flass Pft^q^^' Book. 3^.T.'r THE INFLUENCE OF BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER ON SHAKSPERE ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE, Ph. D. Associate Professor of English, Western Reserve University WORCBSTBR, MASSACHUSETTS. Press of Oliver B. Wood 190 1 3^ ' I 3 EC tii PREFACE This volume is based on a portion of a dissertation on "Some Con- temporary Influences on Shakspere," which was presented to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University to fulfill a require- ment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. That dissertation dealt with the relations of As You Like It to pastoral and Robin Hood plays, and of Hamlet to tragedies of revenge, as well as with the influ- ence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakspere's romances. This last division has been rewritten and considerably enlarged and forms this volume. My conclusions in regard to the indebtedness of the romances to the contemporary drama are thus offered without the support which might perhaps have been afforded by the co-ordinate investigations. A study, however, of Shakspere as an adapter requires less apology now than it would have four years ago when I first began this work. Shaksperean criticism has made a decided advance since then toward the adoption of the point of view and methods of historical criticism. Mr. Sidney Lee's discussion of the sonnets as a representative of a current literary form has opened the field and pointed the way for future students of the plays. My incentive to a historical study came entirely from the lectures of Professor Barrett Wendell at Harvard University and from his suggestive study, William Shakspere. While the hypothesis in regard to the influence of Beaumont and Fletcher with which I began my work was the immediate result of my reading and, so far as I know, has never been advanced before, whatever merit there may be in the general method and point of view of this essay is due to the instruction and example of Mr. Wendell. I venture to hope that, however my conclusions may be estimated, the investigation on which they are based will be of some interest in illustrating the application of the historical method to the study of Shakspere. In condensing the results of my work for publication, it has been necessary to omit some investigations not closely connected with the main thesis and merely to note the results of others. Among these are a discussion of the Revels companies, 1601-1611, additional notes on the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher after 161 1, an alphabetical list of plays acted 1601-1611, some tables illustrating the use of colloquial- isms, of 'em and them, and various verse tests. Like every other student in the history of the drama, I owe much to the books of Mr. Fleay. I have found many occasions to differ with him and to criticise his methods, but I have also had abundant opportunity to admire his extensive knowledge and brilliant induc- tions. My indebtedness to Mr. Wendell's book on Shakspere is apparent; in expressing my thanks I wish I could also indicate the extent of my obligations to his friendly and stimulating criticisms and suggestions made while my investigation was in progress. I am also greatly indebted for helpful criticism to Professor George L. Kitt- redge, to whom I have frequently turned for suggestion and guidance, and to Mr. Jefferson B. Fletcher, and Professor George P. Baker. ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE. Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. CONTENTS CHAPTER. PAGE. I. Introduction ^ II. Introduction to Chronology and Stage History, 9 A. Biographies. B. Connection with Theatrical Companies. C. The Plague and the Closing of the Theaters. D. The Occupancy of Blackfriars. B. The Revels Companies. F. Shakspere and Beaumont and Fletcher, writing for the King's men. G. The Evidence of folios, quartos, and verse tests. H. The "em-them" test. I. Court Masques and Chronology. III. CHRONO1.0GY OF Shaksperk's Romances . . 3° IV. Chronoi^ogy and Discussion of Henry VIII and THE Two Noble Kinsmen 35 V. Chronology of the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher • • 57 VI. The Drama, 1601-1611 96 ^ VII. General Characteristics of the Romances of Beaumont and Fletcher 109 VIII. General Characteristics of Shakspere's Ro- mances 133 IX. Cymbeline and Philaster 152 X. A Winter's Tale and The Tempest .... 161 XI. Conclusion 167 Appendix. Pericles 171 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. Texts. Shakspere's plays. "Globe Edition." W. G. Clark and W, A. Wright. All line references are to this edition. "The Two Noble Kinsmen." Ed. by Harold Littledale. New Shakspere Society. Series II. 7, 8. 15. London, 1885. Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. "Works." Ed. by Rev. Alexan- der Dyce. II vols. London, 1843. Page references are to this edition. " Works." Ed. by George Darley. Routledge's " Series of the Old Dramatists." 2 vols. This edition is used when there is no reference to Dyce. Critical Works, Etc. The following list includes only those books or articles which are repeatedly referred to and often in abbreviated form. Where the abbreviations are not evident thej' are given in this list. Other books referred to are named in full in the foot notes. A Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama, 155^-1642. . F. G. Fleay. 2 vols. London, 1891. Referred to as Or. When no page number is given, the reference is invariably to the play under discussion and can be found without difficulty. A Chronicle History of the London Stage, 155^-1642. F. G. Fleay. London, 1890. H. of S. A Chronicle History of the Life and Work of William Shakespeare. F. G. Fleay. London, 1886. Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare. J. O. Halliwell Phillipps. Sixth Edition. London, 1886. H. P. Outlines. A Life of William Shakespeare. Sidney Lee. London and New York, 1899. A History of Eftglish Dramatic Literature. A. W. Ward. 3 vols. New and revised edition. London, 1899. History of English Dramatic Poetry to the time of Shakespeare, and Annals of the Stage. J. Payne Collier. 3 vols. London, 1874. Abbreviated, Collier. A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare. H. H. Furness. Phila- delphia. The Tempest. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. VH The Diary of Philip Henslowe from i^gj to i6og. J. Payne Collier. I/Ondon. For the Shakespeare Society, 1845. ^- ^■ Annates or a Generatl Chronicte of England. Begun by John Stow. Continued to 1631 by Edmund Howes. London, 1631. Stow. The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth. New edition in 3 vols. John Nichols. Loudon, 1823. The Progresses, Processions of King fames the First, etc. John Nichols. 4 vols. London,' 1828. Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court. P. Cunning- ham. For the Shakespeare Society. Loudon, 1842. William Shakspere. A Study in Elizabethan Literature. Bar- rett Wendell. New York, 1894. Quellen Studien zu den drama Ben fonson's, fohn Marston's und Beaumont und Fletcher's. Miinchener Beitrage VI. E. Koeppel. Erlangen und Leipzig. 1895. Die Englischen Maskenspiele. Alfred Soergel. Halle, 1882. Francis Beaumont. A Critical Study. G. C. Macaulay, London, 1883. CHAPTER I. Introduction. In considering the question of Shakspere's indebtedness to two of his contemporaries, we can have no better starting point than the earhest known reference to Shakspere as a dramatist, a passage written by a contemporary play-wright, Robert Greene. ' ' For there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tyger's heart wrapt in a Player's hide, supposes that he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as is the best of you: and being an obsohxtQ. Johannes fac totuni, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrie. ' ' ^ Although no one believes that in our sense of the word Shak- spere was a plagiarist, Greene's accusation contains an element of truth worth keeping in mind. There is no doubt that Shakspere began play-writing by imitating or re-vamping the work of others. Titus Andro?iicus and Henry VI, so far as they are his, are certainly imitative of other plays of the time, while Richard II and Richard III show the influence of Marlowe's tragedies, and Love' s Labour' s Lost, the influence of Lyly's comedies. During the period that he was learning his art and experimenting with various kinds of plays, it is generally recognized that he was indebted to the dramatists and the dramatic conventions of his time. After this early experimental period, however, his indebted- ness to his contemporaries has received little notice. In fact, the idea that Shakspere in his maturity imitated, adapted, or to any considerable extent made use of the work of his fellow dramatists, has to most students seemed absurd. His plays are so immensely superior to those of his contemporaries that, when resemblances have been noticed, critics have been wont to say: 'Shakspere must have originated this and the other man copied it. ' There is a fallacy here which we must avoid ; for the mere fact that Shakspere's work is the better by no means proves that it is the original, and in general we may well question if his superiority so much disproves as conceals his indebtedness to his contemporaries. Whatever he touched, he transformed into a permanent work of art; but it is no less true that in his work of transformation 1 Greene's Groatsworth of Wit. 1592. or creation he was working under the same conditions as his fellow play-wrights. He was an actor, and a theater-owner, conversant with all the conventions of an Elizabethan theater and practically interested in the stage fashions and stage rival- ries of his time. He made plays that paid, situations that held the interest of the audiences, characters that were effective in London theaters. He must have understood and been influ- enced by the stage demand whose varying wants he and his fellow dramatists were engaged in supplying. As in the case of any other Elizabethan dramatist, we may be reasonably sure that the final character of his work must have been partly de- termined by definite objective causes. Moreover, since he sometimes wrote in co-operation with and, doubtless still oftener, in competition with other dramatists, and since many of these were writers of great originality, it is almost inconceivable that his work was not directly influenced by theirs. Still further, there is much clear evidence of his use of con- temporary conventions and dramatic forms. It will be remem- bered, for example, that he continued to write chronicle-histories even after that form had been ridiculed as antiquated and that Hamlet and Lear contain traces of the "tragedy of blood" type. A closer adherence to current forms can be seen in the relation between the Mcrcharit of Venice and \\v& Jew of Malta or in the many points of similarity between Hamlet and the other Elizabethan tragedies dealing with the theme of blood- revenge. Characters, too, are often clearly developments of types familiar on the stage; as, for example, lago is a develop- ment of the conventional stage villian. Such facts as these have been frequently noticed and commented upon, but even they have not led to any careful investigation of Shakspere's indebtedness to his contemporaries. Such investigation finds encouragement not only in Shak- spere's relation as a play-wright to his fellow play-wrights, but also in the almost invariable law of art forms that the developer excels the innovator. We know that no one wrote any English dramas until a long period of miracle and morality plays had prepared the w^ay. We know that we can trace the rise and development of a number of dramatic forms in the thirty years preceding Shakspere's first masterly work. We know that the Elizabethan literature in general and the history of its drama in particular were characterized by experiment, invention, and discovery. In the history of dramatic art, then, in a period characterized by an abundance of new forms, it is only natural to expect that the genius who brought many of these to their highest perfection should not have been so much an innovator as an adapter. We may naturally expect that Shakspere's transcendent plays owe a considerable debt to the less perfect but not less original efforts of his contemporaries. In this investigation I have undertaken to study some of Shakspere's plays in connection with the conventions and fashions of the EHzabethan theater. I have also undertaken the study of these plays in connection with similar plays by his contemporaries. I have by no means exhausted the field of possible contemporary influences. Any one play, I believe, shows almost countless effects of preceding plays; and only the most exhaustive study of Shakspere's work could treat ade- quately of his total indebtedness. Aiming at definiteness rather than completeness, I have merely considered the influence on Shakspere of one current and popular dramatic form. I have taken as a point of departure some of the plays of Beau- mont and Fletcher and studied their possible influence on Cymbeline, the Tempest, and the Winter' s Tale. Beaumont and Fletcher began to write plays toward the end of Shakspere's dramatic career; and by the time of his with- drawal from the stage, they were probably the most popular play- Wrights of the day. The popularity of their plays seems, indeed, to have been established almost at the start and to have continued well into the eighteenth century. Nor was their literary pre-eminence less readily recognized; their work was thought worthy of being classed with Shakspere's by poets and critics from Webster to Dryden, Even in the opinion of critics to-day, two or three of their masterpieces, the Maid's Tragedy in particular, can well contest with any other Eliza- bethan tragedies for the rank next to Shakspere's. Moreover, even from our modern point of view, it is easy to find qualities in many of their plays, such as their variety of situations and their surprising climaxes, which made them better acting plays, greater stage successes even than Shakspere's. J Our main interest in Beaumont and Fletcher's work to-day is, however, probably an historical one. Their work marks a new development in the Elizabethan drama, and their influence is seen in nearly all the dramatists from 1610 to 1640, to say nothing of those of the Restoration. A few of the well known facts of their lives will at once suggest some of the marked distinctions which separated them from the earlier dramatists. In the first place, Beaumont and Fletcher were gentlemen of birth and breeding; they numbered, as we learn from dedica- tions and commendatory verses, many friends among the gentle- men and noblemen of the day; they had little in common with the Bohemian actor-play-wrights of Elizabeth's reign. They have, indeed, been accused by Coleridge of being " servile jtire divino royalists. ' ' Their political opinions are not so much in evidence as this accusation would indicate, but the tone of their work is decidedly the tone of the fashionable world. In the second place, as became friends of Jonson, they began writing with considerable notion of the rules and requirements of dramatic art. This is, perhaps, best illustrated by a few lines from Beaumont's verses on Jonson's Volpone} "I would have shown " To all the world, the art, which thou alone, " Hast taught our tongue, the rules of time, of place, " And other rites, delivered with the grace "Of comic style, which only, is far more " Than any English stage hath known before." Fletcher, too, in the address to the reader prefixed to the Faithful Shepherdess, shows a similar critical knowledge of the rules of his art. Many of their plays, also, satirize the faults of the contemporary drama, and the Knight of the Biiming Pestle abounds in ridicule of the absurdities of the popular plays of the day. They placed themselves, then, in opposition to the vulgar taste of the time, and were conscious of the demands of a refined taste and a requiring art. Nevertheless, there is by no means an absolute disconnection between their plays and the plays of the preceding half-century. Although we shall have occasion to dwell on the novelty of their plays, they are, of course, far from being new. Possibly, there is scarcely a situation or a character which might not be traced back to an early original; certainly, there is no play which separates itself entirely from relation.ship with its Eliza- bethan predecessors. Indeed one needs to make but a cursory study of the Elizabethan drama to convince oneself that this is true of all plays as late as 1600. The continuity of theatrical tradition is rarely broken. The girl in doublet and hose, the deep-dyed villain, the braggart coward, the faithful friend, can all be traced at least as far back as the earliest days of the drama. A situation or a plot once successful was sure to be copied and varied and developed. However much the Elizabethan dramatists studied and pictured human life, they also kept closely in touch with theatrical conventions. A single example may be permitted to illustrate these ob- servations. In 1566, a play, Palafnon and Arcyte, was per- formed before Queen Elizabeth at Oxford; and among other things concerning it, we learn from Wood's Ms.'^ ' ' There was a good part performed by the the Lady Amelia, who for gather- ing her flowers prettily in a garden there represented and sing- ing sweetly in the time of March, received eight angels for her gracious reward by her Majesty's command. ' ' There, perhaps, was the germ of a situation used over and over again in later plays and adapted by Shakspere into the scene in which Per- dita distributes her flowers in the Wi?iter's Tale. Beaumont and Fletcher, like Shakspere and all other Eliza- i4to, 1607, acted 1605. ^Nichols' Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, I. bethan dramatists, took their material where they could find It, and availed themselves of whatever had found favor on the stage. There can be no doubt, however, that their plays seemed very dififerent to the spectators of their day from any which preceded. This is true of their comedies, with which as a class we shall have little to do, and it is still more true of their tragi-comedies and tragedies which I shall include by the term romances. ^ In the period 1600-1615 there are cer- tainly few plays by other authors that resemble these romances They are nothing like the revenge plays which were pre- Zf l\,^\ ^^^ beginning of the period, nor the "tragedies of blood of Webster and Tourneur, nor Chapman's Bnssv d'Am- bois and Byro7i, nor the classical tragedies of Jonson and Shak- spere. Neither are they like Macbeth, Othello, or Lear, trage- dies which deal with one main emotion and center about one character. If they differ from the plays which immediately preceded or were contemporary with them, they differ still more from the earlier chronicle-histories or tragedies Beau- mont and Fletcher, in fact, created a new dramatic form the heroic romance. I shall later endeavor to establish this asser- tion by showing how their romances differ from all other plays of the time and how closely they themselves adhere to a definite type For the present, we may well enough rest on a statement which no one will deny, that their romances were distinguished by much that was new in situations, plots, characters, and poetic style. The production of such a series of plays within a few years ol each other must certainly have influenced contemporary play-wnting. And our knowledge of Shakspere surely justi- lies us in suspecting that no dramatist was more ready than he to make use of whatever was popular and suited to his pur- pose on the stage. It becomes a significant fact, then, that at just about the T^^^j^^"^°"^ ^"^ Fletcher's romances appeared, Shakspere who had for a number of years been chiefly engaged on his tragedies, began writing a series of plays differing from anv he had previously written and perhaps, also, best designated as romances. The common name ' romance ' indicates a real resemblance. We saw a moment ago that Beaumont and Fletcher s romances differed markedly from almost all the nota- ble tragic plays of their period; they have, however, at least a class resemblance to Cymbcline, the Winter's Tale, and the lempest. Especial prominence given to a sentimental love- story, a rapid succession of tragic situations, a happy ending are examples of resemblan ces which must occur to everyone.' Thl^f''^} ''^^P'B?