Chapter XXIX

CONCLUSION

Beaumont's poetic virtues are his peculiar treasure; but the dramatic method of his heroic-romantic plays lent itself lightly to imitation and debasement. Not so much The Maides Tragedy and A King and No King, which respect the unities of interest and effect, as Philaster, The Coxcombe, and Cupid's Revenge, to which Fletcher's contribution of captivating theatrical 'business' and device was more considerable. Some of these plays, and some of Shakespeare's, too, and of Marston's, and Chapman's, and Webster's, paved the way for the heroic play of the Restoration—a melodramatic development of tragicomedy and sentimental tragedy, in which philandering sentiment, strained and histrionic passion, took the place of romantic love and virile conflict,—a drama in which an affected view of life tinged crisis and character alike, an unreasoning devotion to royalty or some other chivalric ideal obscured personal dignity and moral responsibility, and the thrill of surprise dissipated the catharsis, proper to art, whether tragic or comic.

Upon the future of the comedy of intrigue and manners, Beaumont exercised no distinctive influence. In plays like The Coxcombe and The Scornful Ladie, the genius of Fletcher dominated the scenes of lighter dialogue and comic complication. And it is through comedies of intrigue and manners written by Fletcher alone or in company with others, especially Massinger, that Fletcher's individual genius exercised most influence on the subsequent history of the drama. The characteristics which won theatrical preëminence for his romantic comedies, heroic tragicomedies and tragedies, written after the cessation of Beaumont's activity, were a Fletcherian vivacity of dialogue, a Fletcherian perfection of 'business,' and a Fletcherian exaggeration of the tragicomic spirit and technique of which, in the days of the Beaumont-Fletcher partnership, Beaumont had availed himself but which he, still, by virtue of his critical faculty, had held somewhat in restraint.

From the time of Prynne's Histriomastix, 1633, there have been critics who have pointed to the gradual deterioration of the stage which, beginning, say some, with plays of Shakespeare himself, continued through Beaumont and Fletcher to the drama of the Restoration. Flecknoe, Rymer, Coleridge, Lamb, Swinburne, Ward, have commented upon phases of the phenomenon. And, recently, one of our most judicious contemporary essayists has in a series of articles developed the theme.[258] I heartily concur with the scholarly and well-languaged editor of The Nation, in many of his conclusions concerning the general history of this decline; and I have already in this book availed myself with profit of some of his suggestions. I agree with him that the downfall of tragedy began when "the theme was altered from a single master passion to a number of loosely coördinated passions, thus relaxing the rigidity of tragic structure and permitting the fancy to play more intimately through all the emotions"; that this degeneration may be traced to the time "when ecclesiastical authority was broken by scepticism and knowledge, and the soul was left with all its riches of imagination and emotion, but with the principle of individual responsibility discredited and the fibre of self-government relaxed"; that "the consequences may be seen in the Italy of the sixteenth century"; and that "the result is that drama of the court which, besides its frequent actual indecency, is at heart so often non-moral and in the higher artistic sense incomprehensible." But when he ascribes this alteration of the theme of tragedy from a single master passion to a number of "loosely coördinated passions" to our "twin dramatists," and cites as his example The Maides Tragedy in which, as he sees it, we have "but a succession of womanly passions, each indeed cunningly conceived and expressed, but giving us in the end nothing we can grasp as a whole and comprehend";—and says that Evadne is "no woman at all, unless mere random passionateness can be accounted such," I shake my head in sad demurrer. First, because, as I have tried to show above, Evadne is anything but an incomprehensible embodiment of unmotived passions, and The Maides Tragedy anything but a "loosely coördinated" concern, and secondly, because I disfavour this attribution of the decadence of tragedy, or of comedy, for that matter, to our twin dramatists. To substantiate such a charge it would be incumbent upon the critic to prove not only that the decadence is indubitably visible in the joint-work of Beaumont and Fletcher, but that it is specifically visible in Beaumont's, as in Fletcher's, contribution to that work, and also, that it was not already patent in the dramatic productions of their seniors; that it was not patent in Heywood's Royall King and Loyall Subject, for instance; in the "glaring colours" of Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois, and in his Gentleman Usher with its artificial atmosphere of courtly romance, its melodramatic reverses and surprises, its huddling up of poetic justice; in the sensational devices, passionate unrealities and sepulchral action of Marston's Malcontent, the sophistical theme and callous pornography of his Dutch Courtezan, and in the inhuman imaginings of his Insatiate Countess; that it was not patent in the heartless irresponsibility and indecency of Middleton, and in the inartistic warping of tragic situations to comic solutions that characterize his early romantic plays; that it was not patent in the poisonous exhalations, the wildering of sympathy, and the disproportioned art that characterize the White Devil of their immediate contemporary, John Webster.

The decadence was hastened by Fletcher; but not in any distinctive degree by Beaumont. I second Mr. More's commendation of Prynne's "philosophic criticism of 1632 that 'men in theatres are so far from sinne-lamenting sorrow, that they even delight themselves with the representations of those wickednesses,'" but I deplore the application of that criticism to Beaumont and Fletcher, as that "they loosed the bonds of conduct and left human nature as a mere bundle of irresponsibilities."

Many of Fletcher's excesses and defects not only in the plays written with Beaumont, but in plays written after his death, have been conferred from the day of Flecknoe to the present upon Beaumont. There is very little "sinne-lamenting sorrow" in the Valentinian of Fletcher, or of Fletcher and Massinger, and very little in Fletcher's Wife for a Month; but in many of Beaumont's scenes in The Maides Tragedy, and A King and No King, and The Coxcombe the genuine accents of "sinne-lamenting sorrow" are heard. Fletcher certainly "loosed the bonds of conduct and left human nature as a mere bundle of irresponsibilities," but not Beaumont. Let the reader turn to that poet's scenes in the joint-plays (two-thirds of the great ones) as I have indicated them, or to what I have unrolled of Beaumont's mental habit, and judge for himself.[259]

The concession of the essayist from whom, as a representative of enlightened modern opinion upon the subject, I have been quoting,—that "as Fletcher's work stands, he may appear utterly devoid of conscience, a man to whom our human destinies were mere toys," I hail with delight, although I think that Fletcher the man had more honest ideals than Fletcher the dramatist. But, as a critic, I resent the surmise that Fletcher "was by nature of a manlier, sounder fibre than Beaumont." In the heroic-romantic comedy, The Humorous Lieutenant, Fletcher displays, indeed, as Mr. More says, "a strain almost like that of Shakespeare, upon whom he manifestly modelled himself in everything except Shakespeare's serious insight into human motives." But does that play reveal anything of manlier, sounder fibre than Beaumont's A King and No King?

Written in 1619 The Humorous Lieutenant has enduring vitality, though not because of its tragicomic presupposition; for the wars and rumours of war are rhetorical or humorous, the devilish design of the King upon the chastity of the heroine is predestined to failure,—and the announcement of her death, but a dramatic device which may impose upon the credulity of her noble lover but not upon the audience. In the MS. of 1625 it is styled "a pleasant comedie"; and such it is, of 'humour' and romantic love, upon a background of the heroic. It is Fletcher's best comedy of the kind; one of the best of the later Shakespearian age. The conception of the Lieutenant, whose humour is to fight when he is plagued by loathsome disease and to wench when he is well, is not original, nor is the character of the hero Demetrius; but in the elaboration Fletcher has created these characters anew, has surrounded them with half a dozen other figures no less life-like, and has set them in a plot, cunningly welded of comic, sentimental, and martial elements, and captivatingly original. Though the interest is partly in a wanton intrigue, and the mirth grossly carnal even when not bawdy, I think that the objectionable qualities are, for almost the only time in Fletcher's career in comedy, not ineradicable. The wondrous charm, "matchless spirit," vivacity, and constancy of Celia render the machinations of the procuress, Leucippe, and her "office of concealments" futile,—so much dramatic realism to be accentuated or mitigated at the will of the stage manager;—and the alluring offers of the king are but so many weapons for his own defeat. If the Lieutenant were not an indissoluble compound of hero, swashbuckler, shirker, and "stinkard," I fear, indeed, that he would lose his savour. But the love of Rabelaisian humour is, after all, ingrained in the male of the species, and if the license be not nauseating it is not necessarily damnable. This boisterous, pocky rascal who "never had but two hours yet of happiness," and who courts the battlefield to save him "from the surgeon's miseries," held the stage from the time of Condel, Taylor, and Lowin, to that of Macready and Liston, and there is no reason why his vitality should not be perennial. There are few more laughable scenes in farcical literature than those in which, having drained a philtre intended to make Celia dote upon the King, the Lieutenant imagines himself to be a handsome wench of fifteen, wooes the King most fatuously, even kisses the royal horses as they pass by. The meeting and the parting, the trials and the reunion, of Celia and Demetrius constitute the most convincing and attractive romantic-pathetic love-affairs in Jacobean drama since Shakespeare had ceased to write. Indeed, this "perilous crafty," spirited, "angel-eyed" girl "too honest for them all" who so ingeniously and modestly shames the lustful monarch and wins her affianced prince is not unworthy of the master. Nor is Demetrius. The play contains many genuinely poetic passages, and some of those lines of meteoric beauty—"our lives are but our marches to the grave"—in which Beaumont abounded, and that Fletcher too rarely coined. With all the rankness of its humour, the play has such literary and dramatic excellence that one cannot but regret the infrequency with which Fletcher produced that of which he was capable.

But even this best of Fletcher's heroic-dramatic plays contains, as Mr. More has observed, "one of those sudden conversions which make us wonder whether in his heart he felt any difference between a satyr-like lust and a chaste love—the conversion of the lecherous old king." I grant Fletcher's surpassing excellence in comedy, especially the comedy of manners and intrigue as, for instance, The Chances and the Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, and I have elsewhere acknowledged his supremacy after Shakespeare in that realm. But we are now considering not that kind of composition or its technique, but the fibre which might be expected to show itself in compositions involving the element of seriousness. The Humorous Lieutenant is of that kind,—it is called a tragicomedy by some. Has it one tithe of the serious insight into human life of any of Beaumont's plays involving ethical conflict?

