of their dramas, the Faithful Shepherdess, was the production of Fletcher alone. It is time, however, that we should leave this topic, on which, after all, it is not likely that we shall attain to any absolute certainty, and point out those peculiar features in the writings of our authors which have attracted the admiration of so many ages.

The plays written before Beaumont's death are more regular in their construction, and more obedient to the laws of the drama, than those of Shakspeare, or any other of the dramatists of the day, with the exception of 'rare Ben Jonson's.' To this regularity of plot, they added great skill in painting to the life the manners of gentlemen in those times. Enabled as they were by birth and fortune to associate with young men of rank and fashion, they have succeeded admirably in hitting off the wild reckless spirit, the debauched manners, the fantastic humours, and the quickness of repartee, which distinguished the dissipated gallants of Elizabeth's reign. Their dialogue in comedy is always spirited, and often witty; their scenes bustling and amusing; and their characters, on the whole, well supported, though occasionally, especially in Fletcher's plays, they undergo strange metamorphoses. Thus, for instance, in the Scornful Lady, Morecraft, a miser, all on a sudden becomes a prodigal, for the not very intelligible reason of his having been cheated by a young fellow who had borrowed money from him. There are many, however, of a different stamp, though it is observable that they excel much more in painting women than men. Shakspeare has few portraits so exquisitely beautiful as those of Aspasia and Bellario, and not many more comic than those of Bessus and the little French Lawyer. Their grand excellencies are not so much the depicting of character, as a rich vein of wit-a native elegance of thought and expression, and a wandering romantic fancy, delightful even in its wildest moods. They do not possess the profound knowledge of human nature which alone would have made Shakspeare immortal. They cannot paint with the brush of a master the gradual progress of a mind from confidence to suspicion,-from suspicion to jealousy, and from jealousy to madness; or the fearful workings of a soul racked between the ardent desire of an object which seems almost within the grasp, and the dread and abhorrence of the path of crime by which that object must be attained. Their characters are not so much beings of lofty intellect as of deep passion; and these passions are portrayed not in their rise and gradual progress, but in their highest mood. To this defect must be added their great inequality. The very richest gems of their wit and fancy are not unfrequently set in caskets so vile, that the very clumsiest artist might have been ashamed to own himself the maker of them. Instead of writing with care and pains, as those who were anxious to please their auditors or readers, and "to do something such that after ages should not willingly let it die," they seem to have followed the whim of the moment, and to have dashed forward with a wild recklessness, which spurned alike the laws of the drama, the example of the best models, and the approbation of their hearers. Nor is it unnatural that such should be the character of compositions written, not for profit, but for pleasure, by young men of ample fortune and in the very heyday of youth, to whom the occupation of a playwright might seem rather a degradation than an honour; when Ben Jonson the bricklayer was their competitor, and the unedu

cated Will Shakspeare their undoubted superior. There is, however, a sterling wit in their dialogues-a vigorous and lusty manhood in their portraits-a stirring warmth and action in their scenes-and a strength and beauty in the buoyant pinions on which they soar aloft into the realms of fancy, which will bear them up in spite of these defects, and will insure them through all ages two of the most sacred niches in the temple of English poetry. The following brief passage is addressed by one of Philaster's friends to the king, who is threatening to have Philaster beheaded. It is not nearly so beautiful as many which might have been selected, but its length is convenient :

"King, you may be deceived yet:

The head you aim at cost more setting on
Than to be lost so lightly: if it must off,

Like a wild overflow that swoops before him

A golden stack, and with it shakes down bridges,

Cracks the strong hearts of pines, whose cable roots
Hold out a thousand storms, a thousand thunders,

And, so made mightier, takes whole villages

Upon his back, and in that heat of pride

Charges strong towns, towers, castles, palaces,

And lays them desolate; so shall thy head, (to Philuster)
Thy noble head, bring the lives of thousands
That must bleed with thee, like a sacrifice
In thy red ruins."

Philaster, Act V. Scene 1.

The

There are two plays included in the common editions of Beaumont and Fletcher, which, from their great merit, demand a separate notice; we mean The Faithful Shepherdess and The Two Noble Kinsmen. former, which was the production of Fletcher alone, is a pastoral drama, of which it may safely be said, that we have nothing in the language at once so purely pastoral and so exquisitely poetical. The Comus was undoubtedly copied from it, and although Milton may have surpassed the original in stately and majestic poetry, it is beyond a question, that Fletcher, besides the merit of priority, is more redolent of life and nature. Were it not defiled by indelicacy, The Faithful Shepherdess would be faultless. With a taste not less execrable than that which Dryden exhibited when he profaned the fairy-land of Miranda with his gross obscenities, Fletcher has polluted the primeval simplicity and virgin innocence of the Eden he had created, by the disgusting debaucheries of the sullen Shepherd and the wanton Cloe. With this exception, nothing can be more faultless, or more abundant in beauty.

The other drama which we mentioned, The Two Noble Kinsmen, was formerly said to be the joint production of Fletcher and Shakspeare, but the prevalent opinion in modern times seems to be that Shakspeare had no connection with it. We see not, for our own parts, on what this disbelief is grounded. It is certain that Fletcher had some ally, who could not be Beaumont, for the play was written after Beaumont's death; and since the title page of the first edition of the play calls Shakspeare and Fletcher the authors-since the truth of this statement was never questioned until modern times, although many of Shakspeare's friends were living when the play was published since all the old critics mention Shakspeare as one of the writers of it-and more than

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