^' ^^ '■ Phil'^'te^^ Four Plays in One, Thierry and T-agely ' "^'^ ' Revenge, A King and No King] The Maid's Critics have, in fact, specifically noted the similarities between Philaster and Cyvibelme^. Moreover, there is an abrupt change from Shakspere's pre- vious work to his romances. Sometime between 1601 and 1608 he wrote the series of tragedies from Ha?nlet to A7itony and Cleopatra; sometime between 1608 and 161 2, he wrote Cyinbclme, the Whiter' s Tale, and the Tc?}ipest. There were other plays probably during these two periods — Troihis a7id Cressida, Measure for Measure, Pericles, Timon — but some of these are not wholly Shakspere's, and all are of more doubtful date. They perhaps indicate periods of weakness in creative power, of searching after new forms, ^ but they cannot be classified under either of the groups above — the great tragedies or the romances. These two groups are absolutely distinct; they differ enormously in general effect. Still further, this transition from the tragedies to the romances was accomplished in one or two years at mo.st; for the student of Shakspere's art, therefore, the hiatus has not been an easy one to bridge. The only explanation that I know to have been off"ered, is that of a subjective change in Shakspere. It is stated that he passed out of a period of life, gloomy, passionate, full of suffer- ing, into one of philosophic calm, renewed optimism, and final reconciliation: or as Mr. Dowden puts it, he passed "out of the depths" and rested "on the heights." It would be stupid to deny the possibility of such a change. No one imagines that Shakspere's mind was the same when he was writing Hamlet as when he was writing the Tempest; and what actual personal circumstances may have accompanied these varying creative moods is certainly open to conjecture without any possibility of disproof. Such subjective explanations, how- ever, are at best only attempts to interpret the author's moods in terms of the aesthetic effect his work exerts upon us: and they give us few clues as to the actual methods of his creative art. We are on far safer grounds when we study objec- tive influences; and a mere re-insistance on our point of view — the study of Shakspere as an Elizabethan dramatist — must lead to the conclusion that no decided change in the character of his plays would have been likely to take place without some objective cause. Such a cause for his change from the tragedies to the romances I find in the production at about the same time of a series of romances by Beaumont and Fletcher. I think, also, that Shakspere's romances show definite evidences of the influ- ence of Beaumont and Fletcher. In order to establish any probability for these opinions, there is necessary ( i ) an examina- tion of the dates of Shakspere's and of Beaumont and Fletcher's 1 See B. Leouhardt. Anglia 8. "^ See William Shakspere by Barrett Wendell, p. 334. romances in order to determine if the latter preceded, and (2) an examination of such of Beaumont and Fletcher's romances as date early enough in order to discover their distinguishing characteristics, and a like examination of Shakspere's three romances in search of indications of Beaumont and Fletcher's influence. In addition to these two principal investigations there are some minor ones involved by them. The rather general opin- ion that both Shakspere and Fletcher are concerned in the authorship of //i^wrj/ VI/I and the Two Noble Kinsmen, is im- portant in its bearing on the investigation of Fletcher's influ- ence on Shakspere. We shall consider, therefore, the dates, the authorship and the possible collaboration in these plays. Their discussion, together with that of the lost Cardenio, also attributed to Fletcher and Shakspere, will be included for con- venience in the first main division of the investigation, that of the chronology of the plays. Pericles is often spoken of as a precursor of Shakspere's romances and must therefore receive at least brief consideration. This will be postponed to the appendix. Inasmuch as in investigating the chronology of the Beau- mont-Fletcher plays I shall take Mr. Fleay's conclusions as a basis, some of his theories must first be considered, and with them some matters of the stage history of the period and some general methods used in the subsequent investigation. As this introduction to the Beaumont-Fletcher chronology also, in some details, afiects the Shakspere chronology, it will precede the latter as well as the former. An examination of the plays acted in the eight or ten years preceding the romances will also be necessary in order to deter- mine to what extent they were innovations on contemporary practice. In discussing the characteristics of the romances of Beau- mont and Fletcher and their influence on Shakspere's we should naturally expect to find in Cymbeline, probably the earliest of the latter, more distinct traces of the influence of Beaumont and Fletcher than in the Winter's Tale and the Tempest ; for in these later plays Shakspere, once accustomed to the new style of drama, would more completely transform it. I shall, therefore, consider separately the influence of Philaster on Cymbeline, and in still another chapter discuss the Winter* s Tale and the Tempest. My investigation, therefore, will be presented in the follow- ing somewhat arbitrary order. (I.) I . Introduction to the chronology of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher and the stage history of 1605-16 15. 2. Chronology of Shakspere's three romances. 3. Chronology and discussion of Henry VIII, the Two Noble Kinsmen, and Cardenio. 4. Chronology of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. (II.) 5. The drama 1601-1610. 6. General characteristics of the romances of Beaumont and Fletcher, 7. General characteristics of Shakspere's romances, 8. Cymbeline and Philaster. 9. A Winter' s Tale and the Tempest. 10. (Appendix). Pericles. In spite of the somewhat wide latitude of the investigation, its two main objects must not be lost sight of: (i) to show that so far as dates and facts of stage history are concerned, it is entirely possible that the Beaumont- Fletcher romances may have influenced Shakspere, and (2) to show a probability that they did definitely influence his romances. CHAPTER II. Introduction to Chronology and Stage History. Before attempting to fix the dates of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, it is necessary to understand the few facts known of their lives and reputations as dramatists and to discuss a few important features of the stage historj'- of the time. In discussing the separate plays, I shall take as a basis the con- clusions of Mr. Fleay in his Chronicle of the English Drama; and these conclusions rest so often on his special theories in regard to the general stage history that, in order even to under- stand his dates for the plays, those theories must be carefully examined. A . Biograph ies . Francis Beaumont, third son of Judge Beaumont of Grace Dieu in Leicestershire, was born about 1585 and died March 6, 1 6 16. He was admitted gentleman commoner at Broadgates Hall, Oxford, in 1597, and was entered at the Inner Temple, lyondon, Nov. 3, 1600. Salamis ^m^ Hermaphrodite , 1602, may possibly have been written by him. He w^as married, possibly about 1613,^ and left two daughters (one, a posthumous child). He was buried in Westminster Abbey. John Fletcher, son of Richard Fletcher, Bishop of Bristol, was baptized at Rye in Sussex, where his father was then minister, Dec. 20, 1579, and died of the plague Aug. 25, 1625, He was entered as a pensioner at Bene't College, Cambridge, 1591- It is not known just when Fletcher came to London or when he began writing plays or when he first became acquainted with Beaumont. Davenant in a prologue to the Woman Hater at a revival, evidently alluding to Fletcher, declares that ''full twenty years he wore the bays: " this would place the begin- ning of his play-writing 1604-5. In 1607, both he and Beau- mont prefixed verses to Volpone (acted 1605.) Beaumont ad- dresses Jonson as " my dear friend," praises him for teaching ' ' our tongue the rules of time, of place, ' ' and shows a character- istic scorn of the audiences of the day. Fletcher also classes himself among Jonson' s friends and speaks of the latter' s foes. In 1607, then, they were well acquainted with Jonson and 1 Fleay: Chr. I, p. 170. probably with each other. Beaumont wrote commendatory- verse for Epiccene (1609) and both Beaumont and Fletcher for Catiliiie (1611). Beaumont also wrote commendatory verses, together with Jonson, Chapman, and Field for Fletcher's Faith- ful Shepherdess (4to 1609?) The Womaji Hater, probably by Beaumont alone, was published anonymously, 1607. Beau- mont's oft-quoted epistle to Jonson, is entitled in the 1679 folio, " written before he and Master Fletcher came to London with two of the precedent comedies, then not finished, which de- ferred their merry meetings at the Mermaid. ' ' ^ The reference in the letter to Sutcliffe's wit seems to refer to the pamphlets produced by him in 1606.'^ In 1610, Davies' Scourge of Folly was published, containing an epigram on Philaster. In 161 2, in the address to the reader, prefixed to the White Devil,^ Webster praises " the no less worthy composures of the both worthily excellent Master Beaumont and Master Fletcher," ranking them on equal terms with such scholars and ex- perienced dramatists as Chapman and Jonson, and apparently above Shakspere, Dekker, and Heywood. Before 1612, then, the reputation of Beaumont and Fletcher as dramatists must have been well established. Beaumont, in addition to his plays, wrote elegies on the Lady Markham who died in 1609, the Countess of Rutland who died in 1 61 2, and Lady Penelope Clifton who died in 161 3. He also addressed some verses to the Countess of Rutland, and in 161 3 wrote a masque for Lady Elizabeth's marriage, which was per- formed with great splendor by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn. We shall find no direct evidence that he wrote anything for the stage during the last four years of his life. At the same time there is no positive reason to believe that he stopped pla}'-writing so long before his death. Beaumont was buried in Westminster Abbey close by Chaucer and Spenser; and the verses on Shakspere, usually attributed to William Basse, bid " Renowned Spencer lye a thought more nye To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lye A little nearer Spenser, to make roome For Shakespeare in your threefold, fowerfold Tombe. To lodge all fowre in one bed make a shift Until Doomesdaye, for hardly will a fift Betwixt this day and that by Fate be slayne. For whom your curtaines may be drawn againe." There is no doubt, indeed, that Beaumont's reputation as a poet was very high even before his death. The commendatory ^Whether there is any evidence for the connection between the epistle and " two of the precedent comedies " is a matter of conjecture. '-C/., Chr. I p. 170. '^ Acted before 1612, perhaps 1607-8 (Fleay). 10 verses prefixed to the Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647 show that then they were probably the most popular of the Elizabethan dramatists. How high their literary reputation was, can be seen from the fact that either during their lives or after their deaths, their praises were heralded by Jonson, Chap- man, Webster, Waller, Denham, Lovelace, Cartwright, Her- rick, Brome, and Shirley. Perhaps no other poet of the Eliza- bethan period — certainly not Shakspere — received such a volume of praise. B. Con?iedio?is with Theatrical Companies. We have next to examine some of Mr. Fleay's theories, and from the examination arrive at some important facts of the stage history. We may first consider Beaumont and Fletcher's connections with the theatrical companies. Some of the Elizabethan playwrights were actors and wrote for the companies in which they acted; some were hackwriters whose services were engaged for certain periods by certain companies. Some, like Shakspere, wrote for one company throughout their career; some changed back and forth at fairly traceable intervals from one company to another. Beaumont and Fletcher were neither actors, nor managers, nor hack- writers; they were gentlemen and poets. They were probably no more closely attached at any one time to any one company than a dramatist of to-day would be bound to one manager, or a novelist to one publisher. Not only is there no evidence that their services were subsidized for definite periods by particular companies; on the contrary there is clear evidence that they belonged to the class of writers who were independent of all such theatrical engagements. That there was such a class of dramatists may be clearly seen from a cursory examination of Ben Jonson 's dramatic career. The following list shows his career up to 1616,^ giving date, play, company, and theater. 1597, Dec. 3. 1598, Aug. 19. 1598. I (before 1599.) \ 1598. 1599- 1599. Aug. 10, Sep. 2. 1599, Sep. 1600. 1601, 1601. (?) Fleay. i5oi-2, Sep. 25, June 24. 1602, June 24. *With collaborators. t Also acted b3' another company; Fleay thinks before 1603 by Chapel Children. ^The dates can be verified by Henslow's diary and Jonson's 1616 folio. Henslow, "a book." Hot A nger soon Cold* Henslow, Admirals. Rose. The Case is Altered. Chapel Children. Every Man in his Humour. Every Man out of his Humour. Lord Chamberlain's. t Lord Chamberlain's. Curtain. Globe. Page of Plymouth. Henslow, Admiral's. Rose. Robert IT, King of Scots.* Cynthia's Revels. The Poetaster. Tale of a Tub. Henslow, Admiral's. Chapel Children. Chapel Children. Chapel Children. (?) Rose. Blackfriars Blackfriars The Spanish Tragedy, Additions :. Henslow, Admiral's. Fortune. Richard Crookback. Henslow, Admiral's. Fortune. i603. Sejanus. 1604-5. Eastward Ho* 1605. Volpone. 1609. Epuoene. 1610. Alchemist. 1611. Catiline. 1614. Bartkolemew Fair. i6r6. The Devil is an Ass. *With collaborators. King's. Globe. Queen's Revels. Blackfriars King's. Globe, Queen's Revels. ? King's. Blackfriars King's. Blackfriars Lady Elizabeth's. Hope. King's. Blackfriars It is absurd to say, as Mr. Fleay does, that Jonson left this company and went to that; one has to trace twelve such changes for twenty plays. "This continual change of company,"^ which Mr. Fleay says is peculiar to Jonson, simply indicates that he never had any definite connection with any compan5\ During their joint career as dramatists, Beaumont and Fletcher are as ' peculiar ' as Jonson in the continual changing of compan5% The following are the only certain dates of plays before 1616, (Beaumont's death) and they show how impossi- ble it is to arrange the plaj^s by periods in which the authors were writing for different companies. 1607. Before Oct., 1610. Woman Hater, printed. Philaster. acted. Paul's Boys. King's Men. 1612. Coxcomb, acted at court. Rossiter's Queen's Revels 1612-3. Captain, acted at court. King's Men. 1612. Cupid's Revenge, acted at court. Queen's Revels. In or before 1611. Maid's Tragedy, acted. King's Men. 161 1. A King and No King, acted. King's Men. 1613. Honest Man's Fortune, acted. Lady Elizabeth's Men. This list at least shows the difficulty of dividing the plays chronologically into groups written for different companies; yet this is just what Mr. Fleay tries to do, and he also tries to trace the changes of Beaumont and Fletcher in conjunction with Jonson's. This method has vitiated his entire chronology. To what extent it rests on ill-founded conjectures and neglect and misstatement of facts, we shall have occasion to notice in other places. Here, we can only point out the absurdity of the whole proceeding. Up to about September, i6io,^ he thinks Beaumont and Fletcher were writing for the Revels children, (Blackfriars Company and its successor at Whitefriars) ; and so all the plays acted b}^ the Revels Company are crowded into the years before that date. Then in company with Jonson,^ he thinks they left the Revels boys for the King's men, where they took the place of Shakspere.* But Shakspere's Tempest, according to Mr. Fleay 's own statement^ was not yet produced, and Beau- mont and Fletcher's Philaster was produced some time before Oct. 8, 1610. Moreover, Jonson's leaving the Revels for the iChr. I, p. 346. 2 Except the Woman Hater for Pauls Bovs. For date see Chr. I, p. 188 3Chr. I, p. 188, Chr. I, p. 349. *Chr. I, p. 370. ^Life of Shakspere, p. 248. King's men amounts to just this; from 1605 to the end of 1610, he wrote one play, Epicoene, (1609) which was acted by the Revels boys, and in 1610, \\\s Alchemist v^as acted by the King's men. Jouson did not change in September, 16 10, neither did Beaumont and Fletcher. From i6ioto 1613, Mr. Fleay keeps them busy writing plays for the King's men; but in 1613, he thinks "Fletcher, still following Johnson, now left the King's men " ^ and wrote 16 1 3-1 6 for the I^ady Elizabeth's men. In 16 13, as a matter of fact, Jonson was in France with Sir Walter Raleigh's son, so it is hard to see in what way Fletcher followed him. The facts are simply these: Jonson' s Catiline was acted in 161 1 by the King's men, and his next play was acted three years later by the Lady Elizabeth's men. Beaumont and Fletcher's A King and No King was acted by the King's men in 161 1, and The Honest Man' s Fortune, in which Fletcher, at least, had a share, was acted by Lady Elizabeth's men in 1613. There are no other plays by Fletcher which were certainly acted 1 61 3- 1 6 by Lady Elizabeth's men. Mr. Fleay 's method of arranging the plays certainly tends to distort the facts and may well be dispensed with. The rela- tions between the dramatists and the companies do, however, afford some assistance in determining the dates of plays. From 1 6 19 and perhaps from as early a date as 16 16, Fletcher seems to have been writing only for the King's men; at least, so many of his plays were produced by that company, there is small likelihood that he wrote for any other. Before i6i6, there is no definite evidence connecting either Beaumont or Fletcher for fixed periods with any company.