Inquiring further into the fibre of Fletcher, let us pass in brief review another play, a genuine tragicomedy this time, A Wife for a Month, written the year before he died, of whose heroine Mr. More says that "from every point of view, ethical and artistic, she is one of the most finely drawn and truest women in the whole range of English drama." The complication, here, assuredly affords opportunity for the display of sound and manly fibre; and the tragicomedy is instructive in more ways than one: it illustrates Fletcher's skill in construction and his disregard of probability; his sense of moral conflict and his insensibility to moral beauty; his power to conceive characteristic situations and his impotence to construct natural characters; his capability of noble sentiment and poetic expression and his beastly perverseness of fancy, his prostitution of art to sordid sensationalism. The story of the cumulative torments to which a lustful usurper subjects the maiden, Evanthe, whom he desires, and Valerio whom she loves, is graphically estimated by one of the dramatis personae,—"This tyranny could never be invented But in the school of Hell: earth is too innocent." Beside it Zola's L'Assommoir smells sweet, and a nightmare lacks nothing of probability. Ugly, however, as the fundamental assumption is: namely, that the tyrant should permit a wedding on condition that at the end of a month the husband shall suffer death,—and with provision that meanwhile the honeymoon shall be surrounded with restriction more intolerable than death itself; and incredible as is the contrivance of the sequel,—kept a-going by the suppression of instinct and commonsense on the part of the hero, and withheld from its proper tragic conclusion by miraculous cure, an impossible conversion, and an unnatural clemency,—the plot is after all deftly knit, and the interest sustained with baleful fascination. But it would be difficult to instance in Jacobean drama a more incongruous juxtaposition of complication morally conceived, and execution callously vulgarized, than that offered by the scene between Valerio and Evanthe on their wedding-night. In the corresponding scene of The Maides Tragedy (II, 1), Beaumont had created a model: Amintor bears himself with dignity toward his shameless and contemptuous bride. But in Fletcher's play it is this "most finely drawn and truest woman" that makes the advances; and she makes them not only without dignity, but with an unmaidenly persistence and persuasiveness of which any abandoned 'baggage' or Russian actress of to-day might be ashamed. And, still, the dramatist is never weary of assuring us that she is the soul of "honour mingled with noble chastity," and clad in "all the graces" that Nature can give. In the various other trying situations in which Evanthe is placed it is requisite to our conviction of reality that she be the "virtuous bud of beauty": but the tongue of this "bud" blossoms into billingsgate, she swears "something awful," and she displays an acquaintance with sexual pathology that would delight the heart even of the most rabid twentieth-century advocate of sex-hygiene for boys and girls in coëducational public schools.

Two or three of the characters are nobly conceived and, on occasion, contrive to utter themselves with nobility. Valerio achieves a poetry infrequent in Fletcher's plays when he says of the shortness of his prospective joys:

and when he describes the graces of spiritual love. And the Queen's thoughts upon death, though melodramatic, have something of the dignity of Beaumont's style. But the minds of the principal personages reflect not only the flashing current but the turbid estuaries of Fletcher's thought. The passion, save for Valerio's, is lurid, and the humour latrinal. To sketch the bestial even in narrative, however fleeting, is inartistic; to fix it on canvas is offensive; to posture it upon the stage is unpardonable. The last is practically what Fletcher has done here; and the wonder is that he appears to think that he is justifying virtue.

No; Fletcher had not the fibre of Beaumont even when he was writing with him; and he did not achieve "a manlier, sounder fibre," after Beaumont had ceased, and he had swung into the brilliant orbit which he rounded as sole luminary of the stage.

I object again,—and the reader who has followed the exposition of the preceding pages will, I hope, object with me,—to the dictum of a German writer of this latter day, that the reason of the degeneracy of Beaumont and Fletcher, ethically, "seems to lie in the narrowing of the drama from a national interest to the flattery of a courtly caste." Mr. More opines that such an explanation should not be pressed too far; and he suggests that one reason why "we are unable to comprehend many of the persons upon the stage of Beaumont and Fletcher" is that we are similarly unable to comprehend "the more typical men and women who were playing the actual drama of the age." So far as Fletcher's dramatis personae are concerned, there is truth in this; but why couple Beaumont with him? If you omit a character or two in The Woman-Hater, which was a youthful jeu d'esprit, you shall find very few incomprehensible figures among those of Beaumont's creation. And as to the German mentioned above, Dr. Aronstein, what "flattery of a courtly caste" can he possibly detect in Beaumont's satire upon favourites in The Woman-Hater; in that burlesque of bourgeois affectations, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (the Court, too, was still reading the literature there satirized); or in his Philaster, who was a rebel; or in his Amintor of The Maides Tragedy, whose fate hinged upon his shuffling subservience to a king, or in the King himself on whom God sends "unlookt-for sudden death," because of his lust; or in his King Arbaces, whose general has "not patience to looke on whilst you runne these forbidden courses"; or in his scenes of Cupid's Revenge, which scourge the vices of the Court; or in his Sir Roger and Mistress Abigail and her scornful Lady,—or in his Ricardo and Viola, who are just a lover and his lass, and have never dreamed of Court or King at all?

I wonder whether it may not be possible for us henceforth to give to Fletcher, and the whole Fletcherian syndicate,—the Massingers, Fields, Middletons and Rowleys, Dabornes, and the rest,—the praise and the blame for what they produced, but eliminate Beaumont from the award. One grows weary of the attribution to him of moral irresponsibilities and extravagances in art of which he was, in all that we have learned of his breeding, life, and mental habit the implicit opponent—very much like his brother Sir John,—and of the opposite of which he was in his poetic and dramatic output, as I have minutely demonstrated, the professed exponent. In the broad daylight of philological science and modern historical criticism we should no longer regard Beaumont-and-Fletcher as an indivisible pair of Siamese twins, constructing with all four hands at once the fabric of fifty-three plays, or even of ten, and tongue-and-grooving the boards with such diabolic deftness that each artisan shall for ever be credited with the merits and defects of both. It is, at any rate, time that the world of scholars,—and then the world of readers may follow,—render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's.

As for Cæsar, we concede to him, John Fletcher, once for all, as he may be read in his independent work, by one even running, artistic virtues numerous and brilliant:[260] gaiety, wit, sprightly dialogue; mastery of stage-craft,—of all the devices of captivating plot and rattling 'business,' and all the conventions and theatrically legitimate clap-trap of dramatic types and humours, hallowed by success, adored by the actor, and darling to the public. We concede skill in the weaving of romantic complications, captivatingly cunning, and in the construction of situations irresistibly ludicrous; remarkable inventiveness of sensational adventure and spectacular scene and attractive setting; realism at every turn, and an ability to portray manners, varied and minute. Above all, we admire, and thankfully rejoice in, his smoothness of mechanism, his lightness of touch, his contrivance and manipulation of pure comedy—whether of manners or intrigue,—and in his world of characters, not only laughter-compelling, but endowed with humour themselves and sworn to the enthronement of the Spirit of Mirth.

On the other hand we read on every page of Fletcher's independent contribution to English drama what, perhaps, was not the man himself, but his dramaturgic pose—still for the world the essence of the Fletcher who ruled it from the stage:[261] we read his "shallowness of moral nature," his acquiescence in the ethical apathy and cynicism of the time; his indelicacy; his indifference to, if not irreverence for, the dramatic proprieties,—his subservience to popular taste and favour in an age when "the theatre had ceased to be the expression of patriotism and of the national life and had become the amusement of the idle gentleman and of such members of the lower classes as were not kept away by the Puritan disapproval of the stage." We witness with amusement but with self-reproach his presentation of characters superficial, and superficially refracting the evanescent vanities and heartless vices of Jacobean London, as if representative of actual and general life; his play of emotions feigned or sentimental; his violent contrasts, unnatural conversions, impossible revolutions of fortune; we discern the absence of subtle intuition, the failure to effect profound and lasting impression, the "lack of seriousness and of spiritual poise." We note, in the heroic-romantic dramas, improbability and extravagance; and, in the tragedies, such as Valentinian, a total disregard of the unity of interest,—just that muddling of motives of which the editor of The Nation has written,—and therefore the failure to realize unity of effect. There has been no moral sequence: the suspense has been distracted by the variety of emotions stirred. After the hours of strain to which the spectator has imaginatively subjected himself, the relief—what Aristotle calls the catharsis—is not forthcoming: because the intellect has not been clarified but fuddled; the will has not been braced; the feelings appropriate to tragedy—of pity and of fear—have not enjoyed an unthwarted, undiverted outflow. The faculties have been tantalized by manifold, deceptive, agonies of thirst. They should have been centred in one yearning, conducted to one clear spring of medicament, and purged by waters of truth, justice, and sympathy. From Fletcher's Valentinian and Bonduca despite the poetry and the onrush of the dramatic action there proceeds no calm, "all passion spent"; no beauty that is peace. And of the tragicomedies, The Loyall Subject and A Wife for a Month, this verdict may be even more readily pronounced.

Such are the excellences and defects of Fletcher. Let us give him all the glory of the former: but stay from burdening Beaumont, who had faults of his own, with responsibility for the latter,—with the unmorality or immorality or extravagant artistry of Fletcher when not associated with Beaumont. With the vices and virtues of Fletcher's rocket, bursting in stellar polychrome, Beaumont had nothing to do. To him justice can be accorded only if he, after these three centuries, be considered alone,—not for ever coupled with Fletcher, but spoken and thought of, and known, as dramatist, poet, man of far sounder fibre, and more virile marrow,—of superior insight, imagination, and art.

Next to Shakespeare, the most essentially poetic dramatist of the early Jacobean period was Francis Beaumont. He had not the learning of Jonson, nor the long career, nor the dictatorial position; nor did he attempt to rival him in comedy, or criticism. But his great poem, The Maides Tragedy is a thousand times more enthralling and poetic than Sejanus or Catiline. Shakespeare always excepted, the only author of tragedy in that day whose intuitions and lines of astounding splendour at all compete with, sometimes surpass, Beaumont's is Webster; but the fascination of his Duchess of Malfy is lurid, miasmatic, stupefying; that of The Maides Tragedy, breathless and heart-breaking.

In the drama of mingled motive, Jonson produced but one masterpiece that in poetry, valiancy of design, and portrayal of the ridiculous, equals Beaumont's A King and No King,—the Volpone; but that is not tragicomedy, and it drips venom. All that stands between A King and No King and artistic perfection is the dénouement. If the lovers had died, their struggle against temptation still continuing, their passion unfulfilled,—if in the moment of death, they had discovered that their union were no incest after all, Beaumont would have left behind him another consummate tragedy. As it is, to find a parallel in Jacobean literature, outside of Shakespeare, one must turn to Ford's 'Tis a Pity, She's a Whore. There again with poetic effulgence the problem of incest is dramatized; but how half-hearted the struggle, insincere the moral,—the poetry, purple and unconvincing!

In romantic comedy, between 1603 and 1625, others have produced plays which from the dramatic point of view equal Philaster,—Dekker, Heywood, Marston, Chapman, Middleton, and Rowley. Not all even of Shakespeare's romantic comedies come up to Philaster in literary or dramatic excellence; but only Shakespeare has written what surpasses it.

