We may observe how the music of this passage is marred by that heretical rhythm in two lines (fourth and sixth), against which I ventured a protest. Mr. Campbell commends "The Double Marriage," and describes Juliana, the heroine, as "a fine idol of imagination, rather than a probable type of nature." Her self-sacrifice approaches yet nearer to idiotism, and her humble-mindedness to meanness, than these qualities of our authors' idols do generally they seldom make me, so much as I should wish, a worshipper. He quotes, also, the scene from "Rollo," of Edith pleading for her father's life; and Charles Lamb, that of her revenge against the tyrant. If I am frugal in panegyric, these references to abler, as well as more liberal judges, will supply the defect. "Wit without Money" has a solid, Beaumontesque air; "The Loyal Subject," a Fletcher-like freedom, with some vigour, and more exaggeration.* In "The Beggars' Bush," a play of too melodramatic a cast, we find Thieves' gibberish, or Newgate cant, introduced. Shakspeare has been deemed part-author, with Fletcher, of "The Two Noble Kinsmen," from a superiority to Fletcher's usual style, and a resemblance to Shakspeare's. Imitation of the latter poet by the former might account in some degree for both these facts, if such a lower artist imitating a higher, will often surpass himself; he makes a greater effort, and has a nobler model, than usual. The other Fine Arts offer frequent examples of this. But it is quite possible, also, that Shakspeare may have contributed towards "The Two Noble Kinsmen:" not only are several speeches (vide Act V. sc. 1, 2, 3) after his "enormous" style of conception, but his enormous style of handling or versification, so different from Fletcher's. Palamon supplicates the statue of Mars :

Thou mighty one, that with thy power hast turn'd
Green Neptune into purple; [whose approach]
Comets pre-warn; whose havock in vast field
Unearthed skulls proclaim; whose breath blows down

The teeming Ceres' foyzon; who dost pluck

With hand omnipotent from forth blue clouds

The mason'd turrets; that both mak'st and break'st

The stony girths of cities; me thy pupil,

Youngest follower of thy drum, instruct this day

With military skill, that to thy laud

I may advance my streamer, and by thee

Be styled the lord o' the day! Give me, great Mars,
Some token of thy pleasure!"

Act V. Sc. 1.

In "The Wife for a Month," Naples is called an island, which parallels the maritime Bohemia of Shakspeare. I have nothing better to say, yet perhaps this is enough, of "The Nice Valour," than that it contains a sentimental Song which suggested Milton's Penseroso-" Hence, all you vain delights," &c. This song may be taken as an epitome of the valetudinarian interestingness, the delicateness implying want of perfect wholesomeness, which hangs about all Beaumont and Fletcher's more serious productions. Certain of their Lyrics are very good, especially the Anacreontic. "God Lyæus ever young" in "Valentinian," breathes a fine spirit of Bacchanalian enthusiasm. But the string our lyrists touched most often, was that which, like the Teian bard's, "responded love;" and which often did so with exquisite sweetness

"The very twang of Cupid's bow sung to it."

* This play contains a singular anticipation: the Scene is at Moscow, and an Ancient observes

"This city would make a marvellous fine bonfire,
'Tis old dry timber, and such wood has no fellow."

Act I. Sc. 3.

Pope "stole wisely" a remarkable idea concerning the transformation of Maids, in his "Rape of the Lock,' from Act IV. Sc. 2.

Indeed, throughout their works, "Venus the Victorious" seems to have been the battleword on which they relied, rather than "Hercules the Invincible," though not always as successfully as Cæsar.

Of Fletcher's "Faithful Shepherdess" it is great praise to say that Milton borrowed many of its thoughts and much of its fable for his "Comus." True, those thoughts thus transferred, frequently resemble motes in the sunbeams, themselves futile particles, glittering with a radiance not their own. I must again dissent from the Historian of European Literature when he rates the lyric parts of Fletcher's poem so near those of Milton's, nor can I agree with him when he ranks the entire below "The Sad Shepherd" of Ben Jonson. Yet the lyric parts do contain some, and the un-lyric numerous beauties.

Fletcher's volubility is against more than his metre: he seems often to throw his words at thoughts in the hope of hitting them off by hazard, but he misses them altogether. His light-headed shafts fall short of their mark. When they do touch, however, it is with the irradiating effect if not the force of thunderbolts: this has an inexpressible charm. After all we have heard of "The Faithful Shepherdess," a fine English Pastoral Drama remains to be written. That such a work has not yet been produced among a people so agricultural, so devoted to rural pleasures, pursuits, and residence, is singular enough. It should little surprise us if the Italians, a town-loving people, had produced no "Pastor Fido" or "Aminta," and if Fletcher's representation of Sylvan life in the above poem had excelled these works more than I believe it does.