^ The fact, how- ever, that one of their plays was produced by a given company at a certain date, makes it somewhat likely that other plays were produced by the same company at about that time. If they wrote some plays for the Revels boys before 161 1, there is a consequent likelihood that they wrote others. If none of their plays, so far as is known, were presented by the Queen's men, there is a strong presumption against any particular play of theirs being acted by the Queen's men. There is, however, no reason to suppose that different plays of theirs may not have been given first presentations by different companies in the same year. There is no reason why they may not have been writing in the same year one play particularly suited to one of the companies of children and another play for the King's men. I shall therefore attempt to determine the date of each play iChr. I, p. 195. 2They wrote for Paul's boys. Queen's Revels, Rossiter's (Second Queen's) Revels, King's men, and Lady Elizabeth's men. 13 without any assistance from a conjectural division of Beaumont and Fletcher's dramatic career into periods marking their con- nection with diflferent companies. C. The Plague and the Closiiig of the Theaters. "In the reigns of James and Charles," writes Mr. Fleay, ' ' the plagues were so frequent that the theaters were often closed in consequence. This took place whenever the deaths from plague amounted to forty per week." ^ He then goes on to show that this regulation was rigidly enforced because from an examination of Henslow's diary for 1593, it appears that the theater was closed from May 3 to Dec. 27, while the deaths exceeded forty a week from April 28 to Dec. 15. He, there- fore, concludes that the theaters were closed during all periods when the plague deaths per week were above forty; and hence in the later half of each of the five years 1606-10 inclusive, from about July i to the last of November, and particularly, from July 28 to Dec. 22, 1608, and from Dec. 26, 1608, to Nov. 30, 1609. This theory, especially in respect to the closing of the thea- ters for sixteen months in 1608-9, is of great importance in Mr. Fleay's chronology of plays. It is, in fact, constantly leading him into trouble. He is obliged to assign the Scornful Lady, Monsieur Thomas, and any other plays which he thinks date 1609, to the small part of December which would remain after the announcement had been made that the deaths were less than forty. He is also obliged to explain the acting of Epicoene in 1609^ by the old style calender. One suspects, in- deed, that his theory that the theaters closed entirely was an offspring of his theories about the Blackfriars House, for in his Life of Shakspere * he assigns Cymbeline to the autumn of 1609 and merely remarks, " this being a plague year, there was little dramatic activity." At all events, considered point by point, his theorj^ proves untenable. In the first place, it is not clear just what the regulation was for closing the theaters. Mr. Fleay insists that forty is the correct number of deaths,* but in Middleton's Your Five Gallayits,^ the following passage indicates that the number was thirty, — " 'tis e'en as uncertain as playing, now up and now down; for if the bill doiun rise to above thirty, here' s no place for players.'' Again in the rough draft of a patent for iH. ofS. p. 162. 2 So stated in quarto and folio of 1616. *p. 162. *H. of S. p. 191. So stated in Privy Seal to King's Men, 1619-20. 'L,icensed March 22, 1608. 14 the Earl of Worcester's men, published by Collier,^ it is es- pecially provided that they shall play ' ' when the infection of the plague shall decrease to the number of thirty within our city of London." Again in a letter printed in Winwood's Memorials,"- thirty a week is referred to as if it were the limiting number of deaths. Finally, in none of the eight patents granted to companies from 1603-16 15, except in the one just noted is there any reference to a limiting number. In six ^ there is no allusion whatever to the plague; and in the remaining one to the King's men,* they are to act "when the infection of the plague shall decrease. ' ' There is no refer- ence to the forty Hmit until the Privy Seal to the King's men in 1620.^ In the second place there is no certainty that any regulation prohibiting theatrical performances during the plague was rigidly enforced. Mr. Fleay's conclusion rests on the closing of Henslow's theater for seven months during a year when the deaths numbered 11,503; but because a theater was closed when the plague was so prevalent, it clearly does not follow that any regulation was strictly enforced fifteen years later when the deaths were averaging about twenty-five hundred yearly. A passage in Middleton's A Mad World my Masters^ makes it certain that theaters were sometimes closed because of the plague, but also makes it evident that the players de- cidedly objected to such regulations. When fear of the plague was not excessive, it seems reasonable to suppose that the regu- lations were unenforced or evaded. 1 Vol. I, p. 336. Fleay suspects, to be sure, that this draft of a patent may be a forgery, but one of the chief reasons for his suspicion is that the number of deaths is stated at thirty instead of forty. H of S. p. 140. 2 Vol. II, p. 140. "The sudden riseing of the sickness to thirty a " week and the infesting of nineteen parishes, made us think the Term, "or Parliament, or both, might be prolonged and put off, but the " abating of some few this week makes us all hold on." Also printed Nichols I, 562. Dated Oct. 12, 1605. ^ Privy Seal, Jan. 30. 1604. Her Majesty's Revels. Collier I, 340, Privy Seal, March 30, 1610. Duke of York's. Shak. Soc. Papers, IV. 47. Privy Seal, April 15, 1609. Queen's Men. Shak. Soc. Papers, IV. 44. Privy Seal, April 30, 1607. Prince's Men. Shak. Soc. Papers, IV, 42. Privy Seal, Jan. 4, 1613. Palsgrave's Men. Collier I, 365. Privy Seal, May 30, 1615. Philip Rossiter et al. English Drama and Stage, p. 46. Roxburgh Library (1869). * Patent, May 17, 1603, King's Men. Collier I, 334. This patent was granted in the great plague year of 1603, when the deaths were over 30,000. ^Patent, March 27, 1620. English Drama and Stage. Roxburgh Library, 1869, p. 50. ^Quarto 1608; acted (Fleay) 1606; " But for certain players, there "thou liest, boy, they were never more uncertain in their lives; "now up, and now down; they know not where to play, or what to " play, nor when to play for fearful fools." Act V, sc. i. 15 In the third place, Mr. Flea^-'s table of the periods 1606- 16 10 when the deaths exceeded forty per week, is open to sus- picion. I have not been able to examine the mortality tables, but it seems curious that the deaths were less than forty per week for a period Dec. 22 to 26, 1608. At any rate, for five years the deaths averaged about 2,500 a year, and in 1609, the year in which the plague was severest, they were only a little over 4,000. This plague had been prevalent since the great outbreak of 1603; and one would hardly suppose it sufficient to close the theaters entirely during sixteen months in 1608-9. There is, in fact, very definite evidence that it did not. On the 5th of April, 1609, J. Hemings was paid for twelve plays performed at court by the King's men the Christmas before; and on the same date there was a payment for three plays by the Prince's men, presumably also given in the Christmas season 1608-9. At that time, according to Mr. Fleay, the theaters had been closed five months, and we have to suppose that the travelling companies^ were summoned back to London to play at court during the plague. A more likely inference is that the companies were playing in London both at the time of the court performance and the later payment. There is, in fact, no evidence that theaters, pageants, or business in general were to any extent interrupted by the plague in 1608-9. The Masque of Queens was performed Feb. 2, 1609 before the royal family at Whitehall; the king and royal family visited the Tower June 23, 1609, and the Bourse (new Exchange) was dedicated April 10, 1609. Moreover, in April, 1609, we find a patent granted to the Queen's players " to shewe and exer- cise publickly as well within their nowe usual houses called the Redd Bull, etc." * Apparently the theaters and companies were then in full swing. Jonson's Epiarne, too, was certainly acted in 1609, as stated in the first quarto and the carefully edited folio of 16 16. Mr. Fleay assumes that Jonson is using the old calendar and that 1 609 may include Jan. -March 1 6 10, hence he dates the play 1610,^ because he thinks the theaters were closed during 1609, and because he sees in the prologue a reference to the Whitefriars theater which he thinks was occupied by a company of Revels boys in 1610. The last reason is one of Mr. Fleay's wildest, and may be at once dismissed ; ' ' the daughters of Whitefriars ' ' 1 They were presumably away from London, unless they returned for the period Dec. 22-Dec. 26, when Fleay thinks the plague deaths were less than forty a week. 2 Fleay (Chr. I, 31) says " they did not play until December on ac- count of the plague." 3 Chr. I, p. 374. 16 has no reference to the theater,-^ The assumption ihat Jonson used the old style calendar, beginning the year IV.arch 26, is equall}' contrary to fact but has some value as a ypical ex- ample of Mr. Fleay's methods. In jfixing the date of Epiccene in 16 10, he remarks, ' ' this play like the Fox and other plays, has hitherto been da.fed a year too early, in consequence of the use of the old style dates." ^ Nevertheless, earlier in the same volume, he expressl}^ states: "Jonson and Chapman begin their 3'ear Jan. i; most other writers March 26." ^ Fortunately we have the means for de- termining which of these two contradictory statements is true by comparing the dates given in the quartos and folio for several of the masques with the known dates of their prese\tation. The following table will make it perfectly plain that in dating his productions Jonson began the year with January first. Date given in Quarto. Date given in New style date of Masque. 1616 Folio. Court Perf'r'nce. 1605 and 1608. 1605 and 1608. Jan. i, 1605, and Blackness. Jan.. 160S. Jan. 5, 1606. not dated. Jan. 6, 1606. Hymen. 1608. 1608. Jan. 14, 160S. Beauty. Quarto, enteredlS. R., Feb. 22, i6og. Feb. 2, 1609. Feb. 2, i6og. Queens. 1608. Feb., 1608. Hue and Cry. after Cupid. The evidence* (note particularly the date given for the Masque of Qiceens) seems to be conclusive that the 1609 date given in the Folio for Epicoene means from Jan. i to Dec. 31, 1609. Finally, then, Mr. Fleay's deductions from his theory of the closing of the theaters add nothing to its plausibility. In addition to placing Epicoene in 16 10, he places the Scornful Lady, Ram Alley, ^ Monsieur Thomas, and quite possibly other plays I have not noticed, in December, 1609. In the week ending Nov. 30, the plague deaths exceeded forty; another '^Epicoene. Prologue. . . " Some for lords, knights, 'squires ; " Some for your waiting wench, and city wives, " Some for your men and daughters of Whitefriars." See, also, Volpone, IV. i.,'"Ay, your Whitefriars nation." Gifford explains the passage: "Whitefriars was at this time a privileged spot in which fraudulent debtors, gamblers, prostitutes, and other outcasts of society usually resided." See, also. The Blacke Booke 4to 1604. B. 8, p. 30, "drabs in Whitefriars" and Father Hubbard's Tales, Bk 8, p. 78,^" Whitefriar's nunnery," Bk 8, p. 84, " Whitefriars, Pict. -hatch, and Tumball Sheet." 2Chr. I, p. 374- ^Chr. I, p. 65, foot-note. *The only case I have noted in which the folio does not date by the new style is in that portion which Mr. Fleay himself says was not supervised by Jonson, i. e., which is without marginal notes and whose statements are less correct. There, the Golden Age Restored, acted Jan. i and 6, 1616, is dated 1615. ^He is in doubt between Dec, 1609 and 1610. 3 17 week must have elapsed in which they were less than forty, and at least a few da5\s more according to his theory before the companies could have acted. ^ He supposes, then, that after sixteen months of idleness or absence from London, the companies at once began playing and that one of them, the Queen's Revels, brought out two new plays in the last two weeks of December, 1609. This supposition alone is enough to throv/ suspicion on his theory. On the whole, the most that can be safely asserted is that the theaters were very possibly closed during the summer and autumn months of 1609-10, when the plague was more fatal than co/nmon. During these months the companies probably spent some of the time in travelling. There is positive evidence that the theaters were not closed during sixteen or seventeen months 1608- 1609, and the only safe assumption is Mr. Fleay's earlier one that theatrical activity may have been considerably lessened because of the plague in 1609. D. The Occupancy of Blackfriars by the King' s Men. Mr. Fleay dates all the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher acted by the King's men later than the fall of 1610. He does this because he thinks Beaumont and Fletcher then left the Revels children and joined the King's men, and because he thinks the King's men had then just begun playing in Black- friars, where he seems to imagine all Beaumont and Fletcher's plays were first acted. The first reason we have already found to be groundless ; the second is of enough importance in Mr. Fleay's chronology to require special attention. The date of the occupancy of Blackfriars by the King's men, he reaches by a curious process. The Blackfriar Share Papers, first published by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps in his O^it- lines of the Life of Shakespeare , proved that Burbadge took back the lease of Blackfriars from Evans (given ih 1600) and established a men's company there instead of the boys, taking Underwood and Ostler" from the boys' company into the King's men. Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps stated the date of the change to be December, 1609.' Thereupon, Mr. Fleay in his Life of Shakespeare^ took Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps to task for merely guessing. Mr. Fleay declared that Burbadge bought the remainder of the lease probably on Lady's Day, 16 10 and then took possession of the building. Then Mr. Green- ^Mr. Fleay seems to think the theaters were opened before any announcement was made or the deaths were less than forty a week, for he speaks of the re-opening of the theaters Dec. i. Chr. i,ji. 2 Field's name is also mentioned, but this seems surely a misstate- ment. He does not appear with the King's men until about 1616. ^Outlines, p. 150. 4 p. 164. 18 street's discovery of the papers of the Kirkham-Biirbadge case, proved that Burbadge actually bought back the lease in August, 1608. Mr. Fleay, however, clung to as much of his former theory as he possibly could. The King's men did not take possession, he affirmed in his History of the St age, ^ until December 24, 1609. He seems to have finally arrived at Mr. Halliwell-Phillips' earlier guess. Now, this date, December 24, 1609, involves the following improbable theory : Although Burbadge bought back the lease in August, 1608, the theater was closed by the plague until Nov. 30, 1609 ; just as soon as possible after the deaths were less than forty a week (Dec. i to 7), the company which had occupied the theater before 1608, the Queen's Revels children, began playing again in Blackfriars; on December 24, they gave it up to Burbadge and the King's men. Mr. Fleay's support for this theory is three-fold : (i) the Scorn- ful Lady was acted at Blackfriars in 1609, by the Queen's Revels; (2) a new company of boys, a successor of the old Queen's Revels, was formed by Rossiter in January, 1610, and the first Revels did not leave Blackfriars until then; (3) the plague closed all the theaters from July 28, 1608, to Nov. •30, 1609. These supports are all conjectural and groundless. The first we have already seen to be improbable, as will appear more conclusively in our discussion of the Scornful Lady. The sec- ond has no ground, for the Revels company was certainW on the verge of dissolution in 1608, and there is no reason to be sure that it kept together until Rossiter's company was formed. Further, the Revels children might conceivably have left Blackfriars some time before they joined Rossiter's company, or they might have shared the Blackfriars for a while with the King's men, as Collier suggested.^ At any rate, the Revels company in a disbanded state wouldn't have been very likely to occupy Burbadge' s theater to the exclusion of the King's men. The third conjecture, in regard to the plague, has already been shown to be without foundation. So much for Mr. Fleay's theory. The facts are clear enough. Just what became of the remnant of Queen's Revels from 1608- 1610 is, indeed, open to conjecture, but there can be no doubt about the King's men. Evans sold back his lease to Burbadge in August, 1608. The reasons for the transfer are stated to have been legal inhibitions and financial difficulties. Burbadge placed men players in Blackfriars ; but before doing so, accord- ing to the testimony of his children/ he took Ostler and Under- ^ p. 200. et passim. 2 Vol. I, p. 360. Mr. Fleay also states that two companies may have sometimes shared the same theatre. Life Sliaks., p. 164. 2 Blackfriars Share Papers. H. P. Outlines, V. I, p. 286-293. 19 wood into the King's men. The King's men probably occupied Blackfriars from 1608 on, as is indicated by the statement of John Hemings in a legal paper, dated Nov. 5, 161 2, who declares that for four years past he had received (as a partner of Burbadge) a share in the profits of the Blackfriars house, /. e., since the surrender of the lease by Evans. ^ There is nothing, moreover, to oppose the natural conclusion that the King's men took pos- session of Blackfriars very soon after August, 1608. E. The Revels Companies. We have already examined Mr. Fleay's theory of the career of the Queen's Revels in so far as it was affected by the plague years and the closing of Blackfriars. His further discussion of this and the other Revels companies seems to me inadequate ; but since it does not affect the dates of any of the Beaumont and Fletcher plays, I shall merely note the conclusions reached in my investigations without discus.sing the changes of the com- panies in detail. On the whole the most reasonable chronology is that in 1605, after their difficulty over Eastward Ho, the Queen's Revels boys ceased for a time to use that name but continued in Black- friars until August, 1608, when the company was broken up and the lease resold to Burbadge. The King's Revels appear as early as 1607 (when the Paul's boys disbanded), and not later than 1610 ; they employed some of the poets and possibly some of the actors of the Queen's Revels. Possibly the Queen's Revels kept up some sort of an organization from 1608 to 1610, but, surely, in 1610 the name was associated with a new com- pany of children, including some from both the King's and the Queen's Revels, which was managed by Rossiter and acted at Whitefriars. This chronology is not without difficulties, and cannot be relied upon with certainty in establishing dates of plays. We have not enough evidence to trace out in detail the history of the Revels Companies from 1604- 1613, but the im- portant facts are certain. In 1608 the first Queen's Revels disbanded, and in 1610 a new company of Queen's Revels was established. F. Shakspere with Beaumont and Fletcher^ writing for the King' s Men. Still another theory of Mr. Fleay's requires especial examin- ation. He asserts that Shakspere gave up writing for the King's men in the autumn of 1610,^ and that Jonson, Beau- ^Greeustreet Papers. H. of S., p. 238. The joiut and several answers of John Hemings and Richard Burbadge, etc. 2Chr. I, p. 170, mont, and Fletcher succeeded him about September. Mr. Fleay thinks that before this date Beaumont and Fletcher wrote for the Queen's Revels at Blackfriars, until December, 1609, and for Rossi ter's new company at Whitefriars in 1610. We have seen how little basis there is for any theory that traces the careers of these dramatists by their connections with com- panies. In regard to Shakspere there is no evidence, whatever, that he left writing in the fall of 16 10. There is, on the con- trary, important evidence, as we shall see later, that he wrote for the King's men even until 1613.