In the comedy that delineates humours, The Woman-Hater, as regards both poetry and technique, falls below several plays of Dekker, Chapman, Marston, Middleton, and Jonson, and below the earlier efforts of Shakespeare; but in characterization it is as good as some of Shakespeare's. There is no comic figure in Love's Labour's Lost, the Two Gentlemen of Verona, or the Comedy of Errors, that surpasses Beaumont's Hungry Courtier; and the humorous dialogue and the prose as a whole of The Woman-Hater are more natural, and more intelligible to the modern ear. With Shakespeare's later comedies that in any degree avail themselves of the 'humours' element, or with Jonson's masterpieces in this kind, The Woman-Hater, of course, can not be placed in comparison. But if for the nonce, we consider Beaumont's Knight of the Burning Pestle, merely in its 'humours' aspect, we must acknowledge that its characters are as clear-cut, as typical of the time and as provocative of laughter as those of Every Man in his Humour, which for all its historic significance most people nowadays read, or might read, with a yawn; and that it is less artificial in construction, more human in motive and character, more modern in mirth than The Silent Woman,—even though the object of its ridicule be now caviare to the general.

To set Beaumont's burlesque as a comedy of manners beside any of Shakespeare's comedies from 1594 down, would be futile, but of the early Shakespearian plays mentioned above none shakes more with fun than The Knight of the Burning Pestle, and not one gives us the flavour of London,—its citizens, their affectations and ideals, their reading, habits and life,—or of England, that the Knight affords in every scene. If Shakespeare instead of writing, say, the Comedy of Errors had written The Knight of the Burning Pestle, scholars would now be flooding us with Variorum editions of it, women's literary clubs would be likening him with fervour to Cervantes, and the public might be so well educated to its allusions and ideas that our Hebrew emperors of the theatrical world and arbiters of dramatic vogue would be "starring" it through the country to the delight of audiences that wisely make a show of understanding and enjoying everything that Shakespeare wrote. To what unrealized extent the fate of plays hangs upon the tradition of the green-room, the actor's whim, the manager's enterprise or ignorance, and luck, is material for an essay in itself. I am not asserting that The Knight of the Burning Pestle pretends to poetry, as do all of Shakespeare's plays; but that for chuckling and side-long mirth, and for manners and insight into the life of a rarely interesting period, it is fine comedy, while as burlesque it is equalled by few of the kind in our language and excelled by none.

It may be true that burlesques lose their flavour with the passing of their victims. But that does not hold true of the drama of problems perennially recurring and of emotions common to men of every age and clime. Of such drama are The Maides Tragedy and A King and No King. They are not antiquated. And I doubt whether they are stronger meat than some of Shakespeare's plays, all of which are more or less 'arranged' before they are placed upon the modern stage. As to strong meat, the difference between the Elizabethan taste and the present Georgian is more a matter of variety than of flavour. Our forefathers liked their venison in gobbets, for three hours at a stretch, and washed it down with a tun or two of sack. The theatre-going public to-day likes its game just as high, but it varies the meal with other dishes as highly seasoned,—and washes it down with a foreign-labeled little bottle of champagne. Our ancestors called a depraved woman by a brief bad name, and put it into poetry. We denominate her, if at all, by some euphemistic circumlocution, in prose; but we none the less throng the theatre to see Dalilah play, and we follow with apparent gusto her sinuous enticements upon the stage. We rejoice in problem-plays more erotic, and far more subtly perilous, than those which Shakespeare and Beaumont beheld. We are of an age of uplift, and meticulous reform. We would eliminate fornication and adultery; but not from our plays. They teem with—suggestion. There is nothing neurotic, nothing insidious in The Maides Tragedy and A King and No King. The grave of sin is wide open; and the spade that digged it stands in plain view, and is called a spade. On the whole I had rather have the Anglo-Saxon bluntness and gleaming poetry of the Beaumont than the whitewashed epigram and miching-mallecho of the twentieth-century play I saw last night. There is no reason why, properly cut and staged, Beaumont's greatest plays should not yield delight to-day. And as for the reader why should he not turn back to "the inexhaustible treasures" of entertainment offered by these plays. "They were," as says Mr. Paul Elmer More, "they were to the Elizabethan age what the novel is to ours, and I wonder how many readers three centuries from now will go back to our fiction for amusement as we to-day can go back to Beaumont and Fletcher."

I began this book by quoting from an historian of the drama of marked repute: "In the Argo of the Elizabethan drama—as it presents itself to the imagination of our own latter days—Shakespeare's is and must remain the commanding figure. Next to him sit the twin literary heroes, Beaumont and Fletcher—more or less vaguely supposed to be inseparable from one another in their works." And also from the last great poet of the Victorian age: "If a distinction must be made between the Dioscuri of English poetry, we must admit that Beaumont was the twin of heavenlier birth. Only as Pollux was on one side a demigod of diviner blood than Castor can it be said that on any side Beaumont was a poet of higher and purer genius than Fletcher; but so much must be allowed by all who have eyes and ears to discern in the fabric of their common work a distinction without a difference." If I have succeeded in showing that in the fabric of their common work the distinction between Beaumont and Fletcher is measured by a wide and clearly visible difference, I shall be happy. Others, to whom I have repeatedly expressed my indebtedness even when disagreeing with particulars of their criticism, have cleared the way. If in this book anything has been added to their services that may help the world to distinguish these two dramatists not only hand from hand but mind from mind, and to see Beaumont plain, as I see him in the long gallery of his contemporaries, I shall be happier still; but most amply rewarded if, for the future, it may be fittingly recognized not only that Beaumont was the twin of heavenlier birth—the Pollux, but why he was. Then, perhaps, the world of sagacious readers may turn from talking always of Beaumont-and-Fletcher, and protest occasionally and with well-informed reason in the name of Francis Beaumont alone.

FOOTNOTES:

APPENDIX

GENEALOGICAL TABLES

TABLE A.

PLANTAGENET, COMYN, BEAUMONT, AND VILLIERS.

The Earls of Buchan

Henry III of England, b. 1207; d. 1272 Agnes, heiress de Beaumont in Maine, m. Louis de Brienne Alexander Comyn

Henry, Earl of Lancaster Henry, 1 Baron de Beaumont, fl. 1309; d. 1341 == Alice Comyn

Alianor == John, 2 Baron de Beaumont, d. 1343

Henry, 3 Baron de Beaumont, fl. 1363; d. 1370

Thomas, Ld. Bardolph John, 4 Baron de Beaumont, fl. 1384; d. 1397

Joan, m. Sir Wm. Philip Henry, 5 Baron de Beaumont, d. 1422 Sir Thomas Beaumont, m. (1427) Philippa Maureward of Coleorton

Elizabeth == John, 6 Baron, and 1 Viscount Beaumont, d. 1460 John Beaumont, d. 1460 Sir John Villiers, d. 1506 Son (Henry Beaumont, d. Towton, 1461?)

William, 2 Visc. and Lord Bardolph, d. 1511, s. p. Joan, m. John, Lord Lovel Richard B., d. 1539 George B. William Villiers, d. 1558. Son (John, fl. 1485?)

Francis, Viscount Lovel, d. 1487 Joan, m. Sir Bryan Stapleton Nicholas Beaumont William John Beaumont of Grace-Dieu, fl. 1529-1554; m. Elizabeth Hastings

Present Barons de Beaumont Sir Henry, d. 1607 Sir Thomas, of Stoughton, d. 1614 Anthony, of Glenfield Francis, d. 1598

Sir Thomas, 1622, 1 Viscount Beaumont, of Swords Present Baronets of Coleorton Hall Maria m. Sir Geo. Villiers Henry John Francis Beaumont 1584-1616 Elizabeth

George, Duke of Buckingham 1592-1628

TABLE B

NEVIL, HASTINGS, BEAUMONT, TALBOT

Richard Nevil, Earl of Salisbury

Richard, Earl of Warwick Catherine Nevil == Sir William, 1 Baron Hastings, executed 1483

Isabel, m. Geo. Duke of Clarence, bro. of Edw. IV Anne, m. Richard III

Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, m. Richard de la Pole Edward, 2 Baron Hastings d. 1507 Sir William Hastings, fl. 1490 Anne m. Geo. Talbot, 4 Earl of Shrewsbury

Henry de la Pole George, 1 Earl of Huntingdon, c. 1488-1544, m. Anne, dau. of Henry Stafford, 2 Duke of Buckingham Anne, m. Thos. Stanley, 2 Earl Derby Elizabeth Hastings, m. c. 1540 Francis, 5 Earl of Shrewsbury

John Beaumont, of Grace-Dieu,

Katherine Pole == Francis, 2 Earl of Huntingdon 1514-1560 (Master of the Rolls, 1551, d. 1554) George, 6 Earl of Shrewsbury, d. 1590

Henry, 3 Earl of Huntingdon 1539-1595 George, 4 Earl, d. 1604 Walter, m. Joyce Roper (aunt of Mrs. Elizab. Vaux) Lady Mary Hastings Francis, c. 1541-1598, the Justice, m. Anne Pierrepoint Henry, d. s. p. Elizabeth, m. William, S Ld. Vaux of Harrowden Gilbert, 7 Earl of Shrewsbury, m. Mary Cavendish, sister-in-law of Anne Pierrepoint Beaumont

Francis Hastings, d. 1595 Sir Henry Hastings, m. Elizab. dau. of Thos., 1 Visc. Beaumont of Swords Sir Henry, d. 1605 Sir John, 1583-1627 Henry Vaux, d. c. 1590 Eleanor Brookesby (alias Mrs. Jennings) Anne Vaux (alias Mrs. Perkins) fl. 1605 George, John, Mary, Althea

Henry, 5 Earl, 1586-1643, m. Elizab. dau. of Ferdinando Stanley, Earl of Derby Catherine, m. Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield Edward, Captain under Sir Walter Raleigh, 1617 Sir John, d. 1644 Francis (a Jesuit) Sir Thomas

TABLE C.

BEAUMONT. PIERREPOINT. CAVENDISH, TALBOT.

