Ladie_ which I date about 1614) to have withdrawn from dramatic activity,--perhaps because of his own marriage about that time and withdrawal to the country, or because of failing health; and there is no generally accepted historical or textual evidence that Beaumont had any hand even in these four. Of the eight remaining at the end of the list, four may be dated before Beaumont's death in 1616: _The Honest Mans Fortune_, which is said on manuscript evidence to have been played in the year 1613, but probably later than August 5;[148] _Bonduca_, which Oliphant asserts is an alteration by Fletcher of an old drama of Beaumont's, but which other authorities assign to Fletcher alone; and, on slighter evidence, _Loves Pilgrimage_, and _The Nice Valour_. The balance of proof with regard to the other four, _The Knight of Malta_, _The Lawes of Candy_, _The Noble Gentleman_, and _The Faire Maide of the Inne_, is altogether in favour of their composition after Beaumont's death.

In each of these twelve plays, however, beginning with _Thierry_ and ending with _The Honest Mans Fortune_, an occasional expert thinks that he finds a speech or a scene in Beaumont's style, and concludes that the play in its present form is a revision of some early effort in which that dramatist had a hand. But where one critic surmises Beaumont, another detects Beaumont's imitators; and where one conjectures Fletcher and Beaumont conjoined, half a dozen assert Fletcher, assisted, or revised by anywhere from one to four contemporaries,--Field or Daborne or Massinger, Middleton or Rowley, or First and Second Unknown. I have examined these plays and the evidence, as carefully as I have those which have more claim to consideration among the Beaumont possibilities, and have applied to them all the tests which I shall presently describe; and have come to the conclusion that Beaumont had nothing to do with any of the twelve.

There remain, then, of the twenty-three plays enumerated above as Beaumont-Fletcher possibilities, only eleven of which I can, on the basis of external or internal evidence, or both, safely say that they were composed before Beaumont ceased writing for the stage, and that he had, or may have had, a hand in writing some of them. These are, in the order of their first appearance in print: _The Woman-Hater_, published without name of author in 1607; _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, also anonymous, published in 1613; _Cupids Revenge_, published as Fletcher's in 1615; _The Scornful Ladie_, published in 1616, as Beaumont and Fletcher's, just after the death of the former; _The Maides Tragedy_, published, without names of authors, in 1619; _A King and No King_, published as Beaumont and Fletcher's in 1619; _Philaster_, published as Beaumont and Fletcher's in 1620; and _Foure Playes in One_, _Loves Cure_, _The Coxcombe_, and _The Captaine_, first published in the 1647 folio, without ascription of authorship on the title-page, but as of the "Comedies and Tragedies written by Beaumont and Fletcher," in general. In the case of _Loves Cure_ the Epilogue mentions "our Author"; the Prologue, spoken "at the reviving of this play," attributes it to Beaumont and Fletcher. As for _The Coxcombe_, the Prologue for a revival speaks of "the makers that confest it for their own."

It is worthy of notice that three only of these eleven possible "Beaumont-Fletcher" plays were printed during Beaumont's lifetime,--_The Woman-Hater_, _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_ and _Cupids Revenge_, and that on none of them does Beaumont's name appear as author. The last indeed was ascribed, wrongly, as I shall later show, to Fletcher alone. It should also be noted that four other of the plays, beginning with _The Scornful Ladie_ and ending with _Philaster_, were published before the death of Fletcher in 1625; and that while three of them have title-page ascriptions to both authors, one, _The Maides Tragedy_, is anonymous.

To these eleven plays as a residuum I have given the preference in the application of tests deemed most likely to reveal the relative contribution and genius of the authors in partnership. Beside the seven published as stated above during Fletcher's life, two others appeared which I do not include in this residuum,--_The Faithfull Shepheardesse_ and _Thierry and Theodoret_. The former, printed between December 22, 1608 and July 20, 1609, is of Fletcher's sole authorship, and will be employed as one of the clues to his early characteristics. The latter, attributed by some critics to both authors was published without ascription of authorship in a quarto of 1621. It does not appear in the folio of 1647, but was printed in second quarto as "by John Fletcher" in 1648, and again as "by F. Beaumont and J. Fletcher" in 1649; and was finally gathered up with the _Comedies and Tragedies_ which compose the folio of 1679. Oliphant and Thorndike are of opinion that the play is a revision by Massinger of an original by Beaumont and Fletcher, but I cannot discover in the text evidence sufficient to warrant its inclusion in the list of plays worthy to be investigated as the possible product of the partnership.

The eleven Beaumont-Fletcher plays to which the criteria of internal evidence may be applied with some assurance of success, comprise in their number, fortunately for us, three of which we are informed by external evidence,--the contemporary testimony of John Earle, dated 1616-1617,--that Beaumont was concerned in their composition. These three, _Philaster_, _The Maides Tragedy_, and _A King and No King_, are a positive residuum to which as a model of the joint-work of our authors we may first, in the effort to discriminate their respective functions when working in partnership, apply the tests of style derived from a study of the plays and poems which each wrote alone.

With this delimitation of the field of inquiry, we are now ready for the consideration of the criteria by which the presence of either author may be detected. The criteria are primarily of versification; then, successively and cumulatively, of diction and mental habit. Ultimately, and by induction, they are of dramatic technique and creative genius.

FOOTNOTES:

[148] See Fleay, _Chron. Eng. Dram._, I, 195; and W. W. Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 90.