^ Mr. Fleay' s theory, however, can be disproved without going outside of his own discussions. He fixes the date of the Temp- est,^ as do most critics, after Jourdain's narrative, published October 13, 16 10 ; so Shakspere was, according to Mr. Fleay' s own account, writing for the King's men after that date. In Davies' Scourge of Folly (entered S. R., October 8, 1610) there is an epigram on Philaster} This play, in the first quarto, is stated to have been " acted at the Globe by his Majesty's Ser- vants ;" therefore Beaumont and Fletcher were certainly writ- ing for the King's men before Shakspere stopped writing for that company. In addition to the evidence of the date of the Tempest, we may note that the evidence of the date of the Winter's Tale, and the opinion of his most competent biographers agree in placing Shakspere' s withdrawal from dramatic writing later than the latest possible date for Philaster. To show how these theories of Mr. Fleay 's have vitiated his results, it will be enough to state that, owing to his conjectures that the King's men did not occupy the Blackfriars house until December, 1609, and that the plague closed all the theaters for seventeen months, and that Beaumont and Fletcher did not join the King's men until the autumn of 16 10, he has placed the first productions of six of their best plays in the ten months from December, 1609, to September, i6ro. He places the Scorn- fjil Lady and Monsieiir Thomas at the Blackfriars in 1609, the Knight of the Biinmig Pestle, the Coxcomb, and Oipid' s Re- venge at the Whitefriars in 1610 ; and Philaster at the Black- friars by the King's men before Oct. 8, 1610. Without con- sidering the evidence for the date of each play, the production of these six plays in ten months is improbable. According to Mr. Fleay, Beaumont wrote almost the whole of two of these and a large share in three others, which is a very large propor- tion of his life's work to assign to so short a period ; besides, iSee discussion of Henry VIII and Two Noble Kinsmen, Chapter IV. 2Lifeof Sh., pp. 248-9. 8 Correctly stated by Fleay. Chr. II, 189. the six plays show wide diflferences in style and dramatic methods. Leaving Mr. Fleay's theories, we may again repeat the im- portant facts. In August, 1608, Burbadge took back his lease of Blackfriars. During 1609 the plague was more severe than usual. Beaumont and Fletcher were certainly writing for the King's men before Shakspere left the company. G. Evidence of Folios, Quartos, and Verse-tests. In addition to the foregoing remarks on stage-history, there are some general considerations in respect to the evidence of folios and quartos and of verse-tests which may best be stated now. Beaumont and Fletcher, like Shakspere, took no care about publishing their plays. Only four were printed before Beaumont's death in 1616, and his name appears on none of these. Fletcher's name appears on only the Faithful Shepherd- ess and Cupid's Revenge. In general, their plays seem to have held the stage and to have been kept from the printers; at any rate, only fourteen plays were published in quartos before the folio of 1647, which contained thirty-six plays never before published. These were all assigned to Beaumont and Fletcher; but Beaumont certainly had no share in many of them, Fletcher probably had no share in a few, while Massinger certainly had a large share in many, and other dramatists in a few. The evidence of both quartos and folio on the question of author- ship is nearly valueless. In the second folio of 1679, the plays previously published in quarto were added to those of the first folio; and to these latter, lists of the chief actors were in many cases supplied. These lists were added to all the plays of the first folio certainly acted by the King's men and to three others, and are an im- portant aid in determining the dates of those plays. Seven lists have Burbadge at the head, so the plays must have been acted before his death in 1619; and the remaining plays by the King's men without Burbadge' s name date pretty certainly after 1618. The presence or ab.sence of other actors on these lists helps to fix their dates more exactly. From 1622 on, we also have the dates of licensing given in Herbert's office book. A number of plays, however, have neither actors' lists nor are on Herbert's books. The presump- tion, therefore, is that they were not acted by the King's men and that they date before 1622; or — since the time 1618-1622 is well filled with plays by the King's men — probably before 16 18. A further means of fixing the dates of these plays is that of verse-tests, used primarily to determine the authorship of the plays. These have been applied to Beaumont and Fletcher's plays by^ Fleay, Macaulay, Boyle, and Oliphant, to whose work I shall have frequent occasion to refer. Beaumont seems to have stopped writing for the stage i6i 1-12, at least, no plays in which he certainly had a share date later than that; so if the critics agree in giving Beaumont a share in a play, the date is presumably before 161 2, and certainly before 16 16. The trouble is they don't agree; still, including disputed cases, there are only some fifteen plays which Mr. Fleay, or Mr. Macaulay, or Mr. Boyle assigns to Beaumont. Mr. Oliphant, however, thinks that a great number of the plays of uncertain date were first written by Beaumont and Fletcher, or by one of them alone, and later revised by other authors. The reasons which lead him to such a conclusion may be briefly summarized. ( i ) If a play is not on Herbert's licensing books, it was originally produced before 1622, and probably, as noted above, before 161 8. (2) Many of these plays accord- ing to all investigators, show signs of revision by other authors than Beaumont or Fletcher. (3) If written within a few years before 1622, it is odd that they should be revised shortly after Fletcher's death in 1625. There is a probability, therefore, that they were early plays; and in addition to these general considerations, (4) he finds in some specific indications of Beaumont's authorship. In this way he places before 161 2 some twelve plays in addition to those so dated by Mr. Fleay. This obliges him to date the beginning of Beaumont and Fletcher's writing for the stage as early as 1604; a reference to the known facts of their lives will show that this date is probable enough. Mr. Oliphant' s general reasoning is plausible, but his attempts to separate the work of two original authors and two revisers with their various permutations, are, from their nature, not of a sort to excite unlimited faith. Unless there is direct corroborating evidence of an early date, his conclu- sions in respect to a play must clearly be viewed with the utmost caution. At the same time, there is no doubt that a number of these plays were revised; and, a priori^ there is almost a probability that some in their present form may be revisions of early plays. In general, I shall avoid questions of authorship except 1 F. G. Fleay : Transactions New Shakespear'e Society, 1874. Chron- icle of the English Drama, 1891. G. C. Macaulay: Fraficis Beaumont, a critical study, 1883, London. R. Boyle: Englische Studien, V, VII, VIII, IX, X— 1881-2-1886. Transactions New Shakespeare Society, 1886. E. F. Oliphant: Englische Studien, XIV, XV, XVI, 1890-92. In referring to these I shall use simply the author's name unless special reference is necessary. A. H. Bullen in the article on Fletcher in the Diet, of Nat. Biog. has also discussed the authorship of the plays. when they directly affect the date; but as a number of such cases occur, a word may be added here on the subject. Fletcher's style is so clearly distinguishable that anj'^ one who has read him carefully ma}-- recognize it with some degree of certainty. Nevertheless, his Faithful Shepherdess^ is written . in a very different style and suggests that Fletcher may have varied his versification in other plays. Of Fletcher's work, however, we may generalh^ be sure; Massinger's style, though by no means as distinctive as Fletcher's, is somewhat readily distinguished by verse-tests from either Fletcher's or Beaumont's. Beaumont's versification rests on a somewhat doubtful canon; when a play is known to be by Beaumont and Pletcher, the part not in Fletcher's recognized manner is accredited to Beaumont. This separation was accomplished, however, with great skill by Mr. Macaulay* and has been substantiated in the main by other critics. When a pla}- is probably too late for Beaumont, the part neither in Massin- ger's nor in Fletcher's style goes begging. Field seems to be the favorite, but the vense-tests show little difference between his work and Beaumont's. Mr. Fleay seems confident that he can tell the difference, but he observes : " Mr. Boyle is, as I have frequently pointed out, incapable of distinguishing Field's work from Beaumont's." '^ Mr. Oliphant frankly con- fesses that the distinction between Field and Beaumont is one of the critic's most difficult tasks. He excepts the determina- tion of the authorship of prose passages, and here the basis of analysis .seems to be individual opinion rather than scientific demonstration. H. The " '' em-theyn'''' test. I venture to offer a new test which I think may be of serv- ice in testing the analysis already made by critics. Slight though it may seem, it certainly has the merit of definiteness. It is simply an author's use of ' them ' and ' 'em.' Every one who has read many of Fletcher's plays must have noticed the great frequency with which he uses ' 'em ' instead of ' them ' — 'kill 'em,' 'with 'em,' etc. This fact led me to count the ' thems' and ' 'ems ' in Henry VIII and the Two Noble Kins- men with a view of testing the generally accredited divisions of those plays between Fletcher and Shakspere. The results given 1 Mr. Fleay has no doubt that Beaumont had a share in this, Chr. I, p. 178, but the external evidence is strong to the contrary. ^Of the other critics, it may be noted that Mr. Fleay, after his usual fashion, gives his conclusions and ingeniously conceals his reasons. Mr. Boyle and Mr. Oliphant are scientific in their methods, but Mr. Boyle is a bit over-fond of discovering Massinger, and Mr, Oliphant often carries his analysis of revised plays beyond the limits of plausibility. 3 Chr. I, 206. 24 in another place are rather surprising. A little more counting showed that the preference for either ' them ' or ' 'em ' is, so far as it goes, a fair indication of authorship. Thus Fletcher, in the Woman's Prize^ uses sixty 'ems to four .thems ; in Bonduca,"' eighty-three 'ems to six thems ; in the two last plays oi Four Plays in One,^ fifteen 'ems to one them. These plays, as all others mentioned here, were selected purely at random, and probably indicate fairly Fletcher's de- cided preference for ' 'em.'* Moreover, he seems to have a special fondness for bunching several 'ems in a few lines, as : " Bring 'em in, Tie 'em and then unarm 'em.'"' " Now look upon 'em, son of Earth, and shame 'em ; Now see the faces of thy evil angels ; Lead 'em to Time, and let 'em fill his triumph !'"* " Caesar's soft soul dwells in 'em, Their mother got 'em sleeping. Pleasure nursed 'em!"' Shakspere differs ver}^ noticeably from Fletcher, and uses 'em only sparingly. In Cymbeline^ there are sixty-four ' thems ' and 1 Woman's Prize, I, i, o them, 2 'ems; I, 2, i them, 3 'ems; I, 3, 2 thems, 10 'ems ; I, 4, o them, i 'em ; II, i, o them, 3 'ems ; II, 2, o them, I 'em ; II, 3, o them, o 'em ; II, 4, o them, i 'em ; II, 5, o them, 7 'ems ; II, 6, o them, 9 'ems ; III, i, o them, 3 'ems ; III, 2, o them, 3 'ems ; III, 3, o them, o 'em ; III, 4, o them, 4 'ems ; IV, i, i them, 3 'ems ; IV, 2, o them, o 'em ; IV, 3, o them, i 'em ; IV, 4, o them, i 'em; IV, 5, o them, o 'em ; V, i, o them, 5 'ems ; V, 2, o them, 2 'ems ; V, 3, o them, o 'em ; V, 4, o them, i 'em. Total, 4 thems, 60 'ems. ^Bonduca, I, i, 10 'ems, o them; I, 2, 8 'ems, I them; II, i, 4 'ems, o them; II, 2, i 'em, o them; II, 3, 17 'ems, o them; II, 4, 5 'ems, i them; III, i, 4 'ems, i them; III, 2, i 'em, o them; III, 3, 5 'ems, o them ; III, 4, o 'em, o them ; III, 5, 13 'ems, i them; IV, i, o 'em, i them ; IV, 2, i 'em, i them ; IV, 3, 4 'ems, o them ; IV, 4, i 'em, o them ; V, I, 2 'ems, o them ; V, 2, 2 'ems, o them ; V, 3, 5 'ems, o them. Total, 83 'ems, 6 thems. ^Triumph of Death, 10 'ems, o them. Triumph of Time, 5 'ems, i them. Fletcher's Share in Four Plays, 15 'ems, i them. * ' Them,' however, is used in the Faithful Shepherdess; but that play, if Fletcher's, seems to be an exception to every rule that can be deter- mined for him. '" Bonduca, III, 5. 6 Triumph of Time., Scene IV, near end. "^ Bonduca, I, i. ^Cymbeline, I, i, 3 thems, o 'em' I, 4, o them, i 'em [prose]; I, 5, 3 thems, o 'em ; I, 6, 5 thems, o 'em ; II, i, 2 thems, o 'em ; II, 3, i them, o 'em ; II, 4, 4 thems, o 'em ; II, 5, 4 thems, o 'em ; III, i, 3 thems, o 'em; III, 2, 2 thems, o 'em; III, 3, 2 thems, i 'em; III, 4, i them, o 'em ; III, 6, 3 thems, o 'em ; IV, i, i them, o 'em ; IV, 2, 12 thems, o 'em; IV, 3, 2 thems, o 'em; IV, 4, i them, o 'em; V, i, 2 thems, o 'em ; V, 3, 2 thems, i 'em ; V, 4, 5 thems, o 'em ; V, 5, 6 thems, o 'em. Total, 64 thems, 3 'ems. 25 three ' 'ems'; in the Whaler's Ta/e,^ thirty-seven ' thems ' and eight ''ems;' and in the 7>;/z/)^^//^ thirty-eight 'thems' and thirteen ' 'ems.' So far as my observation goes ' 'em' occurs with the same comparative infrequency in the earlier plays as in the romances. Massinger invariably uses 'them.' At least, I have gone through seven of his plaj^s without finding a single ''em,' while each play contains from twenty to fifty ' thems.' ^ These seven plays, the Maid of Honour^ the Diike of Milan, A New Way to Pay Old Debts, the Great Duke of Florence, the Guardiayi, the Roman Actor, the City Madam, differ widely in character and date and must fairly represent his practice. Beaumont's practice is less certain. In the first two plays of Four Plays in One,* which are generally assigned to him, there are four 'thems' and eight' 'ems.' In the Woma?i Hater, also generally assigned to him, there are twenty-eight 'thems' and seven ' 'ems.'^ In A King and No King, in the portion assigned to Beaumont by Mr. Boyle," there are 1 Winter's Tale, I, i, i them, o 'em ; I, 2, 2 thems, o 'em ; II, i, 2 thems, I em ; II, 2, i them, o 'em ; II, 3, 2 thems, o 'em ; III, i, i them, o 'em; III, 2, 2 thems, o 'em; III, 3, i them, 2 'ems [prose]; IV, 3, o them, 2 'ems ; IV, 4, 18 thems, 3 'ems [7 thems, 2 'ems, in prose]; V, I, 3 thems, o 'em ; V, 2, 3 thems, o 'em [prose]; V, 3, i them, o 'em. Total, 37 thems, 8 'ems. ^The Tempest contains in addition four 'ems in one line of a snatch, III, I, 130. " Flout 'em and scout 'em. And scout 'em and flout em." And one additional them in a song, I, 2, 404. Counting these the total is 39 thems, 17 'ems. The Tempest, I, i, i them, o 'em ; I, 2, 5 thems, 4 'ems ; II, i, 4 thems, o 'em ; II, 2, o them, i 'em; III, i, i them, i 'em; III, 2, 3 thems, i 'em; III, 3, 5 thems, 2 'ems; IV, i, 7 thems, o 'em; V, i, 12 thems, 4 'ems. Total, 38 thems, 13 'ems. I suspect that this proportion of ' 'ems ' is about Shakspere's maxi- mum. 3 For table of these plays, see next page. * Triumph of Honour, 3 thems i 'em. Triumph of Love, i them, 6 'ems. Total, 4 thems, 8 'ems. ^The Woman Hater, Prologue, 3 thems, o 'ems; I, i, i them, o 'ems; I, 2, o thems, o 'ems, I, 3, i them, i 'em; II, i, 5 thems, i 'em; II, 2, o thems, o 'ems ; III, i, i them, o 'ems ; III, 2, o thems, o 'ems ; III, 3, I them, I em ; IV, i, 8 thems, o 'ems ; IV, 2, 2 thems, i 'em ; V, I, I them, I 'em; V, 2, i them, o 'ems; V, 3, o thems, o 'ems ; V. 4, 2 thems, o 'ems; V, 5, 2 thems, o 'ems. Total, 28 thems, 7 'ems. •^A King and No King, I, i, o thems, 10 'ems ; I, 2, o thems, o 'ems ; II, 1, I them, 4 'ems ; II, 2, 2 thems, 4 'ems ; III, i, o thems, 3 'ems ; III, 2, I them, 3 'ems; III, 3, o thems, 3 'ems; IV, i, o thems, 2 'ems; IV, 2, o thems, 4 'ems ; IV, 3, o thems, o 'ems ; IV, 4, i them, 9 'ems ; V, I, o thems, 3 'ems ; V, 2, o thems, i 'em ; V, 3, 2 thems, o 'ems ; V, 4, 2 thems, 5 'ems. Total, 9 thems, 51 'ems.* * 111 a King and No King, Mr. Boyle assigns IV, i ; IV, 2 ; IV, 3 ; V, 2 to Fletcher, leaving Beaumont the rest with 7 thems and 42 'ems ; but whatever division is made the proportion of thems and 'ems in Beaumont's share will not be greatly changed. 26 seven 'thems' and forty-two "ems.' So far as appears on the face, these results indicate that Beaumont used ' 'em ' and 'them' indiscriminately. Field certainly did; for in his A Woman is a Weathercock, there are, so far as I have counted, eighteen ' 'ems ' and twelve ' thems.' The definite results obtained in the cases of Fletcher, Mas- singer and Shakspere furnish safe standards. Modern texts follow the first quartos or folios carefully ; and the uniformity of the results, compared with the diversity of editions, shows that printers' errors may be disregarded. I cannot find, either, that any one of these authors is distinctly influenced in his use of ' 'em ' by the character of the speaker. Thus, Prospero says ' 'em' as well as Ariel, Caliban, and Antonio. Neither does the nature of the subject matter nor the use of prose make any appreciable difference. The preference for either ' 'em ' or ' them ' seems to have been merely an individ- ual mannerism; and in the case of these three authors, a very distinct one. Fletcher uses ' them ' very rarely, once where he uses "em' fourteen or fifteen times; Shakspere uses "em' rarely, and 'them' frequently; Massinger always writes ' them.' The serviceableness of this test used as a supplement of the usual verse-tests in determining authorship, must be apparent. Henry VIII furnishes an example of its use in separating the work of Shakspere and Fletcher; and a single random example will show how it may be used in cases of Fletcher-Massinger authorship. In the Queen of Corinth ^ in the part assigned to Massinger by Mr. Fleay, there are twenty-one' thems ' and one 1 Queen of Corinth. Massinger's Part (Fleay) ; I, i, 5 thems, o 'ems ; I, 2, 9 thems, I 'em; I, 3, b, o thems, o 'ems; V, i, 4 thems, o 'ems; V, 2, o thems, o 'ems; V, 3, 3 thems, o 'ems. Total, 21 thems, i 'em. Massinger's Plays. Tab] eof ' thems.' No ' 'ems ' occur. > ^ !>3 % ■^ K >^% 3 0^ "< ^r D; 0.^ % g w s« > P ^^^ p i n % 5 I 5 4 4 6 5 7 7 2 7 6 4 I 12 4 3 3 5 5 4 13 3 14 6 4 4 8 6 7 9 3 6 5 3 I 3 I 18 3 10 Total 24 24 21 28 5ot 31 321 210 t 3 'thems' in prologue. Total without these, 47. JTwo of the dramatis persouse are caUed ' Diug 'em ' and ' Have 'em.