Sir William Cavendish, m. 1541, Elizabeth Hardwick

Sir George Pierrepoint, d. 1564 (afterwards wife of George Talbot, 6 Earl of Shrewsbury)

Anne Pierrepoint, b. c. 1550; widow of Thos. Thorold of Marston; m. (2) Francis Beaumont, the Justice, d. 1598 Sir Henry Pierrepoint, 1546-1615 == Frances Cavendish Elizabeth, m. Charles Stuart, Earl of Lenox, bro. of Henry Darnley Henry, m. Grace Talbot, dau. of Geo. 6 Earl of Shrewsbury William, 1 Earl of Devonshire, in 1611 Charles, of Welbeck, d. 1617 Mary, m. Gilbert Talbot 7 Earl of Shrewsbury (d. 1616)

Henry b. 1581 John b. 1583 Francis b. 1584 Elizabeth b. 1588 Robert Pierrepoint, 1584-1643, 1 Earl of Kingston, m. Gertrude, g-dau. of Geo. Talbot, 6 Earl of Shrewsbury Lady Arabella Stuart, cousin of James I. William, 1588-1679, 2 Earl of Devonshire; m. Christiana Bruce of Kinloss; Ancestor of the present Dukes of Devonshire Sir Wm. Cavendish, 1592-1676. In 1665, 1 Duke of Newcastle

Henry Pierepoint, 1606-1680 2 Earl of Kingston, 1 Marq. Dorchester William Pierrepoint 1607-1678 Mary, m. Wm. Herbert, 3 Earl of Pembroke Althea, m. Thos. Howard, 2 Earl of Arundel

Robert, 3 Earl of Kingston; m. Elizab., dau. of Sir John Evelyn Present Dks of Norfolk

William, 4 Earl of Kingston Evelyn, 5 Earl of Kingston, 1690 Marq. Dorchester; Duke of Kingston, 1715

Mary (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu) 1689-1762 William, Viscount Newark

Frances, m. Philip Meadows

Charles, 1 Earl Manvers, of Holme-Pierrepoint

TABLE D

BEAUMONT, VAUX, TRESHAM, CATESBY

Nicholas, 1 Lord Vaux of Harrowden (1524) Sir Thomas Tresham, Grand Prior, Order of St. John, d. 1559 Anthony Catesby

John Beaumont, Grace-Dieu, m. Elizabeth Hastings Thomas, the poet, 2 Lord Vaux, b. 1511 John Tresham == Eleanor Sir Robert Throckmorton

Francis Beaumont, d. 1598 Elizabeth Beaumont == William, 3 Lord Vaux d. 1595 == Mary Tresham Sir Thomas Tresham d. 1605 == dau. dau. m. Sir Wm. Catesby

John, 1583-1627 Francis, 1584-1616 Henry Eleanor, m. Edward Brookesby; fl. 1605 Anne Vaux (alias Mrs. Perkins), fl. 1605 Ambrose John, 1 Ld. Teynham Frances Tresham, the conspirator, d. 1605 Elizabeth m. Ld. Monteagle, bro. of Mrs. Abington Frances, m. Ld. Stourton Robert Catesby, the conspirator, d. 1605

George Vaux, d. 1594, m. Elizabeth Roper the Mrs. (Elizabeth) Vaux of the Gunpowder Plot. Joyce, m. Walter Hastings

Edward, 4 Ld. Vaux c. 1591-1661 Katherine, m. Henry Nevill, 1 Ld. Abergavenny Mary, ancestress of the present Lord Vaux Sir Henry Hastings, m. Elizabeth Beaumont of Coleorton

TABLE E

FLETCHER, BAKER, SACKVILLE

Richard Fletcher, Vicar of Cranbrooke, fl. 1555-1574 John Giffard, of Weston-under-Edge Sir John Baker, of Sissinghurst, c. 1490-1558

Dr. Giles, the diplomat; c. 1549-1611 Richard, Bp. of London, m. d. 1596; m. (1) Elizabeth Holland == (2) Maria, widow of == Sir Richard Baker, d. 1594 Cicely, m. Richard Sackville, Ld. Buckhurst, 1 Earl of Dorset; (1536-1608) Mary, m. John Tufton, of Hothfield, who d. 1567

Phineas, 1582-1650 Giles, c. 1588-1623 John Fletcher, the dramatist, 1579-1625 no children Robert Sackville, 2 Earl of Dorset, d. 1609 Sir John Tufton, Bart., d. 1624

Grisogone m. c. 1595, Sir Henry Lennard (in 1611, 12 Lord Dacre, of Chevening and Knole) Sir Richard Baker Cicely Blunt Anne Tufton, m. Francis Tresham, who d. 1605 Nicholas, 1 Earl of Thanet, in 1629

Richard, 3 Earl of Dorset, c. 1599-1624 Edward, 4 Earl of Dorset, d. 1652

INDEX

INDEX

(The page-numbers refer to the foot-notes as well as to the main body of the text.)

Abington, Mrs., the actress, 377

Abington (Habington), Mrs., sister of Lord Monteagle, 57

Abuses Stript and Whipt, 135

actors, lists preceding plays, 229

Ad Comitissam Rutlundiae, 173

Addison, Joseph, 188

Aeschylus, 200

afterthought-parentheses, 265, 350

Alchemist, The, 110, 325, 334, 336, 343

Alden, R. M., editions of The Knight and A King and No King, 110, 117, 234, 252, 258, 287, 300, 311, 312, 318, 361

alliteration, 259

All's Well that Ends Well, 79, 115, 390, 391, 392, 393

Amadis de Gaule, 313, 322, 327

Amends for Ladies, 302, 304, 334

Anatomy of Melancholy, The, 186

Anton, Robert, 328

Antony and Cleopatra, 75, 79, 116, 283, 389

Apocrypha, The, 369

apothegms, 289

Arcadia, 106, 108, 111, 133, 158, 159

Ariosto, 34

Aristophanes, 197, 230

Aronstein, P., 407

Ascham, Roger, 23

Ashby-de-la-Zouch, 10, 23, et passim

Aston, Sir Walter, 166, 167

Astrée, D'Urfé, 89-90, 274

'Astrophel,' 166

As You Like It, 159, 345, 390, 392

Aubrey, John, Brief Lives, ed., A. Clark, 32, 95, 137, 153, 219

Bacon, Sir Francis, 35, 36, 37, 125f., 129, 146, et passim

Bacon, Sir Nicholas, and Anthony, 35, 64, 68

Baker, Sir John of Sissinghurst, Kent, 24, 65ff.; Cicely, Countess of Dorset, 66, 69, 70; Cicely, Lady Blunt, 69, 70; Grisogone, Lady Dacre, 69, 70, 178

Baker family, 71, 137

Baker, Sir Richard, 65, 66

Baker, Richard, the historian, 67, 70

Bancroft, Bishop, 64, 216

Bancroft, Thomas, Two Bookes of Epigrammes and Epitaphs, 1639, 20

Bandello, Thomas, 392

Banke-Side, 95-96, 114, 170

Barkstead, William, 335

Barrons Wars, the, 42

Basse, William, 40, 134, 199, 200

Battle of Bosworth Field, The, 184, (22)

Baudouin, Le Curieux Impertinent, 332

Beau Manor, 10; "Beaumanoir," 12

Beaumont and Fletcher, portraits of, 190-192, 217-219; collaboration of (in general), 3-9, 223-416; the problem, 225-233; critical apparatus, 233-235; folios, 225-229, 236-239; quartos, 239-241, and under individual plays; editions, 217, 234, 244, 271, 318, 324, 338, 349, 359, 361, 368, 371, 377; delimitation of the field, 236-242; versification, 243-260; diction of Fletcher, 260-277, of Beaumont, 281-290; mental habit of Fletcher, 277-280, of Beaumont, 281-290; authorship of Foure Playes, Love's Cure, The Captaine, 300-306; of the Woman-Hater, 73, 307; of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, 80, 310; of The Coxcombe, 337; of Philaster, 345; of The Maides Tragedy, 349; of Cupid's Revenge, 359; of A King and No King, 361; of the Scornful Ladie, 374; influence upon Shakespeare (?) 386, upon the drama, 396; Beaumont and Fletcher compared, 399-411

Beaumont, Anthony, 160

Beaumont, Barons and Viscounts de, 10-12

Beaumont's diction, 281ff.

Beaumont, Elizabeth, Lady Vaux, 15, 46

Beaumont, Elizabeth, sister of the dramatist, Mrs. Seyliard, 43, 45, 46, 70, 159, 176, 187

Beaumont, Elizabeth, daughter of the dramatist, 180, 187

Beaumont, Frances, posthumous daughter of the dramatist, 187ff.

Beaumont, Francis, the dramatist: his family, early years in Grace-Dieu, Oxford, 10ff.; at the Inns of Court, earliest poems, etc., 29ff.; the Vaux cousins and the Gunpowder Plot, 46ff.; some early plays of, 72ff.; period of partnership with Fletcher, 95ff.; relations with Shakespeare, Jonson, and others in the theatrical world, 114ff., 124ff., 145ff.; The Masque of the Inner Temple, 124-144; the Pastoralists, and other contemporaries at the Inns of Court, 131-144; an intersecting circle of jovial sort, 145-149; the Countess of Rutland (Elizabeth Sidney), 150ff.; his marriage, death, surviving family, 172ff.; personality and contemporary reputation, portraits, 190ff.; versification, 246ff., 281ff.; stock words, phrases, and figures, 282ff.; lines of Inevitable Poetry, 287; his mental habit, 291ff.; his dramatic art, adaptation, etc., 378ff.; Did the Beaumont "romance" influence Shakespeare? 386ff.; not a leader in decadence, 396-401; Beaumont compared with Fletcher, 401-411; and with other dramatists, 411-415

Beaumont, Francis, his Poems, 39, 40, 150ff., 172-174, 183, 230, 251, 292, 295, 298, 330

Beaumont, Francis, the Justice, father of the dramatist, 15-19, 21, 24, 29

Beaumont, Sir Henry, brother of the dramatist, 16, 18, 29, 44, 45, 99

Beaumont, Sir Henry, of Coleorton, 19, 160

Beaumont, Sir John, brother of the dramatist, 16, 18, 21, 22, 25, 26, 29, 38-40, 42-45, 59-61, 116, 132, 146, 150, 154, 159, 162-164, 166, 180, 182, 184-186, 195

Beaumont, John, Master of the Rolls, 12-14, 59-60

Beaumont, Maria, Lady Villiers, Countess of Buckingham, 19, 160-163

Beaumont, Sir Thomas, 45, 162

Beaumont's versification, 246ff.