Beaumont and Fletcher seem to have caught one deep truth of nature,—their women are either far more angelical or diabolical than their men. They have also delineated women much better,—a mark, by the bye, of their feminine genius, if we must not call it effeminate or feeble. Lamb pronounces Ordella " the most perfect idea of the female heroic character, next to Calantha in 'The Broken Heart' of Ford, that has been embodied in fiction;" and her self-immolation ("Thierry and Theodoret," Act IV. sc. 1), as "the finest scene in Fletcher." Aspatia, in "The Maid's Tragedy," will probably interest the sentimental more, though we almost despise her abject faithfulness to Amintor, who has jilted her. Euphrasia, disguised as a boy, Bellario, in "Philaster," is our authors' prettiest and happiest exemplification of their favourite passion,-love's devotion. This character resembles closely Veramour in "The Honest Man's Fortune," and Ascanio in "The | Spanish Curate."

Such are the thoughts which struck me on a hurried review of Beaumont and Fletcher, read desultorily long before without any object either critical or editorial.

POSTSCRIPT.-The task which I undertook with reluctance, I have executed with solicitude. But it came upon me at so late a period, and found me so unprovided in materials, save those which casual reflection and most superficial research had brought together during my indolent literary hours, that a few weeks' care can have accomplished little deserving acceptance. I will not offer other excuses, because energies are scarce worth the name, if unequal to carry us over fortuitous obstacles as well as the route itself. How it should have fallen upon me to attempt standing in the place of Dr. Southey, though without any idea of filling it, is only conjecturable from the possible dread which abler and better-known writers than I am may have had, lest comparison with him might disserve them. Such a comparison is impossible in the case of a substitute like me, who have no pretensions whatever as a critic, except earnest desire for truth, and determination to speak it. Should disappointment at the change of Prefacers occasion my effort to be received with still greater severity than it merits, I shall yet enjoy the mournful consolation of having done my uttermost under very unfavourable circumstances.

POETRY is the child of nature, which, regulated and made beautiful by art, presenteth the most harmonious of all other compositions; among which (if we rightly consider) the dramatical is the most absolute, in regard of those transcendent abilities which should wait upon the composer; who must have more than the instruction of libraries (which of itself is but a cold contemplative knowledge), there being required in him a soul miraculously knowing and conversing with all mankind, enabling him to express not only the phlegm and folly of thick-skinned men, but the strength and maturity of the wise, the air and insinuations of the court, the discipline and resolution of the soldier, the virtues and passions of every noble condition-nay, the counsels and characters of the greatest princes.

This, you will say, is a vast comprehension, and hath not happened in many ages. Be it then remembered, to the glory of our own, that all these are demonstrative and met in Beaumont and Fletcher, whom but to mention is to throw a cloud upon all former names, and benight posterity; this book being, without flattery, the greatest monument of the scene that time and humanity have produced, and must live, not only the crown and sole reputation of our own, but the stain of all other nations and languages: for, it may be boldly averred, not one indiscretion hath branded this paper in all the lines, this being the authentic wit that made Blackfriars an academy, where the three hours' spectacle, while Beaumont and Fletcher were presented, was usually of more advantage to the hopeful young heir than a costly, dangerous, foreign travel, with the assistance of a governing monsieur or signor to boot; and it cannot be denied but that the young spirits of the time, whose birth and quality made them impatient of the sourer ways of education, have, from the attentive hearing these pieces, got ground in point of wit and carriage of the most severely-employed students, while these recreations were digested into rules, and the very pleasure did edify. How many passable discoursing dining wits stand yet in good credit upon the bare stock of two or three of these single scenes!

And now, reader, in this tragical age, where the theatre hath been so much out-acted, congratulate thy own happiness, that, in this silence of the stage, thou hast a liberty to read these inimitable plays, to dwell and converse in these immortal groves, which were only showed our fathers in a conjuring-glass, as suddenly removed as represented; the landscape is now brought home by this optic, and the press, thought too pregnant before, shall be now looked upon as greatest benefactor to Englishmen, that must acknowledge all the felicity of wit and words to this derivation.

You may here find passions raised to that excellent pitch, and by such insinuating degrees, that you shall not choose but consent and go along with them, finding yourself at last grown insensibly the very same person you read; and then stand admiring the subtile tracks of your engagement. Fall on a scene of love, and you will never believe the writers could have the least room left in their souls for another passion; peruse a scene of manly rage, and you would swear they cannot be expressed by the same hands; but both are so excellently wrought, you must confess none but the same hands could work them.