- 27 ''em;' in the Fletcher part, one 'them' and six ''ems.' In general, the existence of even a single 'em in a Massinger part is very suspicious, and the existence of a large number of 'ems is a pretty safe indication of Fletcher. The test will also in some cases, I think, serve to call attention to interpolations or additions by a second author, which verse-tests alone would not indicate. Thus, even the .single 'em in Massinger' s part of the Queen of Corinth is enough to warrant special examina- tion of the passage in search of a second hand. Of course, the serviceableness of the test is limited; and it is of little value except as a supplement of the usual verse-tests. Since we are concerned with dates rather than with authorship, there will be little occasion to use it; there will be sufficient occasion, however, to demonstrate its value. /, Court Afasqties ayid the Chronology. A word or two must be added in regard to the influence of the court-masques on the public drama. * During the reign of James I., court-masques attained a great importance both as splendid spectacles and in the liter- ature of the time. They were very numerous, were pro- duced at great expense, and engaged the services of the best poets of the day. Usually performed at a marriage, or on some festival like those of the Christmas season, they consisted primarily of two parts, ( i ) the dramatic dialogue usually setting forth .some allegorical or mythological device which formed the basis of an impressive spectacle, and (2) the dances interspersed with songs and accompanied by niusic. These dances were performed by ladies and gallants of the highest court circles, the queen often participating. In addition to these elements, about the year 1608 a third appeared, the anti-masque, con- sisting of grotesque dances by ' antick ' personages. These comic anti-masques at once became exceedingly popular and played no small part in the entertainments. The antic dancers were almost always actors from the public theaters.^ Fletcher's Part; I, 3, a, o thems, o 'ems; I, 4, o thems, o 'ems; II, r, thems, o 'ems ; II, 2, o thems, i 'em; 11,3, o thems, i 'em: 11,4, 1 them, 4 'ems. Total, i them, 6 'ems. 1 For a full account of the English masques, see Die Englischen Mask- enpiele, Alfred Soergel, Halls, 1882. In addition to the evidence which Dr. Soergel gives for the presence of actors from the theaters, see Middleton's the Inner Temple Ufasque ; or Masque of Heroes, quarto 1619, where a list of actors from a public company is given. For further illustration of the part which actors played in entertainments and pageants, see the Athencetim, May 19, 1888, where Mr. Halliwell- Phillipps shows that Burbadge and Rice were "the players that rodd upon the twoe fishes and made the speeches at the meeting of the highe and mighty prince of Walles upon the river Thames " — ^June 5, 1610. Burbadge, " Amphion seated on a dolphin," Rice, "a nymph, riding on a whale." See also the "■ Entertaintnent to King J antes, ''^ Th, 28 This last fact points to an interesting connection between the masques and the drama, for it establishes an a /;7V?r/ probability that the antic dances used in the masques would be performed again in the theaters. As Mr. Harold lyittledale has shown, ^ such a repetition of an anti-masque does undoubtedly occur in the Two Noble Kinsniai, borrowed from Beaumont's Masque of the Inner Temple a7id Gray's Lui, 1613, and consequently the play may be dated shortly after 161 3. I shall suggest that the date of the JVmler's Tale is in a similar way determined by the repetition of a dance of satyrs from Jonson's Masque of Obcro7t. The influence of the masques in a more general wa)^ on the public drama has been emphasized by Mr. Fleay ^ and treated at length by Dr. Soergel. I shall have occasion to note this influence in the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher and Shak- spere. Here I merely wish to call attention to the possible service of a study of this influence in determining the dates of plays. There were forty-nine masques performed at court 1603-1642; and it is very probable that public plays borrowed many details in addition to anti-masques.^ Dekker, quarto, 1604. 'Zeal' "whose personage was put on by W. Bourne, one of the servants to the young Prince." ^See The Two Noble I^insi?ien, ed. Harold Littledale, New Shak- spere Society. Series II, 7, 8, 15, 1876-85. Mr. Ivittledale was unac- quainted with Dr. Soergel's investigation and gave this borrowing less prominence than it deserves in fixing the date. See the discussion of the play in chapter 4. 2 Fleay : Chr. I. 12. Soergel, p. 87, seq. Fleay seems to think that masques occur in plays only when they were added for some court performance. So he conjectures that the masques in the Tempest and the Maid's Tragedy were additions. Dr. Soergel has shown that similar masques occur in other plays ; and many features of the court- masque were certainly introduced on the public stage. ^Much of the material in this section and in the discussion of the masques in the Two Noble Kinsmen and the Tempest, has been already published in Publications of the Mod. La7ig. Ass' 11 of America. Vol. XV ; No. I. " Influence of the Court-Masques on the drama." 29 chapter hi. Chronology of Shakspere's Romances. These three plays were first entered S. R. and published in folio in 1623. From the agreement of different verse-tests and from the general opinion of critics, they are thought to have been written at the close of Shakspere's career and after all his plays except Henry VIII and the Tivo Noble Kinsvie7i. There is almost no evidence, however, even from verse-tests, to determine the relative order of the three; although the general character of style seems to indicate that Cymheline was the earliest. The Tragedy of Cymbcline. There is no record of any court performance, and the only evidence for the date ^ is the entry in the note book of Dr. Simon Forman. This entry is not dated; but as the accompanying note on Maebeth is dated April 20, 1610, and that of the Winter's Tale, May 15, 161 1, the Cym- beline entry must belong to those years. Forman died in September i6r i , so that is the outside date for the entry. Mr. Fleay, who thinks vShakspere retired from play-writing in 16 10, fixes the date of Cynibeline in 1609;^ and since that year was a plague year, thinks the play was perhaps not finished for the stage until after Shakspere's retirement. Yet he thinks Phil- aster (certainly before Oct., 16 10) contains passages suggested by Cymbeline } He also thinks that the historical parts of Cj'w^^/z;/,? were written about 1606, when Shakspere may have been using Holinshed for material for Lear and Macbeth.^ These are pure conjectures. So far as the plague of 1608-9 may be taken to have diminished theatrical activity,^ the fact makes 1610 rather than 1609 a probable date. Forman' s elabo- rate description indicates that the play was new to him. The date is probably within a year of 16 10. The Tempest. It was one of the fourteen court plays paid for on May 20, 16 13 (Vertue Ms.),® and consequently was ^ It is a curious fact that the 1600 quarto of Much Ado contains the following opening stage rlirection : "Enter Leonate (and) Imogen his wife." Imogen does not appear elsewhere in the play. "^ Life of Shaks., p. 246. 3Chr. II, p. 193. * Life of Shaks., p. 246, Chr. II, 193. ''See pp. 14-17. ^Sh. Soc. Papers. II, p. 124. 30 acted at court in the fall or winter i6 12-13, According to the forged revels' accounts of Cunningham, it was also acted at court 161 1, Nov. i; and there is evidence that these forgeries were based in part on fact.^ It is probably referred to, together with the JVmfer's Ta/c in the induction to Ben Jonson's Bartho- lemew Fair."^ The name, Tempest, has been thought by some to have been suggested by the great storms of the fall of 1612; and by others by the tempest encountered by Sir George Somers on his voyage to the Bermudas, 1609. Malone^ has shown certain resemblances between passages in the play and passages in Jourdan's A Discovery of the Ber- mudas, otherwise called the Isle of Devils, by Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and Captain Newport, ivith divers others, which was published Oct. 13, 16 10. Malone also thought that particulars in the play were derived from A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colony of Virginia, published Nov. 8, 1610. Mr. Fleay, on the contrary, thinks the word tragi- comedy in this last pamphlet refers to the play, and, hence, he concludes that the Tempest was acted between the dates of the publication of Jourdan's narrative and A True Declaratio?i. A glance at the passage* in question will show how groundless is this conjecture. Dr. Furness, in his variorum edition of the Tempest, is in- clined to belittle the importance of both of Malone' s sugges- tions, and thinks that similar resemblances can be shown between particular passages in the play and Wm. Strachey's A True reporatory of the wracke and redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight upon and from the Islands of Bermudas, etc. , which was published in 161 2. This argument is by no means a reductio ad absurdam, for Strachey's narrative may possibly have preceded the play. vSuch evidence as Malone' s is not absolutely conclusive, and, in the case of the True Declaration, not quite convincing; but the references in the play to the ' 'still- vext Bermoothes^" and the detailed points of resemblance ^See Furness' Variorum Editiou of Othello, pp. 351-360. Also Sid- ney Lee's Life, p. 254, note. 2 "If there be never a servant-monster in the fair, who can help it, he says, nor a nest of antiques? he is loth to make nature afraid in his play, like those that beget tales, tempests, and such like drol- leries, to mix his head with other men's heels ; let the concupiscence of jigs and dances reign as strong as it will amongst you, etc." 3 Variorum Shakespeare, 1S21. * " What is there in all this tragicall-comaedie that should encourage us with the impossibility of the enterprise? When, of all the fleete, one onely ship by a secret leake was indangered, and yet in the gulfe of despaire was so graciously preserved." See Fleay, Shaks., pp. 248, 249. ^I, 2, 229. 31 make it fairly certain that the play was not acted until after Jourdan's narrative was published/ The news of Somer's voyage created great interest in Lon- don in September, 1610, and there were four other narratives besides Jourdan's, which was the earliest." The date of the play, then, cannot be earlier than Oct. 13, 1610, and not later than the court presentation, 1613. It was probably written and acted late in 16 10 or early in 161 1. A Winter's Tale. Like the Tempest, it was one of the four- teen plays acted at court 16 13, and was referred to b}' Jonson in Bartholomeiv Fair} It was described in Dr. Forman's note- book under the date May 15, 161 1. This is the final Hmit for the date.* I think the early limit is determined by the date of Ben Jonson's Masque of Oberon, Jan. i, 161 1. This contains an anti-masque of satyrs, and I conjecture that the dance of satyrs in the Winter's Talew2iS directly suggested by the anti-masque. Anti-masques, as we have seen,'' were first introduced about 1608, and at once became very popular. In Oberon there is one of these antic dances, doubtless per- formed by actors from the public theaters. This was a dance often (or twelve)" satyrs, " with bells on their shaggy thighs," and is thus described. " Here they fell suddenly into an antic dance full of gesture and swift motion and continued it till the crowing of the cock." Again, after the entrance of Oberon, there was a little more dancing by the satyrs. " And the satyrs beginning to leap, and express their joy for the unused state and solemnity." In the Winter's Tale there is a similar antic dance of twelve ^ There is no other evidence as to date. Gonzalo's description (II, I, 147) is from Florio's Aloiiiaigiie (ist edition, 1603). The "dead In- dian" (II, 2, 36) exhibited for a show, offers no aid in regard to the date. It may refer to one of Frobisher's Indians (1577). There were, also, some Indians brought from New England in 161 1. For notice of Fleay's theory that the masque was added by another writer for the court presentation. See p. 29. 2 See Sidney Lee's Life, pp. 252, 253. ^It may, also, have been acted at court in Nov., 161 1. It is one of the plays assigned to that date in the forged revels' accounts. See p. 30. ^No other date can be assigned as a final limit with any probability. Mr. Fleay thinks there are several references to the play in Jonson's address to the reader in the 1612 quarto of the Alchemist. The phrase " concupiscence of dances and jigs " reminds one of the wording of the reference in the induction to Bartholoinetv Fair; but the other ref- erences which Mr. Fleay sees are less convincing. See Chr. I, 275. The passages in the Alchemist and Bartholomew Fair show that Jon- son was decidedly opposed to the introduction of masques and anti- masques into plays. '^See p. 28. ^ " Two sylvans " possibly join in the dance. 32 satyrs which is clearly an addition to please the audiences of the day, " Servant. Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made themselves all men of hair, they call themselves Saltiers, and they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimanfry of gambols, because they are not in't; but they themselves are o' the mind, if it be not too rough for some that know little but bowling, it will please plentifully. Shepherd. Away! we'll none on't; here has been too much homely foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you. Polixenes. You weary those that refresh us: pray, let's see these four threes of herdsmen. Servant. One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danced before the king; and not the worst of the three but jumps twelve foot and a half by the squier. Sheperd. Leave your prating; since these good men are pleased, let them come in; but quickly now. Servant. Why, they stay at door, sir, \Exit^ Here a dance of twelve satyrs.^ " Irike the dancers in the masque, these are great leapers and like those they are men of hair. Moreover, three of them by their own report had danced before the king as did the satyrs in the masque. Now, while satyrs were not altogether uncommon on the Elizabethan stage, a dance of satyrs " full of gesture and swift motion" was certainly an inovation in 1611. Such anti- masques were only introduced about 1608, and such a dance of satyrs is not found in any court masque before, or for that matter after, 161 1.'^ The lVmte?''s Tale is generally dated about the first of 1611;^ therefore, either Jonson must have borrowed from the public stage the idea of an antic dance of satyrs for his court masque, or Shakspere must have borrowed iiv, 4, 11. 331-353. , , 2 There is a dance of "six Sylvans " in act III, scene 2, of Chap- man's the Widoiv's Tears, 4to, 1612, acted according to Fleay in 1605. This dance is the main feature of a brief wedding masque. The syl- vans bear torches, are "fair" and "fresh and flowery." They lead out the bride and five other ladies, who "all turn nymphs to-night To side these sprightly wood-gods in their dances." Altho the sylvans are elsewhere alluded to as "curveting and trip- ping on the toe," and their dances are called "active and antic," they evidently were not as active asjonson's satyrs nor at all grotesque, and their dance was not an anti-masque. It was, in fact, the masque proper, danced with the ladies and closing the entertainment. "Jonson and Shakspere were friends, and at this time both were writing plavs for the King's men. Jonson: Alchemist, 1610; Catiline, 1611. 4 33 from the court masque this new and popular stage device for his Winter' s Tale . The second alternative is far more probable because of the great importance of the court masques and the desire for novelty in them, and because the public may natur- ally be supposed to have been anxious to see a reproduction of a popular anti-masque. It gains additional probability from the fact that actors from the theaters performed in these anti- masques and from the reference to the three who had already danced before the king. It is still more probable because an anti-masque in Beaumont's yl/a.y^7cy two white bears. Perhaps here as in the dance, costume and actor reappeared in the play in the bear who chases Antigonous. (111.3.) 34 CHAPTER IV. Chronology and Discussion of Henry VIII, the Two Noble Kinsmen, and Cardenio. What external evidence there is assigns Henry VIII to Shakspere (the folio of 1623) and the Tivo Noble Kinsmen to Shakspere and Fletcher (quarto, 1634). Since Mr. Spedding's essay in 1850,^ there has been a growing belief that Fletcher also had a part in Henry VIII; and since Mr. Spaulding's essay in 1833,^ perhaps a majority of critics have been inclined to recognize Shakspere' s work in the Two Noble Kinsmen. Great diversity of opinion, however, still exists. While no one doubts Fletcher's share in the Two Noble Kinsmen^ there are all sorts of opinions in regard to the non-Fletcherian part; and in the case of Henry VIII some critics still think it is whollj'- by Shakspere* while others doubt if he had anything to do with it.* A large majority ot competent judges at present recognize Shakspere as author of a part of Henry VIII and Fletcher as author of part of Tzvo Noble Kinsmeii; but we have at most only the support of a doubtful majority in assigning each play to both Shaks- pere and Fletcher. The reasons and authorities for this opinion will be given in the discussion of each play, but at the start we may note two general objections which have had great weight with critics of judgment. In the first place, they have found it difficult to think of Shakspere condescending to write a play in company with another dramatist, especially when, as in Henry VI I I his part is somewhat the less important. Yet Shakspere apparently had co-adjutors in both Timon and Pericles, and co-adjutors certainly inferior to Fletcher in both ability and reputation. In 1613, Fletcher was one of the most prominent dramatists, and it is very doubtful if Shakspere would have seen any condescension in taking Beaumont's place. This objection is simply another exhibition of the 1 Gentleman's Magazine, 1850, reprinted New Shakespeare Society's Transactions , 1874. 2 Reprinted by New Shakespeare Society, 1876. See, also, N. S. S. Transactions, 1874. 3 Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps. Outlines, IT, 292-4. *Mr. Boyle. N. S. S. Transactions, 1884. 