Beeston's Players, 314

Beggers Bush, The, 98, 236, 237, 378

Bell, H. N., 14

Bellman of London, The, 98

Belvoir Castle, 154

Berkenhead, John, 208

Betterton, Thomas, 366

Biographia Dramatica, The, 233

Birch, Mem. of Q. Elizabeth, 68

Blackfriars Theatre, the, 80, 81, 85, 89, 96, 97, 102, 103, 104, 105, 114, 119, 122, 136, 179, 207, 314, 316, 317, 319, 342, 343, 368, 370, 373

Blackwell's Treatise on Equivocation, 53

Blaiklock, Lawrence, 39, 40, 150, 165, 295

Blue Boar Inn, 22

Boas, F. S., ed. of Philaster, 349

Boccaccio, 101, 334, 392

Bolton, Edmund, 185, 194

Bond, R. Warwick, 367, 368, 371, 374; ed. of The Scornful Ladie, 377

Bonduca, 236, 238, 278, 378, 410

Bosworth, battle of, 22, (184)

bouleversements, 364

Boyle, R., 234, 252, 254, 300, 302, 308, 374

Bread-street, 99, 113, 203

Brett, Cyril, Drayton's Minor Poems, 191

Bridal, The, 359

Britain's Ida, Phineas Fletcher, 64

Britannia's Pastorals, 132-144

Broadgates, 29

Brome, Richard, 92, 168, 212, 213

Brooke, Christopher, 38, 119, 136, 145, 147-149

Brookesby, Bartholomew, 48, 57; Edward, 47

Browne, William, 38, 40, 131-144, 153, 202, 214

Browning, Robert, 183, 246

Brydges, Egerton, 233

Buc, Sir George, 349

Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, 19, 60, 159-164, 185

Bullen, A. H., art. John Fletcher (D. N. B); gen. editor, Variorum Beaumont and Fletcher, 203, 234, 271, 272, 312, et passim

Burbadge, Cuthbert, 103, 342, 343

Burbadge, Richard, 102, 103, 114, 118, 122, 136, 154, 316, 317, 358

Burre, Walter, 81, 319, 320, 322, 323

Burton, William, 16, 186

Bury-Fair, 96, 220

Bussy D'Ambois, 399

Butler, James, Duke of Ormonde, 188

cadences, conversational and lyrical, 247

caesurae, 244ff.

Cambridge English Classics, edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, 244, 263-270, et passim

Camden, William, 137, 149, 178, 182

Camden Miscellany, The, 66

Campion, Father, 46

Capricious Lady, The, 377

Captaine, The, 98, 111, 176, 236, 240, 306, 378, 383

Cardenio or Cardenna, 111, 119

Carey, Giles, 114, 122, 336

Carleton, Mistris, 125

Carr (Ker) Robert, Earl of Somerset, 74, 75, 179, 372

Cartwright, William, 209, 232

Casaubon, Isaac, 182

Catesby, Robert, 49, 50-53, 57, 58

Catholics, and the "Catholic Cousins" of Beaumont, 46ff., 179

Catiline, 120, 154, 411

Cavendish, Henry, 17, 24

Cavendishes, the, 16, 17, 38, 165

Cavendish, Sir William, first Duke of Newcastle, 165

Centurie of Praise, 200

Cervantes, see Don Quixote

Challoner, Missionary Priests, 16

Chalmers, A., 185, 233

Chamberlain, John, 125, 126, 155f.

Chancery, Inns of, 29, 30, et passim; and see Inns of Court

Chances, The, 64, 211, 230, 236, 243, 244, 263, 267, 268, 279, 403

Chapel Players, the, 32

Chapman, George, 85, 86, 87, 98, 102, 116, 122, 124, 125, 132ff., 135, 142, 154, 182, 189, 194, 198, 200, 202, 203, 214, 317, 328, 329, 391, 396, 399, 412

Charles I, 185, et passim

Charles II, 358

Charles, Duke of Byron, The Tragedie of, 317

Charles, Prince of Wales, 371, 372

Charnwood Forest, 10, 11, 13, 18, 20, 43, 151, 159

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 37

Chaucer, Speght's, 24, 178

Cheapside, 99, 114, et passim

Child, H. H., 43

"chorizontes," the, 9

Christ's Victorie, Giles Fletcher, 64

Cicely Tufton, see Rutland

Cinthio, 392

Clarendon, Lord, 169

Clark, Andrew, 147, 148, 192

Cleves wars, the, 368-370, 372, 373

Clifford, Anne, Countess of Dorset, of Pembroke and Montgomery, 192

Clifford's Inn, 131

Clifton, Sir Gervase, 166

Clifton, Lady Penelope, 165f., 174, 202

Cockayne, Sir Aston, 168, 219, 226, 228, 233, 377

Coke, Sir Edward, 52, 58, 148, 162

Coleorton, 12, 19, 45, 160, et passim

Coleridge, S. T., 5, 397

Collier, J. P., 102, 220, 233

Collins, Peerage of England, 14, 17, 50, et passim

Comedy of Errors, A, 35, 393, 412, 413

Commendatory Verses, 94, 198, 229, 230, et passim

Concerning the True Forms of English Poetry, 184

Condell, Henry, 103, 120, 122, 343, 402

Congreve, William, 188

Convivium Philosophicum, 145-149, 203

Conyoke or Connock, 149

Cook, Alexander, 122

Cooke, W., 377

Coke, Sir Edward, 52, 58

Corbet, Bishop, 181, 195

Coriolanus, 389

Coronation, The, 229, 237

Coryate, Tom, 99, 149

Cotton, Charles, the elder, 98, 168-170, 226-228

couplet, 'heroic,' 252

Cowley, Abraham, 184

Coxcombe, The, 8, 87, 96-101, 103, 106, 111, 202, 208, 228, 236, 240, 273, 286, 287, 294, 296, 298, 311, 332-341, 370, 378, 383, 396, 400

Cranefield, Arthur, 149

Critics of Beaumont and Fletcher, 234

Croke, Sir John, Charles, and Unton, 138

Cromwell, Oliver, 74, 138, 170

Crowne of Thornes, The, 184

Cunliffe, J. W., 35, 37

Cupid's Revenge, 8, 111-112, 159, 237, 239, 240, 283, 285, 288, 294, 299, 305, 314, 359ff., 370, 378, 381, 384, 386, 387, 388, 389, 396, 407

Curious Impertinent, The, El Curioso Impertinente, Le Curieux Impertinent, 332, 334, 335

Custome of the Countrey, The, 236

Cymbeline, 344, 345, 386-395

Cynthia's Revels, 85, 96

Cyropædeia, 109

Daborne, Robert, 122, 239, 379, 407

Damon and Pythias, 32

Daniel, Joseph, 149

Daniel, P. A., 349, 359

Daniel, Samuel, 142, 194

Darley, G., Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, 25, 181, 233

D'Avenant, William, 82, 307, 308, 350

Davies, John, of Hereford, 105, 133, 142, 145, 146, 209, 342, 343, 346, 366

Day, John, 102, 122, 159, 314, 325

Dekker, John, 98, 102, 122, 211, 412

Denham, Sir John, 184

Description of Elizium, Drayton, 191

Devereux, Lady Penelope, 166

diction, 260ff., 275f., 281ff., and see Beaumont and Fletcher

Diego Sarmiento, Don, Count Gondomar, 371ff.

Digby, Sir Everard, 48, 50, 52, 53, 57

Discourse of the English Stage, 386

disputed plays, 300ff.

Distrest Mother, The, 186

Divine Poems, Drayton, 191

Dolce, Ludovico, Giocasta, 35

Don Diego, see Sarmiento de Acuña

Donne, John, 38, 98, 148, 149, 150, 169

Don Quixote, relation to The Knight of the Burning Pestle, esp. 321-331; also 80, 120, 320, 332f., 413

'Doridon,' 140ff.

Douay, 369

Douthwaite, W. R., Gray's Inn, etc., 30ff.

Double Marriage, The, 6, 236

Drake, Sir Francis, 37, 64, 138, 216

Dramatic Miscellany, Davies, 366

Drayton, Michael, 21, 26, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 72, 98, 116, 122, 132ff., 137, 145, 153, 182, 185, 187, 191, 192, 194, 201, 202, 209

Drummond, William, of Hawthornden, 84, 90, 152, 193, 194, 202, 230

Dryden, John, 71, 72, 121, 188, 233, 358, 365

Duchess of Malfi, The, 411

Dugdale, G., 131

Duke, H. E., Gray's Inn, 34ff.

Duke of Milan, The, 136

Duke of York, The, (Prince Charles's) Players, 335, 336

D'Urfé, Marquis, 89-90, 274

Dutch Courtezan, The, 399

Dyce, Alexander, Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, 16, 19, 96, 195, 233, et passim

Earle, John, Bishop, 156, 196-198, 209, 230, 241, 346, 385

Eastward Hoe, 73, 79, 328

Editions, also Folios and Quartos, see Beaumont and Fletcher

Edwardes, Richard, 32

Edwards, Jonathan, 25

Eglogs, a revision of Idea, the Shepheard's Garland, Drayton, 42, 187

Ekesildena, Catherine, 186

Elder Brother, The, 237, 272

Elegies, Brooke, 136

(Certayn) Elegies—with Satyres and Epigrames, Fitzgeffrey, 202

Elegy on the Death of the Virtuous Lady Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland, 156, 251

Elements of Armories, Bolton, 195

Elizabeth Beaumont Seyliard, see Beaumont, Elizabeth

Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland, see Sidney, Elizabeth

Elizabeth, Princess, 33, 52, 110, 124, 139, 149

Elizabeth, Queen, 67

Elton, Oliver, Michael Drayton, 43, 167, 192

Endimion and Phoebe, 41

end-stopped lines, 243ff.

English Palmerin, see Palmerin

Epicoene, 103, 120, 322, 324, 335, 369, 413

Epigrams, Jonson, 121, 195, 203

Epistle Dedicatorie, Shelton, 321, 323

Epistle to Henery Reynolds, Drayton, 201

Epithalamium, Wither, 135

Equivocation, Blackwell's treatise, 53

Essay of Dramatick Poesie, Dryden, 233, 358

Ethelwolf, oder der König Kein König, 367

Euripides, 35, 200, 207

Evans, Henry, 80, 102, 317, 342

Evelyn, John, letter to Pepys, 218

Every Man in his Humour, 92, 413

Every Man out of his Humour, 32, 327

Examination of his Mistris' Perfections, 172-174

extra syllables, 243

Faire Maide of the Inne, The, 236, 238, 378

Faithful Friends, The, 237, 378

Faithfull Shepheardesse, The, 21, 65, 73, 83-88, 90, 93, 139, 166, 171, 216, 231, 237, 240, 247, 249, 252, 261, 263, 264, 265, 266, 270, 277, 280, 302, 304

False One, The, 236

(Of The) Famous Voyage, 203

Farquhar, George, 188

Fauchet, Thierry, 109

Fawkes, Guy, 49, 52, 56

feet, trisyllabic, 243

Fellows and Followers of Shakespeare, The, Gayley, 233, et passim; see Gayley

Fenner, Sir John, 130

Ferrar, William, 138

Fidele and Fortunio, 392

Field, Nathaniel, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 114, 122, 211, 214, 239, 251, 272, 300, 302, 303, 304, 305, 335, 342, 343, 360, 379, 407

Fifty Comedies and Tragedies, 288

Fitzgeffrey, Henry, Elegies, Satires, and Epigrams, 202

Fleay, F. G., Hist. Stage, Chron. Engl. Drama, etc., 4, 8, 41, 74, 84, 233, 234, 238, 252, 300, 303, 308, 316, 318 et passim

Flecknoe, Richard, 386, 397

Fletcher, John, ("I. F.") 40, 195; his family, his youth, 62ff.; some early plays of, 82ff.; period of partnership with Beaumont, 95ff.; relations with Shakespeare, Jonson, etc., 114ff., 124ff., 145ff.; later years, portraits, 211ff.; his versification, 243ff.; his diction, 260ff.; stock words, phrases, and figures, 270ff.; his mental habit, 277ff.; the Fletcher of the joint-plays, 383ff.; his dramatic art, 383-385, 399-411

Fletcher, criteria, 243ff.; 260ff.; see Beaumont and Fletcher, diction, verse, Ye-test, etc.