Would thy melancholy have a cure? thou shalt laugh at Democritus himself, and but reading one piece of this comic variety, find thy exalted fancy in Elysium: and, when thon

art sick of this cure, (for the excess of delight may too much dilate thy soul,) thou shalt meet almost in every leaf a soft purling passion or spring of sorrow, so powerfully wrought high by the tears of innocence and wronged lovers, it shall persuade thy eyes to weep into the stream, and yet smile when they contribute to their own ruins.

Infinitely more might be said of these rare copies; but let the ingenuous reader peruse them, and he will find them so able to speak their own worth, that they need not come into the world with a trumpet, since any one of these incomparable pieces, well understood, will prove a preface to the rest; and if the reader can taste the best wit ever trod our English stage, he will be forced himself to become a breathing panegyric to them all.

Not to detain or prepare thee longer, be as capricious and sick-brained as ignorance and malice can make thee, here thou art rectified; or be as healthful as the inward calm of an honest heart, learning, and temper, can state thy disposition, yet this book may be thy fortunate concernment and companion.

It is not so remote in time but very many gentlemen may remember these authors; and some, familiar in their conversation, deliver them upon every pleasant occasion so fluent, to talk a comedy. He must be a bold man that dares undertake to write their lives: what I have to say is, we have the precious remains; and, as the wisest contemporaries acknowleged they lived a miracle, I am very confident this volume cannot die without one.

What more specially concerns these authors and their works, is told thee by another hand, in the following Epistle of the Stationer to the Readers.

Farewell: read, and fear not thine own understanding; this book will create a clear one in thee; and when thou hast considered thy purchase, thou wilt call the price of it a charity to thyself, and at the same time, forgive

Thy friend, and these authors' humble admirer,

JAMES SHIRLEY.

GENTLEMEN,

THE STATIONER TO THE READERS.

PREFIXED TO THE FOLIO OF 1647.

Before you engage farther, be pleased to take notice of these particulars. You have here a new book; I can speak it clearly; for of all this large volume of comedies and tragedies, not one, till now, was ever printed before. A collection of plays is commonly but a new impression, the scattered pieces which were printed single being then only republished together: 'tis otherwise here.

Next, as it is all new, so here is not any thing spurious or imposed: I had the originals from such as received them from the authors themselves; by those, and none other, I publish this edition.

And as here's nothing but what is genuine and their's, so you will find here are no omissions; you have not only all I could get, but all that you must ever expect: for, besides those which were formerly printed, there is not any piece written by these authors, either jointly or severally, but what are now published to the world in this volume. One only play I must except (for I mean to deal openly); 'tis a comedy called The Wild-Goose Chase, which hath been long lost, and, I fear, irrecoverable; for a person of quality borrowed it from the actors many years since, and, by the negligence of a servant, it was never returned; therefore now I put up this si quis, that whosoever hereafter happily meets with it shall be thankfully satisfied, if he please to send it home.

Some plays, you know, written by these authors, were heretofore printed: I thought not convenient to mix them with this volume, which of itself is entirely new. And, indeed, it would have rendered the book so voluminous, that ladies and gentlewomen would have found it scarce manageable, who in works of this nature must first be remembered. Besides, I considered those former pieces had been so long printed and reprinted, that many gentlemen were already furnished; and I would have none say they pay twice for the same book.

One thing I must answer before it be objected; 'tis this. When these comedies and tragedies were presented on the stage, the actors omitted some scenes and passages, with the authors' consent, as occasion led them; and when private friends desired a copy, they then, and justly too, transcribed what they acted: but now you have both all that was acted, and all that was not; even the perfect full originals, without the least mutilation ; so that were the authors living, (and, sure, they can never die,) they themselves would challenge neither more nor less than what is here published; this volume being now so complete and finished, that the reader must expect no future alterations.

For literal errors committed by the printer, 'tis the fashion to ask pardon, and as much in fashion to take no notice of him that asks it; but in this also I have done my endeavour. "Twere vain to mention the chargeableness of this work; for those who owned the manuscripts too well knew their value to make a cheap estimate of any of these pieces; and though another joined with me in the purchase and printing, yet the care and pains was wholly mine, which I found to be more than you'll easily imagine, unless you knew into how many hands the originals were dispersed: they all are now happily met in this book, having escaped these public troubles free and unmangled. Heretofore, when gentlemen desired