35 common fallacy of always regarding Shakspere as a world genius and never as an Elizabethan dramatist. Shakspere' s own practices and the general practice of Elizabethan drama- tists, show that his collaboration with Fletcher would be no cause for wonder. In the second place, the inferiorit)^ of the supposed Shaks- perean parts in comparison with the best of his mature work has led some to question his authorship. In the Two Noble Kinsmen, particularly, the non-Fletclierian parts, good as they are, have not seemed quite worthy of Shakspere. The trouble with this objection is that it rather assumes that Shakspere was always at his best and entirel}' overlooks the fact that his worst was decidedly bad. We must remember that probably at about the same time that he was writing Antony and Cleopatra he was also writing Coriolmius , Timon and Pericles. When we discern weakness of characterization in Henry VIII or the Tzvo Noble Kinsmen, we must remember that after creating the Falstaff of Henry /Fhe could produce the Falstaff of Merry Wives. There were, of course, no other dramatists who wrote anywhere nearly as well as he did at his best, and to ray mind, there were no other dramatists who wrote very much like his style at his best or worst. Any- how, the question in regard to the supposed Shaksperean parts of these plays is not, are they as good as he could do ? but are thej^ like what he did ? So much for these two general objections; the elaborate theories that have been built up in respect to the plays, we can by no means consider in detail. Almost every critic who has dealt with the plays has his own theor)'^ of dates and authorship; and many a critic has seen fit to reject his first theory for a second. To discuss all these adequately would require a volume; there are, however, two main positions often taken which seem to me untenable and which will be noted in our discussion of the plays. These two positions may be stated here. First, apart from the general objection to Shakspere's authorship just noticed, efforts have been made to determine the author of the non-Fletcherian parts of the plays. ThCvSe parts are thought hy some not only unequal to Shakspere but also unlike Shakspere, or at least more like another. Mr. Boyle's papers assigning these parts to Massinger^ are the most sj-stematic exposition of this opinion, but other students give Massinger a different share and still others think Beaumont, Chapman, or some one else was the author. These theories can only be briefly touched upon in our discussion, ^N. S. S. Transactions, 1880-86 ; p. 371 seq ; p. 443 seq. See, also, Eng. Studiefi, Vol. IV. 36 but the evidence for Shakspere's authorship will be nc _ ^ in the case of each play. Second, many who think Shakspere had a share in one or both of these plays, do not think that he wrote in direct col- laboration with Fletcher, but that he left the plays unfinished and they were completed by Fletcher,^ or as is held by others, by Fletcher and Massinger.'^ We shall later consider some definite evidence against this opinion. In the main, however, our discussion of the two plays will have little to do with theories. Leaving objections and counter- theories to one side. I shall try to show definite evidence (i) that both plays were first acted in 1613 and (2) that both plays were written by Shakspere and Fletcher in direct collaboration. HENRY VIII. Date. First printed in folio of 1623. On June 29, 16 13, while the King's men were acting a play of Hen)-}' VIII the Globe Theater was burned. The event is described in several letters of the time,' but whether the play then being acted was the Henry VIII oi the folio of 1623, is not absolutely certain. The fact, however, that a Henry VIII was played by Shakspere's company at a time when Shakspere'* was connected with that company and was very possibly in London,^ makes it practically certain that this was the He?iry F/// published by two of the company in the folio of 1623. Moreover, the account given by sir Henry Wotton of the 1613 play, applies in several important particulars to the folio iSo Mr. Speddiug on Henry VIII. N. S. S. Transactions, 1874. ■^ Mr. Oliphant and Mr. Fleay think Massinger 'revised Fletcher's work. ^ Harleian Ms. 7002. A letter from Thomas l/Orkin to Sir Thomas Pickering, dated " this last of June, 1613." Court and Times of James I, 1848, Vol. I, p. 253. Winwood's Memorials, III, 469. A letter of July 12, 1613, refers to the burning of the theater and the play Henry VIII. Howe's continuation of Stowe's Chronicles, p. 1003, also refers to the fire and the play Henry VIII. Reliquics Wottoniancc, 1675, pp. 425-6. A letter by Sir Henry Wot- ton to his nephew dated July 6, 1613, contains an account of the play. "The King's players had anew play, called All is True, representing "some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was ' ' set forth with man}' extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, "even to the matting of the stage; the Knights of the Order, with "their Georges and Garter, the guards with their embroidered coats, "and the like; sufficient in truth, within a while, to make great- " ness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now, King Henry making a "mask at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot "off at his entry, some of the paper or other stuff wherewith one of "them was stopped, did light on the thatch " — etc. * Fletcher, too, if one of the authors, had written many plays for the King's men before 1613, and wrote many after that. ^Shakspere bought a house in Blackfriars, March, 1613. See H. P. Outlines I, 220. 2>1 <^^oi/. Wotton calls it a new play. The title, All is One, is ^^luded to three times in the prologue.^ The play also contains ^" some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth," and these may fairly be said to be " set forth with extraordinary circumstance of pomp and majesty, " ^ It also contains Knights of the Order and guards^ and a masque of King Henry's at Cardinal Wolsey's, in which chambers are discharged/ These resemblances increase the probability that the play in the folio was the play of 1613. Nevertheless, Mr. Halliwell-Phillips^ and Mr. Fleay in his Life of Shakspere^ have insisted that the plays were not the same. The main reason for their opinion, which is shared by others, is found in an interpretation of a poem which describes the burning of the theater. They think the allusion in this poem to the fool indicates that there was a fool in the 16 13 play, and as there is no fool in the folio play, the two must be different plays. The allusion seems to me likely to refer to some member of the company who usually played the fool, or it may be a general allusion with no specific reference. Even if it refers to a fool iu the entertainment of June 29, 1613, we need not conclude that the fool was a regular member of the dramatis personae of the play. Fools who performed between the acts or after the play were common. The reference, then, is at best doubtful and by no means sufficient to contradict the evidence already noted, which favors the identity of the folio and 1613 plays." Moreover, those who think Shakspere wrote a part of the play now universally consider it one of his later productions, and this is iu harmony with the 1613 date. Furthermore, the play can hardly be earlier than 161 1 because of the reference to* the strange Indian,^ and surely not earlier than 1607 because ^ Lines 9, 18, and 21. '^e. g., note the stage directions, II, 4; IV, i. ^See dramatis personae. *I, 4. Stage direction after 1 48 : " Drum and Trumpet, chambers discharged." ^Outlines, I, 310-31 1. II, 290-292. ^pp. 250, 251. Mr. Fleay, however, seems to have changed this opin- ion, for in his Chronicle of the Drama, II, 193, he dates Shakspere's part oi Henry VIII &\)o\xX. 1611, and says: " Probably completed by Fletcher, and produced as a new play 1613 at the Globe." So I judge he now thinks the folio play the same as the 1613 play. ^The fact that the "matting of the stage" mentioned iu Wotton's account is not mentioned in the folio play, — and the discrepancy be- tween the shilling alluded to in the prologue and the usual price at the Globe (2d) hardly seem important considerations. ^See H. P. Outlines, II, 294. Five Indians were brought to England in 1611, and one of great stature was exhibited. This " strange Indian " of the play (V. 4, 34) has suggested many conjectures. To identify him with the "dead Indian" of the Tempest is funny enough, but Mr. Boyle's interpretation is surely the most astonishing of all. He mis- 38 of the reference to Virginia.^ In short everything points to the identity of the play in the folio with the play at the burning of the Globe. It is possible that the two may be different just as it is perfectly possible to question almost every accepted fact of Elizabethan stage history; but there is no definite evidence to controvert the considerable definite evidence that the Henry VIII oi the foho was first acted in 1613. Authorship. The only external evidence that the play is Shakspere's is its place in the folio of 1623. The folio editors are not to be trusted on questions of authorship, for they cer- tainly included some plays not wholly Shakspere's and omitted others in which he had a part; but it is not certain that they included any play in which he did not have a share. In 1623,'^ if no part of the play was by Shakspere his fellow actors must have known it, and there is no reason to imagine that they would have placed it in the folio. Mr, Spedding's Essay in 1850 conclusively proved that there were two authors of the play and that the second was Fletcher. His essay has been substantiated by many later investigators and has been somewhat generally accepted. The various verse- tests all show two distinct styles, one very like Fletcher's and one very like Shakspere's later style. Fletcher's share is doubted by no one who has systemati- cally studied his versification, and Mr. Boyle's theory ^ that Massinger wrote the Shaksperean part is certainly not well proved. While we shall keep this and other theories in mind, we shall start with Mr. Spedding's division of the play between Shakspere and Fletcher,* which seems to me reasonably con- clusive. Eet us see, then, what warrant there is from this division for supposing the play to have been written in direct collabora- understauds au obsceue allusion, and thinks " the word (tool) was evi- dently meant for a proper name," and identifies it with the Irishman O'Toole in Middleton's Fair Quarrel, IV, 4. Thus, he fixes the date of the play as late as 1617. N. S. S. Transactions, 1880-86, p. 464. Series I, 8-10. ^v. 5, 51-53. "Those who think the play was not by Shakspere date it later than 1613. ^N. S. S. Transactions 1880-86, p. 493, seq. Boyle also gives Mas- singer some scenes generally assigned to Fletcher. The difficulty with any such theorj' is in proving that any other dramatist wrote in Shak- spere's characteristic manner. Mr. Boyle assumes this off hand in the case of Massinger. " From the characteristics of meter alone it would be difficult to decide whether a particular passage, or even play, was written by Shakspere or Massinger, so similar is the latter's style to that of Shakspere's later dramas." This assumption seems to me contrary to fact ; and any theory based on it is a priori, of doubtful value. ^ Shakspere : Act I, sc. i, 2 ; Act II, sc. 3, 4 ; Act III, so. 2 (to exit of King) ; Act V, sc. i. The rest by Fletcher. 39 tion. Shakspere was probably in lyondon in 1613, and was still connected with the King's men.^ Fletcher was a promi- nent and popular dramatist who had collaborated with Beau- mont in writing some very notable plays for the King's men.^ Beaumont had probably stopped writing for the King's men by 1 61 2' and Shakspere' s attention seems to have been con- siderably occupied with other affairs: * it seems perfectly pos- sible and natural that Shakspere and Fletcher should have worked together. Moreover there is no tangible evidence either of interpolation of each other's work or of revision. The play in the folio is divided into acts and scenes; five scenes and the first half of a sixth are by Shakspere, the rest by Fletcher. On the face of things it looks as if, after the usual fashion of Elizabethan col- laboration, Shakspere wrote certain scenes and at the same time Fletcher wrote certain others. The various verse-tests, as has been noted, show that this division is almost surely accurate. The ' 'era-them ' test also presents further evidence on this point. Taking Mr. Spedding's division (the usually accepted one), I have counted the ''ems' and ' thems ' in the play. In the Winter's Tale, Shakspere uses 37 ' thems ' and 8 ' 'ems; ' in Boiiduca, Fletcher uses 83 ' 'ems ' and 6 ' thems,' and in the Woman' s Prize, 60 ' 'ems ' and 4 ' thems ' ^ The following table will show the results in the Shaksperean and Fletcherian portions of Henry VIII. The ' 'em-them ' test used entirely as a supplement to the other tests very strongly confirms the accepted division of the play between the two authors. It also strongly confirms the Shakspere^s Part. ACT. SC. THEM. LINES. 'EM. LINES. TOTAL LINES IN SCENE. I. I. I. 2. II. 3. II. 4. III. 2a. V. I. 4 5 2 3 3 8, 9. 25, 30 32, 37, 46, 62, 94 51. 195 2, 3. 79 145, 151. 152. 2 2 I 34,84 21,49 195 226 214 108 241 Total. 17 5 1 168 iH. P. Outlines I, 220. 2 Philasier, The Maid's Tragedy, A King and No King, before the end of i6ii. ^No plays certainly by him after 161 1. See p. 10. ^H. P. Outlines I, 219-220. Sidney Lee's Life of Shakspere, Chap, XVI. ^See ante Chap. II The figures given here represent the approxi- mate averages. 40 Fletcher's Part. TOTAL LINES IN ACT. SC. THEM. LINES. 'EM. LINES. SCENE. I- 3- 7 4,8,12,13,36,42,43 68 I. 4. I 60 4,8,13,23,44,57.58, 108 58,72,77,78,107 II. I. 4 65, 66, 68, 106 169 II. 2. I II 2 7.39 141 III. I. 5 2.35.36,105,158 184 III. 2b. I 334 234, 244. 399 256 11 203-459 IV. I. I 29 3 9. 79, 80 ]i8 IV. 2. 3 147, 149. 150 172 V. 2. 3 27, 28, 34 35 V. 3- 3 22, 22, 23 182 V. 4. 13 7,13,14,14,16,23,32, 58,59,61,62,67,81 94 1-70 prose V. 5- I 15 77 Total. 4 57 1604 Prologue, I them. Epilogue, 2 'ems. These should perhaps be added to Fletcher's share, making the total 5 thems aud 59 'ems. assignment of these parts to Shakspere and Fletcher, since the ratio and the total of 'ems and thems in the former's part corresponds closely with his practice in the Winter's Tale (161 1 ), and the ratio and total of 'ems and thems in the latter' s part corresponds closely with his practice in Bonduca (before 1616). Incidentally, too, it demonstrates the worthles.sness of Mr. Boyle's division of the play between Massinger and Fletcher.^ 1 Mr. Boyle assigns all the Sliakspere portion, as given in our table, to Massinger and in addition I, 4, 1-24, 2 'ems; I, 4, 64-108, 4 'ems; II, I, 1-53, o 'ems; II, i, 137-169, o 'ems; IV, i, 3 'ems and i them; V, 3, 1-113, 3 'ems. This gives in the total share assigned to Massin- ger, 18 thems and 17 'ems. Now Massinger as we have seen, uses 210 thems and not a single 'em in the seven plays counted. [See p. ] An examination of Mr. Boyle's results also shows that he thinks that Massinger not only wrote like Shakspere, but also very like Fletcher, for he assigns to Massinger some 400 lines generally ascribed to Fletcher. The ' 'em-them ' test has strengthened the probability of the Fletcher and Shakspere divisions ; and a critic who can make hay of these as does Mr. Boyle must have an extraordinary notion of Mas- singer's faculty of varying his style. Mr. Oliphant and Mr. Fleay are no more convincing in their assign- ments to Massinger. The former {Englische Sttidien, 15, 326), gives Massinger II, i, 137-eud ; IV, i, 1-36; V, 3, 1-96 (or V, 2, 35-129; scenes 2 and 3 should perhaps be connected). In these 162 lines he assigns 7 'ems and i them to Massinger, including such Fletcherian lines as these (V, 3, 22), "Pace 'em not in their hands to make 'em gentle. But stop their mouths with stubborn bits, and spur 'em." Mr. Fleay {Life Shaks., pp. 250, 251; assigns I, i ; III, 2, 1-193 ; V, i, to Massinger, thus giving him 3 'ems. 41 Moreover, an examinatiou of the table will reveal consider- able evidence that the Shakspere and Fletcher parts are distinct, free from interpretations and revisions. There is only one scene (II, 3,) which contains neither ' 'ems' nor 'thems;' and in each of the other scenes assigned to Shakspere there is a decided predominance of ' thems, ' while in each scene of Fletcher's there is a decided predominance of ' 'ems.' We find no bunching of ' 'ems ' after Fletcher's manner in Shak- spere's part, and we find onlj' 5 ' 'ems ' in the 1 168 lines. This does not disprove the possibilit}^ of interpolation or revision, but it does in connection with the other tests point strongly to the probability that we have Shakspere' s and Fletcher's work intact. Collaboration. In the absence of any distinct evidence to the contrary, we may assume this probability as a working hypothesis and see what evidence there is in the play itself of direct collaboration between the two authors. Let us see what Shakspere wrote. Act I, scene i, is intro- ductory and expository, presenting four of the leading charac- ters, the King, Wolsey, Buckingham, and Katharine, and car- rying the action through the arrest of Buckingham. Act I, scene 2, presents the trial of Buckingham. Act II, scene 3, introduces an old lady and Anne BuUen, who has already been introduced in the Fletcherian part, and represents Anne as the recipient of the King's favors; it also prefaces Katharine's fall. Act II, scene 4, is the trial of Katharine, in which she, the King, and Wolsey play the chief parts. Act III. scene 2, lines 1-203, is expository and introductory of the fall of Wol- se5'. Act V. scene i, is expository and introductory to the birth of Elizabeth and the elevation of Cranmer — the two events which occupy the rest of the act. To relurii agaiu to Mr. Boyle's theory ; we have seen that his assign- ment of the date of the play rests in part on the amusing identifica- tion of the "strange Indian" and "O'Toole," that his theorj^ rests on the exceedingly questionable assumption that Massinger's style is very similar to that of Shakspere's later dramas, and finally that his division between the two authors is simply untenable. It is hardly necessary to consider his argument farther, but it may be added that his main evidence, that of Massinger's repetition and consequent par- allel passages, is at best evidence of a very dangerous and misleading sort and that Mr. Boyle by no means keeps clear of absurdities. Mr. Boyle himself advanced his theory with hesitation, and probably very few have accepted it in its entirety. The trouble with such a theory is that it gains a partial acceptance from its very intricacy. Critics say ' the theory is nonsense, but it may have a germ of truth, perhaps Massinger did have something to do with the play,' or they are incited to make still another guess at the authorship. Thus Mr. Sidney Lee speaks of "occasional aid from Massinger" {Life, p. 262), and Mr. Fleay suggests Beaumont. {Chr. II, 193. J There is no evidence for Massinger and about as much likelihood of Beaumont as of Bacon. 