Fletcher, Richard, Bishop, 62-68

Fletcher, Dr. Giles, 64, 68; Giles, the younger, 64

Fletcher, Phineas, 64

'Fletcherian Syndicate, the,' 379, 407

Flowers, The, 36, 125

Folio, First, Beaumont and Fletcher's Comedies and Tragedies, 1647, (35 Plays), 236

Folio, Second, Fifty Comedies and Tragedies, 1679 (53 Plays), 237

Ford, John, 211, 412

Forrest, The, Jonson, 152

Fortescue, George, 186

Foure Playes, or Morall Representations, in One, (see also Triumphs), 87, 236, 240, 251, 272, 301-305, 378, 386, 388, 389

Foure Prentises, The, 204, 325

Frederick, the Elector Palatine, 33, 36, 110, 124

Fuller, Thomas, Worthies, 67, 108

Gardiner, Robert, 337

Gardiner, S. R. Hist. Engl., and Prince Charles, 44, 49, 74, 372ff., et passim

Gardiner, Thomas, 138

Garnet, Father Henry, 47, 51-54, 56-59

Garrick, David, 366

Gascoigne, George, Supposes, 34, 35, 37

Gayley, C. M., The Fellows and Followers of Shakespeare, Part Two, in Rep. Eng. Com., Vol. III, now in press, 233, 300, 385, 408, 409, et passim

Gentleman Usher, The, 391, 399

Gerard, Father John, 47-56, 165

Ghost of Richard III, Brooke, 136

Giffard, Maria, Lady Baker, Mrs. Fletcher, Lady Thornhurst, 65-71

Gilbert, Adrian, 156

Giocasta, Ludovico Dolce, 35

Gismond of Salerne, 37

Globe Theatre, the, 79, 97, 103, 105, 114, 118, 120, 122, 144, 179, 280

Glover, A, and Waller, A. R., editors of Camb. Engl. Class., Beaumont and Fletcher, 244, 263-270, et passim

Golden Remains, The, 150

Goodere, Sir Henry, 43, 148; Francis, Anne, 43

Goodwin, Gordon, 134, 139

Gorboduc, 37, 70

Grace-Dieu, 13, 17, 18, 20, 22, 45, 61, 72, 95, 98, 151, 159, 391, et passim

Gray's Inn, 33, 34, 35, 37, 124, 125, 130f.

Greene, Robert, Menaphon and Pandosto, 26, 159, 387, 392

Greenstreet Papers, The, 103, 119, 136, 319

Greg, W. W., 83, 159, 238, 272

Grey Friars, at Leicester, 22

Grey, Lady Jane, 23, 63, 66

Grosart, A. B., art. in D. N. B., Sir John Beaumont's Poems, 16, 185, 187, 195, et passim

Gunpowder Plot, the, 46-61, 73, 138, 164

Gurlin, Nat., 202

Guskar, H., 88

Gwynn, Nell, 366

Hakluyt, Richard, 182

Halliwell-Phillipps, J. O., 342

hamartia, 354, 358

Hamlet, 79, 116, 117, 286, 389

Harcourt, the Rt. Hon. Lewis, 190

Harleian MS. of Fletcher, 195

Harington, Sir John, 63, 67

Harris, John, 212

Hasted, Hist. Kent, 50, 69, 71, 176, et passim

Hastings, Edward, second Lord, 14; Elizabeth (grandmother of the dramatist), 13, 14; Sir Henry, 48, 165; Lady Mary, 14; William, first Lord, 14, 23; Sir William, 14

Hastings, Earls of Huntingdon: George, first Earl, 13, 14; Francis, second Earl, 13-15, 23, 24, 46; Henry, third Earl, 14, 24; George, fourth Earl, 48; Henry, fifth Earl, 38, 164, 165

Hatcher, O. L., John Fletcher, A Study in Dramatic Method, 231, 232, 233, 300, 408, 409, et passim; in Anglia, 89

Hawkins, Sir Thomas, 138, 185

Hele, Lewis, 130

Heming, John, 103, 118, 120, 136, 342, 343

Hemings, John, see Heming

Henry IV, 110, 115

Henry VIII, 120, 179

Herbert, Mary, Countess of Pembroke, 42

Herbert, William, third Earl of Pembroke, 133, 153

Herford, C. H., 287

Herodotus, 109

Heroical Adventures of the Knight of the Sea, 328

Herrick, Robert, 169, 170, 350, 361

Herring, Joan, 220

Hesperides, Herrick, 169, 170

Heyward, Edward, 137

Heywood, Thomas, 122, 204, 325, 331, 399, 412

Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells, The, 204

Hill, H. W., 159

Hill, Nicholas, 203

Hills, G., 337

Histoire de Celidée, Thamyre, et Calidon, 89

Historical Portraits (Oxford), 190, 234ff.

Histriomastix, 397

History of Cardenio, by Fletcher and Shakespeare, 119

Hodgets, John, 40

Holinshed, 392

Holland, Aaron, 318

Holland, Elizabeth, 62, 66

Holland, Hugh, 98, 148, 149

Holme-Pierrepoint, 16, 17

(Upon an) Honest Man's Fortune, 8, 144, 176, 215, 220, 236, 238, 280, 378

Hoskins, John, his Convivium Philosophicum, 146ff., 149, 203

Howard, Henry, 349, 361

Howard of Walden, Lord, 321

Howe, Josias, 209

Hughes, Thomas, Misfortunes of Arthur, 35

Humorous Lieutenant, The, 236, 243, 265, 268, 278, 279, 401-403

Huntingdon, see Hastings

hyperbole, 285

Hypercritica, Bolton, 194

Idea, the Shepheard's Garland, Eglogs, Drayton, 42

If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, 331

Ile of Guls, 159

Imogen, Innogen, 392

Inderwick, F. A., Calendar of Inner Temple Records, 30, 131, et passim

In Laudem Authoris, 40, 134

Inner Temple, 18, 29, 33, 37, 99, 124ff., 129, 131, 137, 138, 139, 162

Inner Temple Records, 29-31, 131, 139, et passim

Inns of Court and Chancery, 29, 32, 37, 118, 135, 145, et passim

Insatiate Countess, The, 399

Island Princesse, The, 236, 278

Isley, Ursula, wife of the dramatist, 175-178, 180, 187

Isleys, the, 175-177, 186

iteration, 259

James I, Progress of 1603, 44, 60, 74, 77, 91, 161, 162, 164, 165, 372

joint-plays, 252ff., 400ff., etc.

Jones, Inigo, 125, 145, 147, 148

Jonson, Ben, 3, 5, 9, 24, 32, 52, 72, 82, 84, 85, 86, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 110, 111, 114ff., 122, 124, 132ff., 136, 137, 142, 145, 148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 154, 157, 169, 170, 174, 182, 185, 191, 193, 199, 200, 201, 205, 209, 211, 213, 214, 231, 272, 322, 327, 328, 329, 334, 335, 336, 342, 343, 369, 411, 412

Jovius, Paulus, 78

Juby, Edward, 114

Julius Caesar, 108, 110

Ker (Carr) Robert, Earl of Somerset, 74, 75, 179, 372

Keysar, Robert, 80, 81, 315, 318, 320, 323

Kinwelmersh, Francis, 35

King, Edward, Milton's 'Lycidas,' 24

King and No King, A, 7, 8, 37, 92, 109-110, 112, 121, 145, 146, 174, 205, 237, 239, 241, 252, 255, 258, 259, 273, 275, 288, 293, 294, 307, 308, 311, 346, 361-367, 378, 381, 382, 384, 386-396, 400, 401, 411, 414, 415

King Lear, 159, 283

King's Players, the, 38, 97, 102, 103, 105, 109, 110, 114, 119, 120, 122, 124, 136, 211, 306, 315, 316, 343, 345, 349, 360

King's Bench, 138

Kirkham, Edward, 118, 136

Knight of Malta, The, 211, 236, 238, 239, 378

Knight of the Burning Pestle, The, 7, 41, 73, 79-81, 88, 93, 100, 112, 115, 171, 204, 237, 240, 273, 285, 310-332, 378, 382, 385, 407, 413, 414

Knight of the Burning Sword, The, 325

Knight of the Sunne and His Brother Rosicleer, The, 327

Knole Park, Kent, 70, 187, et passim

Knowles, Sheridan, 359

Koeppel, E., 117

Kyd, Thomas, 26, 200, 204, 285, 286, 313

Lady Elizabeth's Players, 314

Lamb, Charles, 233, 397

Langbaine, G., 233, 332

Lansdowne MS., 200

Lawes of Candy, The, 236, 238, 378

Leland, John, Itinerary, 10, 11, 154, 160, et passim

Lennard, Sir Henry, twelfth Lord Dacre, 70, 71, 178

Leonhardt, B., 117

Letter to Ben Jonson, 97-101, 193, 251, 337

Lincoln's Inn, 32, 124f., 135, 136, 145, 148

Lisle, Sir George, 204, 231, 361

Little French Lawyer, The, 236

Lodge, Thomas, 159, 392

Love Lies a-Bleeding, 103, etc., see Philaster

Lovell, John, Lord, 22, 23

Lovers Progresse, The, 236

Loves Cure, 236, 240, 305, 378

Love's Labour's Lost, 392, 412

Loves Pilgrimage, 236, 237, 238, 378

Lowin, John, 122, 214, 402

Loyall Subject, The, 211, 236, 243, 268, 278, 410

Luce, Morton, 393

Lyly, John, 26, 200

Macaulay, G. C., Francis Beaumont, a Critical Study; Beaumont and Fletcher in Camb. Hist. Eng. Lit. 89, 108, 117, 226, 234, 252, 265, 287, 300, 302, 305, 308, 312, 337, 374, 409

Macbeth, 286

Macready, W. C., 359

Mad Lover, The, 236, 279

Maide in the Mill, The, 236

Maides Tragedy, The, 6, 7, 107-109, 117, 121, 124, 159, 230, 232, 234, 237, 239, 240, 241, 252, 255, 258, 273, 285, 288, 289, 292, 308, 346, 349-359, 361, 378, 381, 382, 384, 386-395, 398, 400, 405, 407, 411, 414, 415

Malcontent, The, 399

Malone, Edmund, 233

Manners, Lady Katharine (Villiers), Duchess of Buckingham, 159, 162, 163

Manners, Roger, see Rutland

Manningham, John, 32

Manverses, the, 16-18

Manwood, Thomas, 136

Mari coccu, battu et content, Le, 334

Markham, Lady, 165

Marlowe, Christopher, 33, 194, 200, 201, 204, 285, 286, 313, 326, 362

Marston, John, 73, 88, 102, 122, 328, 329, 396, 399, 412

Martin, Richard, 99, 149

Mary, Queen of Scots, 24, 65, 179

Masque of the Inner Temple, The, 119, 124-139, 145, 208, 225, 228, 236, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 259, 281, 385

Masque of Flowers, see Flowers

Masque of Ulysses and Circe, The, 133

Massinger, Philip, 6, 8, 98, 119, 122, 136, 168, 169, 201, 203, 211, 214, 219, 226, 228, 234, 241, 265, 272, 300, 305, 306, 326, 340, 379, 400, 407; authorities upon his style, 300

Mayne, Jasper, 361

McKerrow, R. B., 271, 272

Measure for Measure, 391, 392, 393

Menaechmus, 35

Menaphon, 159

Merchant Taylors' School, 86

Mermaid Tavern, the, 97-99, 114, 145, 148, 149, 193, 203

Merry Wives, The, 110

Metamorphosis of Tobacco, 38

Microcosmographie, 198

Middle Temple, the, 118, 124f., 138

Middleton, Thomas, 102, 122, 201, 211, 239, 272, 305, 324, 399, 407, 412

Midsummer-Night's Dream, A, 392

Milner, J. D., 218

Mirror for Magistrates, The, 70

Mirror of Knighthood, The, 327, 329

'Mirtilla', 43, 45, 187

Miseries of Enforced Marriage, The, 324

Misfortunes of Arthur, The, 35

Mitre Inn, The, 94, 145, 146

Monsieur Thomas, 73, 84, 88-94, 168, 237, 243, 245, 247, 263, 383

Montaigne, 228

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 25

Monteagle, Lord, 50, 51, 57

Montemayor, 392

Moore, Sir Thomas, 194

More, Paul Elmer, 272f., 355f., 397ff., 415

Morris, John, Life of Father Gerard, 46-59 et passim

Mosely, Humphrey, The Stationer to the Readers, 130, 206, 216, 217

Morte d'Arthur, 327

Mountjoy, Christopher, 114, 118

Moyses in a Map of his Miracles, 42

Mucedorus, 331

Much Ado About Nothing, 110, 344, 390, 392

Mulcaster, Richard, 86, 318

Munday, Anthony, 327

Murch, H. S., ed. of The Knight, 324, 330

Murray, J. T., Eng. Dram. Comp., 104, 105, 315, 368

Muses Elizium, 44, 187, 191

Narrative of Father Gerard, 47, 54

Nashe, Thomas, 154, 204

Nevill, Sir Henry, the elder, 145-148, 153; the younger, 145, 146

Nice Valour, The, 97, 98, 216, 236, 238, 378

Nichols, J., Collections, Hist. Leicestershire, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, Progresses of James I, 12, 13, 19, 65, 131, 186, et passim

Nimphalls, Drayton, 187, 191

Night Walker, The, 237

Noble Gentleman, The, 236, 238, 378

Northumbrian MS. of Bacon, 146

Norton, Thomas, Gorboduc, 37

oaths, 275, 286

Oath of Allegiance, The, 60, 164

Obstinate Lady, The, 377

Ode to Sir William Skipworth, 215

Oldfield, Mrs., 377

Old Wives Tale, The, 326

Oliphant, E. H., 83, 117, 234, 241, 252, 270, 272, 281, 300, 302, 304, 309, 312, 337, 338, 340, 374

On the Tombs in Westminster, 183

optatives, 275, 286

Orlando Furioso, 334

Ostler (Osteler, Ostler, Osler), Wm., 122, 342, 343

Othello, 79, 110

Overbury, Sir Thomas, 27, 153, 179

Ovid, 38, 41, 142

Palamon and Arcite, 32

'Palmeo', 43, 187

Palmerin de Oliva, Palmerin of England, 313, 325, 327, 329

Pandosto, 159, 392

Parisitaster, 88

Pastoralists, the, 124, 132-144, 145

Pastorals, Ambrose Philips, 186

Paul's Players, the, 73, 83, 102, 315, 316, 318

Peele, George, 326, 329

Pepys, Samuel, 218, 358, 366

Percy, Thomas, 49-52

Pericles, 118, 344, 345, 387, 391, 392, 393, 394

Persons, Father, 46, 47

Pettus, Sir John, 231

Philaster, 6, 7, 72, 88, 92, 96, 97, 101-107, 109, 116, 121, 159, 191, 230, 237, 239, 240, 241, 252, 253, 258, 259, 260, 261, 273, 285, 294, 297, 298, 302, 307, 308, 311, 312, 329, 337, 341-349, 361, 378, 381, 382, 384, 386-396, 412, et passim.

Philip III of Spain, 371, 372

Philips, Sir Ambrose, 186

Phillipps de Lisles, the present, 186

Phillipps, J. O. Halliwell, 342

Phillips, Sir Robert, 149

Philosophia Epicurea Democritiana, 203

Pierce, Edward, 315

Pierrepoint, Anne, mother of the dramatist, 16-18, 25

Pierrepoint, Sir Henry, 16, 18, 45

Pierrepoint, Robert, first Earl of Kingston, 17, 27, 38, 164, 179

Pilgrim, The, 236, 278

Plautus, 35, 197, 230

Plutus, 125

Poems, The, of Beaumont, see Beaumont, Francis, The Poems

Poems Lyrick and Pastoral, Drayton, 42

Poetaster, The, 149, 342

Poets' Corner, 182ff., 192, 196, 199

Pole, Katherine, 14

Portraits of Beaumont, Nuneham, 181, 190, 192; Robinson's engraving of 1840, 190, 217; Knole, 190, 192, 217; G. Vertue, 217; Evans, 217; Walker and Cockerell, 218

Portraits of Fletcher, Knole: Blood, 217; G. Vertue, 217; Evans, 217; Robinson, 217; Walker, 218; Earl of Clarendon's, 218; Janssen, 219

'Prince of Misrule', 34

'Prince of Portpoole', 34

Prince's Players, the, 114

Praise of Hemp-seed, The, 199

Princess Elizabeth's Players, 336

Prophetesse, The, 236

prose-test, the, 259

Prynne, William, 397, 399

Purple Island, The, Phineas Fletcher, 64

Queen Anne's Players, 314, 318

Queene of Corinth, The, 211, 236

Queen Henrietta's Players, 314

Queen's Revels' Children, the, 80, 81, 83, 86, 87, 89, 96, 102, 103, 111, 114, 122, 124, 304, 305, 314, 315, 317, 319, 332, 335-337, 342, 343, 360, 368-370, 373

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 36, 100, 138, 149, 155, 165, 179

Randolph, Thomas, 150

Red Bull Theatre, the, 313, 318

'Remond' and 'Doridon,' query, Fletcher and Beaumont, 139-144

Revesby Sword-Play, 34

Reynolds, Henry, 132, 201

Reynolds, John, 147

rhyme, 250

'Ricardo and Viola,' 338, 383

Richard III, 14, 22

Rigg, J. M., 13ff., 19

Rollo, 237

'romance,' 279, 394, et passim

Romeo and Juliet, 286, 389

Rosalynde, 159

Rosenbach, A. S. W., 333

Rossiter, Philip, 103, 315, 316, 319, 370

Routh, H. V., 328

Rowley, William, 211, 239, 272, 314, 407, 412

Royall King and Loyall Subject, 399

Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, 211, 237, 243, 244, 249, 263, 268, 269, 280, 403

run-on lines, 174, 250, 255, 258ff., 261ff.

Rutland, Roger Manners, fifth Earl, 48, 152-155; Francis, sixth Earl, 162, 163; Elizabeth, Countess of, see Sidney, Elizabeth; Cicely (Tufton), Countess of, 163

Rymer, Thomas, 233, 354, 355, 397

Sackville, Edward, fourth Earl of Dorset, 191

Sackville, Lionel, seventh Earl of Dorset, 191, 217

Sackville, Richard, third Earl of Dorset, 70, 179, 180, 191

Sackville, Thomas, first Earl of Dorset, 37, 65-71

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, 39, 40, 41, 134, 141, 142

Sampson, M. W., 386

Sannazarro, 392

Sarmiento de Acuña, Don Diego, Count Gondomar, 371-373

Schelling, F. E., 234, 295

Schevill, Rudolph, 322f., 324, 330, 332

Scornful Ladie, The, 7, 100, 111-113, 171, 180, 232, 237, 238, 239, 240, 273, 368-378, 382, 383, 396

Scourge of Folly, The, 104, 342, 343, 344

Sea Voyage, The, 236

'Second Maiden's Tragedy,' 334

Sejanus, 148, 411

Selden, John, 99, 137, 149, 169, 170

Semphill, Sir James, 59-60

Seneca, 37

Session of the Poets, The, Suckling, 137

Seyliard, Mrs., see Elizabeth Beaumont

Seyliard, Thomas, 45, 159, 176, 187; see also Beaumont, Elizabeth

Shadwell, Thomas, 96

Shakespeare, 3, 4, 5, 9, 12, 23, 26, 32, 33, 35, 79, 83, 92, 98, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 108, 110, 111, 114ff., 118, 122, 124, 136, 145, 154, 159, 182, 184, 193, 194, 199, 201, 211, 214, 219, 272, 280, 283, 286, 309, 326, 329, 330, 343, 344, 386ff., 387ff., 389, 396, 401, 411ff.