42 Now let us see what Fletcher wrote. Act I, scene 3, is merely a conversation on French fashions between gentlemen of the court on their way to Wolsey's. Act I, scene 4, presents the masque at Wolsey's and for the first time in the play in- troduces Anne Bullen. Act II, scene i, presents Buckingham after his trial. Act II, scene 2, is introductory and expository of Katharine's fall and presents the arrival of Campeius. Act III, scene i, represents the visit of the Cardinals to the for- saken Katharine. Act III, scene 2, from line 203 to the end, represents Wolsey's fall and his farewell scene with Cromwell. Act IV, scene i, represents the coronation of Anne Bullen. Act IV, scene 2, represents Katharine, sick and forsaken, making her last farewell. Act V, scenes 2 and 3, represent Cranmer's elevation. Act V, scene IV, is devoted to a comic porter and the crowd pressing at the doors. Act V, scene 5, brings the play to the conclusion with the christening of Eliza- beth and Cranmer's prophecy. The play deals with the introduction, fall, and farewell of Buckingham, of Wolsey, and of Katharine ; and with the rise, elevation, and farewell of Anne Bullen and of Cranmer. Fol- lowing this analysis we find that Shakspere introduced Buck- ingham, Wolsey, and Katharine, and described the downfall of Buckingham and Katharine, while Fletcher described the fall of Wolsey and the farewells of all three. Fletcher intro- duced the story of Anne Bullen, Shakspere shared in its de- velopment, and Fletcher carried it to its spectacular conclusion in the coronation and christening scenes. Fletcher introduced the Cranmer story (IV, i); Shakspere developed it up to the point of the main situation, which with Cranmer's farewell was written by Fletcher. Thus each writer shared in each of the five main actions. Shakspere's work, though largely expository, includes the trial scene of Katharine; Fletcher's work, while including the main scenes and situations, also includes introductory matter for which Shakspere supplied the dramatic development. On the whole, then, it seems improbable that Shakspere would have written parts of the five main stories and left them all un- finished. On the contrary, it seems probable that he had the general course of each of the main actions well in mind when he wrote. The most natural conjecture, it seems to me, is that a historical and spectacular play was planned (perhaps by Shak.spere) dealing with these five main events. The play was undertaken in collaboration between Shakspere and Fletcher; each, after the manner of Elizabethan collaborators, undertaking certain scenes. Shakspere may have intended 1 Compare Maid's Tragedy: I, 2, (noted by Boyle) and Four Plays. Induction. 43 to do more than he did do, he may have been prevented by some cause from carrying on a situation which he had intro- duced and may, therefore, have turned that work over to Fletcher; but I see no reason to suppose that Shakspere first wrote his part as we have it and stopped there. It seems to me iinlikely that any dramatist should begin a play in that way — beginning three different actions, taking up two in the middle, and finishing none. In this instance I am at odds with the weight of authority; but on the other hand there is, as we have seen, a priori a likelihood of direct collaboration. To my mind the distinct separation between the Fletcherian and Shaksperean parts, the probabilit}' that there is little or no revision of Shakspere by Fletcher, and the content of each man's work, all argue against the theory that Fletcher finished a play which Shakspere began ^ and support the a priori probability of collaboration pure and simple. To sum up the conclusions of our discussion : Heniy VIII was probably first acted at the Globe theater June 29, 18 13, and was probably written shortly before that time by Shak- spere and Fletcher. The ' 'em-them ' test corroborates the usual verse-tests in separating their work distinctly, and the most natural conclusion from an examination of their shares seems to be that they worked in direct collaboration. THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN. Date. First quarto, 1634. " Presented at the Blackfriars by the King's Maiesties servants, with great applause: written by the memorable worthies of their time, Mr. John Elctchcr, and Mr. William Shakspeare, Gent." It was entered S. R. April 3, 1634 for John Waterson. Mr. Fleay, who formerly had an elaborate theory dating the play in 1625,^ notes in his Chronicle of the Drajua that the play must date about 16 10. The date seems to me fixed with reasonable certainty from the borrowing of an anti-masque from Beaumont's Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray^ s Inn, presented Feb. 20, 1613.^ The description of this dance in the Masque is as follows: "The second Anti-masque rush in, dance their measure, and "as rudely depart; consisting of a Pedant, May lyord. May "Lady; Servingman, Chambermaid; a Country Clown or "Shepherd, Country Wench; an Host, Hostess; a He-Baboon, "She-Baboon; a He-Fool, She-Fool, ushering them in. All ^See Mr. Spedding's ingenious theory to this effect. N. S. S. Transactions, 1874. "^ Life of Shaks. p. 189, seq. 3 See The Two Noble Kinsmen, ed. Harold Littledale, N. S. S. Series II, i, 8, 15. London, 1876-1885. lutroduction, pp. 54, 55. 44 " these persons, apparelled to the life, Men issuing out of one "side of the boscage, and the Women from the other. The "music was extremely well-fitted, having such a spirit of " country jollit}', as can hardly be imagined; but the perpetual " laughter and applause was above the music." ^ Now this masque was exceedingly well received. "The "dance likewise was of the same strain; and the dancers, or "rather actors, expressed everyone their part so naturally " and aptly, as when a man's eye was caught with this one, " and then passed on to the other, he could not satisfy himself " which did best. It pleased his Majesty to call for it again " at the end, as he did likewise for the first Anti-masque; but " one of the Statues by that time was undressed." Moreover, this anti-masque was a decided innovation.^ In preceding anti-masques, which had been in vogue only since 1608, the costumes of the dancers had all been of one sort, as in the dance of satyrs in Jonson's Masque of Obcro7i. Beau- mont first introduced the fashion of having various characters and costumes. Moreover, as Dr. Soergel has also pointed out, instead of mere " antic gesticulation " the dancers also in their mimickery now showed a kind of dramatic action; thus the^^ are called "dancers, or rather actors." The innovation in varying characters and costumes is alluded to in the introduc- tion to the Masque^ and in a description of it in Stow's Annals.^ In the Two Noble Kinsmen (III. 5) this anti-masque is re- peated. The schoolmaster and his troop are introduced into the action, they meet the mad daughter of the jailor and they dance before Theseus and his lords and ladies. The connec- tion with Beaumont's anti-masque is, however, unmistakable. The schoolmaster thus introduces the dancers: " I first appeare, though rude, and raw, and muddy, To speak before thy noble grace, this tenner At whose great feete I offer up my penner. 1 Works of Beaumont and Fletcher. Ed. Routledge, II, 688. "^ Die Englischen Maslienspiele. Soergel, 1882, p. 52. ^"Then Mercury for his part, brings forth an anti-masque all of spirits or divine; but yet not of one kind or livery fbecause that had been so much in use heretofore) but, as it were, in consort, like to broken music" . . . [this dance] giveth fit occasion to new and strange varieties both in the music and paces." This was the first anti-masque (four Naiades, five Hyades, four Cupids, and four statues of gold and silver). The dance copied in the play is (icscribed as " a May dance, or rural dance, consisting likewise not of any suited per- sons, but of a confusion or commixture of all such persons as are natural and proper for country sports. This is the second anti-masque." '^Stow. p. 917. The first anti-masque is described as "of a strange and different fashion from the others, both in habit and manners, and very delectable ;" and the second, " a rurall or country mask, consist- ing of many persons, men and women, being all in sundry habits, being likewise as strange, variable, and delightful." 45 The next the Lord of May, and Lady bright, The Chambermaid, and Servingman by night That seeke out silent hanging ; Then mine Host And his fat Spouse, that welcomes to their cost The gauled Traveller, and with a beckning Informes the Tapster to inflame the reckning ; Then the beast eating Clowne. and next the Voole, The Baviani with long tayle, and eke long toole. Cum multis aliijs that make a dance Say I, and all shall presently advance.'"^ Not only are all these the same personages which appear in Beaumont's Masque; in the pla)^ as in the masque they per- form a country May- dance. ^ There can be but one conclusion from this resemblance. The anti-masque, probably performed by actors from the public companies, was an entirely novel and very successful part of Beaumont's Masque of Ihe Inner Temple ; and it is inconceivable that this anti-masque should have been introduced into that notable court entertainment after having been staled at the public theaters. On the contrary, it is entirely probable that Fletcher introduced into his play a variation of a dance which had won a great success in a court masque. It is also probable that he used this anti-masque shortly after the court entertain- ment while the novelty and success of this dance were common talk. A few years later, other anti-masques would have been performed at the theater.^ There is no evidence to contradict this evidence for a 1613 date.* Mr. Fleay notes that "from 1626 to 1639 Waterson [publisher of the first quarto of 1634] published plays, and whenever he enters the author's name does so correctly," " and ^ " Bavian. Babion {Cynthia^ s Revels, I, i), or Babian, a man dressed upas a baboon." Littledale. " Bavian, a figure in Morris dance dressed as baboon." Dyce. The comparison between this passage and the masque, of course indicates that ' Bavian ' is the baboon. Yet Mr. Fleay {Chr. I, 192) says: "the Bavian (Batavian) of III, 5, is surely the same as "the strange Indian" of Henry S, V, 3, 1613, and the ' Catalan of strange nature ' of Rain Alley, c 1609." 2 III, 5. Littledale's reprint of the quarto. ^ The schoolmaster calls the dance a Morris and asks for a May pole. *The actors, too, who performed at court were probably utilized in the performance at the theater. ^In Emilia's speech over the two pictures, she savs of Arcite, (IV, 2, 43) " Thou art a changling to him, a mere gipsy." This, Mr. Fleay says {Chr. I, 191) "surely was written after The Changling and The Spaiiish Gipsy were produced in 1621." So he thinks the line points to a late revision. It seems improbable that there is any reference to the plays. ^Waterson entered ten plays in these years and assigned plays to Fletcher, Massinger, and Davenant correctly. See Fleay. Life Shaks. p. 328, seq. 46 therefore concludes that ' ' he honestly repeated the Informa- tion given him." Whether this information was correct or not, it indicates that the play was thought to have been written before Shakspere's retirement from London. If the inscription on the title page is correct, 1613 is the most probable date for Sliak.spere's work and it is also a probable date for Fletcher's collaboration since Beaumont apparently ceased writing with him in 1611-12.-' Mr. lyittledale's conjecture, then, that the play dates shortly after the performance of the masque (Feb. 20, 161 3), is almost certainly correct.'^ Atdhorship. The onl}' external evidence that Shakspere and Fletcher wrote the play is the explicit statement of the quarto of 1634. The publisher Waterson seems to have been trust- worthy, and there is no reason to think that in 1634 Shak- spere's name would have helped to sell a play of Fletcher's whose plays had not then been collected in a folio. The main external evidence against Shakspere's authorship is the fact that the play does not appear in the folio of 1623, but Pericles was also omitted and Troihis and Cressida irregularly inserted. In 1 69 1, Langbaine gave the authorship as stated in the quarto of 1634, and there is no direct external evidence against it. No one now questions Fletcher's authorship,^ but the author- ship of the non-Fletcherian portion of the play is still a much vexed question. It is a question which probably will always remain a matter of opinion, for it does not admit of complete demonstration. So far as Shakspere's authorship can be de- monstrated, Mr. Ivittledale has accomplished the task, and one's opinion on the subject can rest on no better authority. Proceeding on the hypothesis that Shakspere and Fletcher were the authors, we find that the division of the play between ^ Mr. Oliphant has an astonishing comment on this point. Englische Studien, 15, p. 326. " If, as is likely, Fletcher's " sure he cannot Be so unmanly as to leave me here! If he do, maids will not so easily Trust men again." T. N. K. II, 5. be a gird at Beaumont's "if he deceive me thus A woman will not easily trust a man." Coxcomb, I, 5. it is not improbable that Fletcher's alliance with Shakspere followed a quarrel with his old friend." One may safely assure Mr. Oliphant that it is not a gird. 2 The borrowing of the anti-masque and the consequent determina- tion of the date of the play are important in connection with my con- jecture in regard to the dance of satyrs in the Winter's Tale. See p. 32. ^Delius (Jahrbuch, XIII) attributed the play to an unknown author. 47 the two presents many difficulties. Confident though we ma3'' be that many passages are by Shakspere, there are other pas- sages, as in the case of almost any of his plays, which are not saliently characteristic. Moreover the parts are by no means as distinct as in Henry VIII ; but in the Shaksperean scenes there are sometimes indubitable bits of Fletcher's work, and in the Fletcherian scenes one sometimes suspects Shakspere' s touch. Nevertheless, the different verse-tests have shown that cer- tain scenes possess the metrical characteristics of Shakspere' s later work and certain other scenes, the entirely different char- acteristics of Fletcher's versification. The ' 'em-them ' test also confirms the generally accepted division. In applying this test I have followed Mr. Littledale's division, but some details must be noted. The last forty lines of Act V, scene 3, Mr. Littledale thinks Fletcher had a hand in,^ and there can be little question of it; these lines, therefore, I have not in- cluded in Shakspere' s part. The last twenty lines of Act I, scene 4, are credited by Mr. Littledale, together with the rest of the scene, to Shakspere; but in these lines there seem to be sure indications of Fletcher. "Then like men use 'em The verj' lees of such, millious of rates Exceeds the wiue of others: all our surgions Conveut iu their behoofs, our richest balmes, Rather than uiggard, wast: Theire lives concerne us Much more than Thebs is worth ; rather than have 'em Freed of this plight, and in their morning state, Sound and at liberty, I would 'em dead ; But, forty thousand fold, we had rather have 'em Prisoners to us than death." ^ The use of 'em in this passage is a sure indication of Fletcher, and the versification looks as if he had a hand in it. The remaining dozen lines sound more like Shakspere, but the whole passage seems at least retouched or interpolated by Fletcher. These two passages which show definite signs of Fletcher's manner will be kept from Shakspere's part.' The two prose scenes will also be noted apart; for, although they are gener- ally assigned to Shakspere, there are of course, no scientific tests as in the case of verse. Other scenes, in which Mr. Little- dale thinks Shakspere's work has been retouched hy Fletcher, or in which (I, 2,) Mr. Hickson thinks that Fletcher's work was revised by Shakspere, are left intact as in Mr. Littledale's ^See Littledale. Introductiou, p. 66. 21,4,28-37. ^The first 17 lines of V, i, are almost surely by Fletcher, and so as- signed b}' Littledale. There are also some evidence of Fletcher in 11 1-37 of I, I. table. This is necessary because the critics have not settled on definite passages as interpolations or divisions. Shakspere's Part. THEM. LINES. 'KM. LINES. TOTAL LINES. I. I. 4 50, 76, 146, 195 2 59. 114 235 I. 2. I 32 I 34 lib I- 3- 2 21,41 I 22 97 I. 4a. 3 7. 17.20 28 1-28 III. I. 2 52,52 123 s.k III. 2. I 15 38 V. lb. 2 105, 108 156 17-173 V. 3a. 104 V. 4- I 12 137 Total. 15 5 . 1034 Fletcher's Part. NUMBER LINES THEM. LINES. 'EM. LINES. IN SCENE. I- 5- 6F1. (?) II. .. ID 12, 13, 17, 24, 34, 65, 129, 251, 265, 274. 279 II. 3. I 2. 83 II. 4. 33 II. 5- 64 II. 6. 39 III. 3. I 23 54 III. 4. 26 III. 5- I 152. 159 III. 6. 10 183, 189, 190, 213, 2X9, 223,251,253,277,288. 308 IV. I. 2 12, 102 89, 100, 124. 150 IV. 2. I 72 II 25, 40, 65, 66,69, 114. 133, 134, 143. 149. 152. 156 V. I a. 2 I, 7- 17 11 1-17 V. 2. 112 Total. 4 38 i486 Passages retouched by Fletcher. THEM. LINES. 'EM. LINES. NUMBER LINES IN SCENE. I. 4b. V. 3 b. I 38 5 2 29. 33, 35, 36, 37- 128, 133. 21 11 28-49 42 11 104-146 Prose Scenes. II. I. IV. 3. 28, 40, 53 23, 26, 44. 49 Summary. The two passages retouched by Fletcher ought, perhaps, to be added to his part, and the two prose scenes to Shakspere's. With the prose scenes Shakspere's part would contain i8 thems, 8 'ems; without the prose scenes 15 thems, 5 'ems. In the Shaksperean part of Henry VIII (1168 lines) there are 17 thems and 5 'ems.^ In the Fletcherian part of the Two Noble Kinsmen with the added passages, there are 5 thems and 45 'ems; without those two passages 4 thems and 38 'ems. In Henry VIII, there are 4 thems and 57 'ems."^ The "em-them' test thus confirms the assignment of the play to Shakspere and Fletcher and the approximate accuracy of its division between the two. The test does not, however, indicate that the division by Scenes is as exact as in Henry VIII. The 'ems and thems do not happen to be distribu- ted evenly through the play, and often none occur in a scene. A division entirely by scenes, including the prose scenes and the passages revised or rew-ritten by Fletcher in the Shak- sperean part, would give Shakspere 19 thems and 15 'ems. This large number of 'ems at once suggests Fletcher's hand; and furthermore, the presence of 'ems offers a specific basis for my conjecture that I, 4, 28-49 is retouched by Fletcher and confirms Mr. lyittledale's suggestions that IV, 3, 1-17 is en- tirely by Fletcher and V, 3, 104-146 at least revised by him. Doubtless, as Mr. Littledale suspects, other passages show traces of Shakspere's revision. The ' 'em-them ' test is also serviceable in disproving the theory that Massinger wrote the non-Fletcherian part,^ and there is no evidence for any other author except Shakspere.* iln Winter's Tale 2,1 thems, 8 'ems. In the Tempest 2,^ tho^ms, 13 'ems. 2 In Bo7iduca 6 thems, 83 'ems. 3 See Mr. Boyle's papers. Englische Studien, IV, 34, and N. S. S. Transactions 1880-86, p. 371; The non-Fletcherian part which Mr. Boyle gives to Massinger is as follows: I, i, 4 thems, 2 'ems ; I, 2, 34-84, I 'em ; I, 3, 2 thems, i 'em ; I, 4 and 5, 4 thems and 5 'ems ; II, i, 77- 118 (including part of II, 2, according to our notation), 3 thems, 4 'ems ; III, I, 2 thems ; III, 2, i them ; IV, 3, none ; V, i, 2 thems, 2 'ems ; V, 3, 2 'ems; V, 4, i 'em. Total 18 thems, 16 'ems. There are 'ems in almost every scene. The presence of so many 'ems is enough to dis- prove Massinger's authorship, unless Mr. Boyle's argument from parallel passages appeals with very much more force to others than it does to me. The fixing of the date at 1613, in fact, destroys the main basis for the Massinger argument which depended on an assumed date of about 1626. * Mr. Fleay advances one argument for Beaumont {Chr. 1, 191,) from the use of carve which is paralleled in Beaumont's Remedy of Love. IV, 5. " Carve her, drink to her," etc. Remedy of Love . " Drinkto him, carve him, give him compliment." "This use of carve is not common," says Mr. Fleay, but it seems to have been a regular Elizabethan idiom. Schmidt's Lexicon gives two examples in Shakspere of this meaning — " to show great courtesy and affability." See also Hamlet I, 3, 20, and Othello II, 3, 173, and Lyly's Euphues, ed. Arber, p. 55. " I mean not to be mine owne carver." 