Shakespeare, and Beaumont, 114-118

Shakespeare, and his company of players, 110-111, 118-120, 145, 316

Shakespeare, Was he influenced by Beaumont and Fletcher? 386-395

Shaw, Knights of England, 17, 45, et passim

Shelton, Thomas, transl. of Don Quixote, 120, 321-331, 335

Shepheard's Calendar, 44

Shepherdesse, The, John Beaumont, 159, 163

Shepherd's Hunting, The, 135

Shepherd's Pipe, The, 134, 135, 139

Shirley, James, 150, 206, 208, 229

Sicelides, Phineas Fletcher, 64

Sidney, Elizabeth Manners, Countess of Rutland, 133, 139, 150-159, 165, 172-174, 180, 287

Sidney, Sir Philip, 26, 37, 106, 111, 133, 142, 143, 150ff., 158, 159, 166, 197, 201, 392

Sidney, Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, 42, 133, 153

Silent Woman, The, 120, 413, see Epicoene

Skipwith, Sir William, 45, 166, 215

Spanish Curate, The, 236, 271

Slye, Christopher, 103

Smith, L. T., 11, 200

Southampton, see Wriothesley

Spedding, James, 36

Speght's Chaucer, 24, 178

Spenser, Edmund, 24, 44, 182, 193, 199, 200

Stanhope, Philip, Earl of Chesterfield, 165

Stanley, Thomas, second Earl of Derby, 14

Stanley, Thomas, 350, 374

Stapleton, Miles Thomas, 12

State Papers Domestic, Calendar of, 15, 51-61, 63, 127, 129, 146, 162, 164, 177, et passim

Stationers' Registers, 84, 121, 237, et passim

Stationer to the Readers, The, Mosely, 206

'Stella', 166

Stephens, John, 202

Stiefel, A. L., 89

Stourton, Lord, 50

Stratford upon Avon, 118

Stuart, Lady Arabella, 17, 179

Suckling, Sir John, 137

Sullivan, Mary, 127, 128

Sundridge, 175-180, 377, et passim

Supposes, The, Ariosto—George Gascoigne, 34, 35

suspense, 389

Symonds, J. A., 386

Swinburne, Algernon, 4, 7, 8, 190, 233, 397

Sympson and Seward, 233

Talbots, the, Earls of Shrewsbury, 14, 17

Tamer Tamed, The, 83, 236, 279, et passim, The Woman's Prize

Taming of the Shrew, The, 35, 83

Tasso, Aminta, 132

Taylor, John, 198

Taylor, Joseph, 122, 214, 332, 335ff., 402

Tempest, The, 110, 283, 344, 386, 387, 390, 391, 393

Tennyson, Alfred, 183

Theobald, Lewis, 237, 359

Thersites, 326

Thierry and Theodoret, 8, 109, 237, 238, 240, 378, 386, 387, 395

Thorndike, A. H., Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakespeare, editions of Maides Tragedy and Philaster, 73, 83, 84, 105, 110, 234, 241, 300, 303, 304, 305, 316, 318, 349, 350, 380, 386f.

Thornhurst, Sir Stephen, 69

'Thyrsis,' 43, 187

Time Poets, The, 203

Timon, 389

'Tis a Pity, She's a Whore, 412

Titles of Honour, 137

Tombs in Westminster, On the, 183

To the Apparition of his Mistresse calling him to Elizium, 170

To the Honour'd Countess of ——, 152

To the Memory of my beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us, 200

Tourneur, Cyril, 272

Townshend, Sir Robert, 167

Tragedies of the Last Age, The, 354

Tragedy of Bonduca, The, see Bonduca

Travails of Three English Brothers, The, 81, 313, 314, 317, 318, 321, 325, 331

Tresham, Francis, 48, 50, 52, 57, 58

Tresham, Mary, 46

Tresham, Sir Thomas, 46

triplet, the, 259

Triumph of Death, The, 270, 301-305, 389

Triumph of Honour, The, 251, 301-305, 389

Triumph of Love, The, 8, 251, 301-305, 388

Triumph of Time, The, 270, 301-305

True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York, The, 326

(On the) True Forms of English Poetry, 184

Twelfth Night, 32, 117, 345, 390, 392, 393

Two Gentlemen of Verona, The, 345, 390, 392, 412

Two Noble Kinsmen, The, 5, 119, 237

Underwood, John, 342, 343

Upham, A. H., 90

Upon an Honest Man's Fortune, see Honest Man's Fortune

Upon the Lines and Life of Shakespeare, Hugh Holland, 148

(Tragedy of) Valentinian, The, 6, 8, 211, 236, 287, 400, 410

Vanbrugh, Sir John, 188

Variorum Edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, 190, 217, 234, 271, 346, 367, 413, et passim

Vaux, Anne, alias Mrs. Perkins, 46-59, passim, 164

Vaux, Eleanor, alias Mrs. Jennings, 46, 47, 57

Vaux, Mrs., Elizabeth Roper, 46-56, 138, 164

Vauxes, the, cousins of the dramatist, and the Gunpowder Plot, 46-61, 164f.

verse-endings, double, triple, etc., 243

verse-tests, 243ff., 246ff.

versification of Fletcher and of Beaumont, 243-259

Very Woman, A, 377

Villiers, Christopher, 161, 162

Villiers, George, Duke of Buckingham, 19, 60, 148, 159-164, 185

Villiers, John, 161-162, 164

Volpone, 72, 82, 92, 411

von Wurzbach, Wolfgang, 334

Walker, Henry, 119

Walkley, Thomas, 145

Wallace, C. W., Shakspere's Money Interest in the Globe, etc., Century Maga., 114, 118, 314, 315, 316, 319

Waller, A. R., and Glover, A., editors of Camb. Eng. Class., Beaumont and Fletcher, 244, et passim; Waller, ed. of The Scornful Ladie, 377

Waller, Edmund, 150, 184, 231, 349, 359, 374

Walpole, Henry, 16, 48

Ward, Sir Adolphus William, Hist. Eng. Dram. Lit., 3, 91, 216, 234, 308, 377, 397

Warwick, Richard, Earl of, 14

Webster, John, 102, 122, 211, 396, 399, 411

Wenman, Sir Richard, 53, 138

Wenman, Thomas, 134, 137, 138

West, John, 149

White Devil, The, 122, 399

Whitefriars Theatre, the, 96f., 102f., 122, 304, 315, 316, 343, 360, 369

Whitehall, 125f.

White Webbs, 52, 56

Wife for a Month, A, 236, 263, 275, 278, 400, 403-406, 410

Wild-Goose Chase, The, Dedication, 214, 237, 279

Wilkins, George, 314, 324, 325

Wills, James, 188

Wilson, Arthur, 160

Winter, Henry and Thomas, 49-52, 57

Winter's Tale, The, 110, 159, 283, 344, 386, 387, 390, 391, 393

Wit at Severall Weapons, 236, 237, 378

Wither, George, 134f., 138, 142

Wit Without Money, 237, 279

Woman-Hater, The, 7, 40, 41, 59, 72-79, 80, 82, 93, 100, 112, 115, 130, 171, 237, 239, 240, 250, 258, 273, 281, 285, 297, 305, 307-311, 350, 378, 382, 385, 407, 412

Woman is a Weather-Cocke, 87, 302-305

Woman's Prize, The, or The Tamer Tamed, 83, 236, 279

(To Any) Woman that hath been no Weather-cocke, 304

Women Pleas'd, 236, 279

Wood, Anthony, 32

Wordsworth, W., 20, 21, 25

Wright, Christopher and John, 49-52

Wright, Thomas, 13

Wriothesley, Henry, third Earl of Southampton, 154, 184

Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 175

Xenophon's Cyropædeia, 109

Ye-test, the 271-273, 309, 371, 374-375

Yorkshire Tragedy, The, 303

Your Five Gallants, 324

Zola, 404

Transcriber's Note:

Minor punctuation and capitalization inconsistencies have been corrected without comment and include adding missing opening or closing quotes, closing parenthesis, and sentence closing periods.

Images falling within an unbroken paragraph have been relocated to either the top or bottom of said paragraph.

Word spelling, hyphenation, abbreviation, capitalization, apostrophization, diacritical accents and other variations or inconsistencies occur throughout the authors text, footnotes, index, noted verse(s) and quoted materials. All have been retained as printed unless specifically noted. Examples are provided below.

Typographical corrections:

p. 17, "Holme-Pierpoint" to "Holme-Pierrepoint" (5) Holme-Pierrepoint is seventeen)

p. 23, "Huntington" to "Huntingdon" (20) (Francis of Huntingdon)

p. 62, "clerygyman" to "clergyman" (had been a clergyman)

p. 68, "worldy" to "worldly" (Bishop's worldly estate)

p. 118, "Aven" to "Avon" (2) (Stratford upon Avon)

p. 164, "Beaument" to "Beaumont" (674) (John Beaumont never recalls)

p. 345, "Gentleman" to "Gentlemen" (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)

p. 445, "320" to "302" ("Woman is a Weather-Cocke," 87, 302-305)

p. 444, "Kinsman" to "Kinsmen" (Two Noble Kinsmen, The)

p. 445, "Cycropædeia" to "Cyropædeia" (Xenophon's Cyropædeia)

Possible typographical errors retained in text; falling within quoted material:

p. 64, "lived in her highnes," (highness)

p. 81, "it was no ofspring" (offspring)

p. 108, "Drammatick and Scenical King" (Dramatick)

p. 122, "... excellent Maister Beamont" (Beaumont)

p. 194, "... Francis Beamont" (Beaumont)

p. 231, "Flesher and Beaumont" (Fletcher)

p. 231, "The Faithfull Shipheardesse" (Shepheardesse)

p. 375, "Abigal," (Abigail)

p. 430, "Cavendishes" (Cavendishs') (in Index)

Several instances of "Middle English Spellings" used are:

"Maiesties" (Middle English) and "Majesties," and

"Doe, se, yt, yn, y'll" and "do, see, it, in, I'll"

Play Title Variations, each of which appears several times:

"Aeschylus" and "Æschylus"

"Amadis de Gaule" and "Amadis de Gaul"

"Beggars' Bush" and "Beggars Bush"

"... Curious coxcombe" and "... Curious cox-combe"

"Duchess of Malfi" and "Duchess of Malfy"

"Julius Ceasar" and "Julius Cæsar"

"Maid's Tragedy", "Maids Tragedy", "Maides Tragedy"

"Maske of the Gentleman of Grayes Inne" and "Maske of the Gentlemen of Grayes Inne".

"Morall Representations" and "Moralle Representations"

"Parisitaster" and "Parasitaster"

"Essay of Dramatick Poesie" and "Essay on Dramatick Poesy"

"The Scornful Lady" and "The Scornful Ladie"

"The Shepheardesse" and "The Shepheardess"

"The Coxcomb" and "The Coxcombe"

"Weather-cocke" and "Weather-Cocke"

"Women Pleas'd" and "Women Pleased"

Other word variations:

"Zouch" and "Zouche" (Ashby-de-la-----)

"Bedchamber" and "Bed-chamber"

"birthright" and "birth-right"

"Cal, S. P.," "Cal. St. Pa., Dom.," "Calendar of State Papers (Domestic)" (see Footnotes)

"Condel" and "Condell" (Henry ----)

"countryside" and "country-side"

"D'Urfey" and D'Urfé (Marquis ----)

"Hoskyns" and "Hoskins" (Serjeant ----)

"milkmaid" and "milk-maid" (both occur on p. 27)

"northwest" and "north-west"

"Pierepoint" and "Pierrepoint"

"Sannazzaro" and "Sannazarro"

"Shepherdesse" and "Shepheardesse"

"Sempill" and "Semphill" (Sir James ----)

"southeast" and "south-east"

"White-hall" and "Whitehall"