50 Collaboration. In conjecturing that the play was written in direct collaboration between Shakspere and Fletcher, we cannot avail ourselves, as in Henry VIII, of the argument that the two parts are distinctly separated. At the same time the division is fairly distinct. The great majority of Fletcher's scenes were almost certainly written by him alone, and Shak- spere' s scenes show definite additions only at the beginnings or ends. They show no evidence of general revision by another writer. Eleven of the scenes as marked in the quarto of 1634, seem to have been mainly composed by Shakspere; and thirteen scenes, as marked in the quarto, seem to have been almost entirely the work of Fletcher. Moreover, the strong probability that the play was first acted in 161 3 makes the prima facie likelihood of direct collaboration the same as in the case of Heujy VIII. In 161 2-13 Shak- spere seems to have been occupied with other affairs as well as play-writing, but there is no evidence that he had left lyondon or severed his connection with the King's men. Fletcher had by that time achieved eminent success through his plays written in collaboration with Beaumont for the King's men and b}' 1 61 2 was apparentl}- no longer writing with Beaumont. On the face of things collaboration between Shakspere and Fletcher is not at all improbable. Before looking directly at the separate scenes for evidence, we must note one objection often urged against collaboration. If Shakspere had seen the finished play, he would not — so some urge — have tolerated the trash of the underplot.^ It is at least probable that Shakspere did see the finished play in 1613; but this probability aside, the underplot is certainly no greater trash than that of Pericles which he managed to endure. The conception that Shakspere acted as a schoolmaster and Fletcher as a pupil, has no foundation whatever. Even if Shakspere planned the play, there is no reason to suppose that he would have dictated to the younger poet. The feeling that Shakspere would not have tolerated the underplot is, however, accentuated b)'- the supposition that this underplot contains imitations, and very poor ones, of Holofernes in Love' s Labour' s Lost'^ and Ophelia in Hamlet.^ In respect to Holofernes, I do not think there was any imitation in mind. The scene exhibiting the schoolmaster and his troop of enter- tainers received its suggestion from the Masque of the Inner Temple, as we have seen, and probably not at all from so old a play as Love' s Labour' s Lost. In fact, if we want to go back to the original of the situation of a schoolmaster arranging a May-day entertainment, we must go back at least as early as ^See Littledale. Introduction. 2T. N. K. Ill, 5. ^See the scenes in which the jailer's daughter appears. 51 Sir Philip Sidney's May Lady, 1578, when the pedant Rombus appears. In the same way, the mad girl with her songs and childish talk was a conventional stage character, appearing in Lyly's the Woman m the Moon, the original Hajulet, and Hoffman as well as the final Hamlet. The case here, however, is different from that of the school- master. Hamlet was a popular pla}^ and the situation of Ophelia must have suggested the description of the mad girl floating on the water amid the flowers and speaking love posies and singing "willow, willow, willow."^ We must, however, note that there is no imitation of Ophelia's character, the only distinct imitation is of the circumstances of her death. Now, this imitation, so far from being an objection to collaboration seems to me readily explainable on the supposition of collabo- ration. Shakspere, with his usual economy of invention ^ may have determined in planning the play to introduce a mad girl; and Fletcher working out the suggestion was fully capable of doing the rest — trash and all. In spite of the trash, the conversation of V, 2, was probably very pleasing to both the groundlings and lordlings of Blackfriars. Returning to the evidence for collaboration, we must examine the work of each author. In the underplot dealing with the jailer's daughter, Shakspere is assigned three and Fletcher seven scenes. Act II, scene i, by Shakspere introduces the jailer, the wooer, and the daughter, who shows that she is alread)' a little in love with the prisoner Palamon. The next scene by Shakspere (III, 2,) is a soliloquy by the daughter who has freed Palamon and is seeking him. She is alone in the woods and fears lest she go mad. The last scene of the underplot by Shakspere (IV, 3,) represents the jailer, wooer, and doctor consulting over a cure for the girl who, it now ap- pears, is insane. The scene also introduces the girl with mad talk and songs. In Fletcher's part of the underplot. Act II, scene 3, intro- duces a crowd of country people a-maying. Act II, scene 4, is a soliloquy by the jailer's daughter (introduced earlier by Shakspere) who is not 3^et mad and who resolves to free Pala- mon. Act II, scene 5, is another soliloquy from which it ap- pears that she is about to free him. In Act III, scene 4, she is insane (first suggested in Shakspere's part). Act III, scene 5, includes the morris dance and another appearance of the mad girl. Act IV, scene i, includes the description of the girl's escape from a watery grave and another appearance of the mad girl. Act V, scene 2, represents the wooer curing the IT. N. K. IV, I. 2 See William Shakspere by Barrett Wendell, 1894, pp. 87, 422 et passim. 52 girl of her madness after the manner prescribed by the doctor in Shakspere's scene. Two things are plain from this analysis. First, each writer understood the outline of the plot, for scenes in each part de- pend on scenes in the other. Second, it is almost impossible that Shakspere should have written his three scenes first and left the underplot in that shape, for the scenes have neither connection with each other nor importance by themselves. The most natural conclusion seems to be that the two parts were written by two dramatists who had the plot well outlined and each of whom took certain scenes to write. In the development of the main plot, Shakspere is assigned eight scenes and Fletcher five.^ Of Shakspere's part the first four scenes of the first act deal largely with the widowed queens and Theseus. They serve also as an introduction to the main action, presenting all the leading characters including Palamon and Arcite. This act, however, with the kneeling queens, the wedding masque, and the " funerall solempnity," is from a stage p(^int of view good as a spectacle rather than as an introduction to the action. In Act III, scene i, Arcite (who has been freed from prison in Fletcher's part) and Pala- mon (who has escaped in Fletcher's part) meet and arrange to fight. In Act V, scene i, there are the prayers of the two kinsmen and Emilia before the final tournament (the action having gone on to this point in Fletcher's scenes). Here again the scene is spectacular. In Act V, scene 3, the fight goes on behind the arras while Emilia awaits her fate; this scene pre- senting the culmination of the main action. In the next scene (V, 4,) the play is brought to an end with the rescue of Pala- mon, the death of Arcite, and the closing speech of Theseus. Of Fletcher's scenes. Act II, scene 2, represents Palamon and Arcite in prison, the entrance of Emilia in the garden, the quarrel of the two lovers, and the removal of Arcite. This is the real beginning of the main action. In Act II, scene 3, Arcite is free and about to go to court. In Act II, scene 5, he attains success there. In Act III, scene 3, Arcite brings food and files to Palamon (according to the agreement made in the Shaksperean part). In Act III, scene 6, the two kinsmen arm each other and fight, whereupon they are interrupted by The- seus and his train, exposed to death by Palamon 's confession, and saved by Emilia's intercession. This is, perhaps, the most effective stage situation of the play. In Act IV, scene 2, Emilia debates over the pictures of her two lovers, and a messenger describes the combatants; this scene preparing the way for the main action of the last act by Shakspere. 1 1 omit I, 5, (onl}' 6 lines and a song) because the authorship is very doubtful. II, 3, (Fletcher) deals with both the main and the under- plot. 53 From this analysis of the main action it will be seen that the scenes by one author depend closely on those by the other. So intimate is this inter-relation of the two parts that we safely conclude that each author was well acquainted with the plan of the whole action and the arrangement by scenes and situa- tions. As in the case of the underplot, it is almost impos- sible that the Shaksperean part was written before and inde- pendently of the Fletcherian part. On that supposition we should have to believe that after Shakspere had planned the play in detail and written a whole introductory act with some elaboration, he then wrote a few disconnected and relatively unimportant scenes for the under- plot and one scene of the main plot, the meeting of Palamon and Arcite in the forest, but left the opening and development of the main action untouched. Then, leaving the further de- velopment of the main action still untouched, we are to sup- pose, that he went on to finish with manifest elaboration the final act in the play. Two or three bits of the underplot, the first act, the last act, and one intermediate scene of the main action — however else the plaj^maj^ have been written, one feels fairly certain that it was not begun in this way. The date, 1613, indeed destroys one conjecture often adopted that the play was left unfinished by Shakspere at his death and was finished by Fletcher at a late date in his career.-^ Our examination of Shakspere' s share of the play makes it equally improbable that Shakspere planned and began the play about 1610, and for some reason turned it over in its incomplete form to Fletcher who completed it. Fletcher does, indeed, seem to have made some additions and in some places to have retouched Shakspere's work. He may, probably enough, have given the final touches to the play. Moreover in a plaj^ which w^as still popular in 1634 and which had therefore been in the stock of the King's men for twelve years of Fletcher's life and for nine years after his death, there is a manifest possibility that the text was subject to some alteration and revision. The part assigned to Shakspere is, however, with the ex- ceptions of these possible alterations, definitely marked off by the scenes of the first quarto. The scenes which Shakspere wrote show a knowledge of the whole course of the dramatic action. They are, how^ever, entirely disconnected by them- selves but are closely connected with some of Fletcher's scenes. Still further, each scene by itself is complete and elaborate, utterly unlike unfinished work. It does not seem possible, therefore, that these scenes represent a play which he had begun and left thus unfinished. Fletcher's scenes in the same way are disconnected except when taken in connection with Shakspere's; and each one in itself is complete and well elabo- ^See Dyce. 54 rated. These considerations make it probable that, after having made a fairly detailed outline of the play, each writer took certain scenes and, to all intents, completed those scenes after his own fashion. As in Henry VIII, the method of composi- tion seems to have been collaboration, pure and simple. CARDENIO. It was entered S. R. Sept. 9, 1653, by Humphrey Moseley and described as "by Fletcher and Shakspere. ' ' It was not printed. It was on Warburton's list, but nothing is certainly known of it.^ The ascription to Shakspere, whether correct or not, indicates that it was an old play, dating before his death. In May, 161 3, Hemings was paid for a performance at court by the King's men of Cardenno, and in June, 1613, for Cardenna. These three, Cardenio — Cardenno — Carderuia are probably the same play, and all the evidence we have of authorship is Moseley 's assignment to Fletcher and Shakspere. We have, then, three plays — two probably acted for the first time in 1613, and the third certainly as early as 161 3 — for which there is evidence that they were written by Shakspere and Fletcher. In the case of the two extant plays this evidence has seemed reasonably conclusive, and the evidence for direct collaboration hardly less so. The evidence on these matters in one play corroborates the evidence in the case of the other; and the evidence in the case of Cardenio, though slight, is in harmony with our conclusions in the cases of Henry VIII and the Tivo Noble Kinsmen. On the whole it seems decidedly probable that in the course of the years 1611-1613 Shakspere and Fletcher were writing plays in collaboration for the King's men. The important bearing of this conclusion on our main investi- gation is at once evident. We are trying to demonstrate that in the years 1 608-1 1 Shakspere was influenced by the romances of Beaumont and Fletcher; and in the years 1611-1613 we find that Shakspere wrote two and possibly three plays in col- laboration with Fletcher. If Shakspere was influenced by any one in the last years of his dramatic career, it was most likely by Fletcher. A fairly strong case, too, might be made for saying that in Henry VIII and the Two Noble Kinsmeyi, Fletcher's influence rather than Shakspere' s is predominant. It may at least be noted that while Henry VIII is a chronicle history more in 1 For a refutation of Mr. Fleay's theory that the play was identical with Love's Pilgrimage, see the discussion of the date of that play. Attempts have also been made to identify it with A Very Woman and the Double Falsehood. 55 Shakspere's than Fletcher's method, Fletcher's best scenes both in stage efiectiveness and dramatic power are as notable as Shakspere's. In the Tivo Noble Kinsmen, in spite of the trash of the underplot and the weakness of his characterization, Fletcher seems to have contributed most largely to the drama- tic development of the main action. Much has been said of the power of Shakspere's partnership in bringing out Fletcher's best work, but something also might be said of Fletcher's in- fluence in these plays on Shakspere.-^' In a case, however, where our conclusions rest to such an extent on conjecture, it is not worth while to use these conclusions for inductions in regard to the mutual influence of the two collaborators. Admitting that there is much in the discussion of these two plays which remains conjectural, we shall still insist on the probe ability of our main conclusion that Shakspere and Fletcher col- laborated. We may also again emphasize the fact that the proba- bility of this collaboration greatly strengthens the prima fade likehhood that Shakspere was directly influenced by the Beau- mont-Fletcher romances. ^ Mr. Sidney Lee is even willing to find a direct Fletcherian influence on Shakspere's style. Speaking of Wolsey's farewell to Cromwell, he says : "It recalls at every point the style of Fletcher, and nowhere that of Shakespeare's we are driven to the alternative con- clusion that the noble valediction was by Shakespeare, who in it gave proof of his versatility by echoing in a glorified key the habitual strain of Fletcher, his colleague and virtual successor." Life, pp. 262, 263. 56 CHAPTER V. Chronology of the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. In arranging a chronology of the plays attributed to Beau- mont and Fletcher, we may conveniently divide them in three groups: I, plays produced before the end of 1611; II, plays 1612-1618, inclusive; III, plays produced after 1618. The first group is the important one for us. Shakspere's three romances cannot date later than 161 1 , so no plays by Beaumont and Fletcher after that date can have influenced Shakspere, but any plays before that may have done so. I have taken Mr. Fleay's examination ^ as the basis of my investigation, and in group I my results differ radically from his. In groups II and III the chronology is by no means so uncertain as in group I, and I have added little to Mr. Fleay's results. My conclusions in regard to plays of those groups are given without discus- sion, except in a few cases of special significance. In group I we shall first consider eight plays which date certainly before the close of 161 1 and then eight others which are conjecturally placed in that period. In examining Four Plays in One, Cupid's Revenge, and Thierry and Theodoret, it will be necessary to anticipate some of the matter of Chapter VII on the general character of the Beaumont- Fletcher ro- mances. When a reference is made to Mr. Fleay's conclusions without page number, it is always to the discussion of the play under consideration in his Chronicle of the Drama. In the same way a reference merely to Dyce always refers to his note on the passage under discussion. /. First Group. Plays Before the End of 1611. The Woma7i Hater. Licensed for publication by Sir George Buc, 20 May, 1607. First quarto, 1607, "as it hath been lately acted by the Children of Paules." 1648, quarto " by J. Fletcher." 1649, by F. Beaumont and J. Fletcher. Although the statement on the title page cannot be taken to prove much concerning the date of the original performance, it would seem to indicate that the play was produced not very long before May, 1607.^ Eight of the Paul's boys plays were ^Chr. I, p. 164, seq. ^A Mad World My Masters, by Middleton ; entered 4 Oct., 1608; 57 licensed in 1607/ showing that the company broke up at about that time. The last play which we know that they produced was the Abuses, before the King, 30 July, 1606.^ Mr. Fleay places the date of the first representation at Easter, April 5, 1607, on account of the two allusions. "A favorite on a sudden" (I, 3), he thinks refers to Robert Carr, after- wards Earl of Somerset, who was first introduced to the King's notice at a tilt which occurred March 24, 1607. Carr was at this time a mere page, brought forward by Sir James Hays, and was accidentally injured. The King was attracted by the boy's beauty and visited him during his confinement from the injury. Carr did not, however, become notorious as a great favorite until a couple of years later; evidently between March 24 and April 5 there could hardly have been occasion for so positive an allusion. Moreover the play contains a number of allusions to favorites and new-made lords, and James had several favorites before Carr.'' Mr. Fleay 's second allusion, " another inundation " (III, i), he takes to refer to the rise of the Severn in Somersetshire and Gloucestershire Jan. 20, 1607.'* The expression seems more likely to refer to Noah's flood. In expressing surprise at Gondarino's sudden change, Oriana says: " Sure we shall have store of larks, the skies will Not hold up loug; I should have look'd as soon For frost in the Dog-daj's, or another inundation, As hoped this strange conversion above miracle." 1 find only one passage which helps at all to decide the date. Beaumont and Fletcher were friends of Jonson, as we have seen, at least as early as 1607. In 1605-6 the Paul's boys were under the management of E. Kirkham who had been with the Queen's children of the revels and who had apparently left at the time of their trouble over Eastward Ho, 1604-5.^ Chapman's Bussy D' Ambois was produced by the Paul's boys, perhaps about 1605.*' A friend of Jonson 's and a writer for the Paul's boys must have been acquainted with the circum- stances of the imprisonment of Jonson, Chapman, and Marston, 4to 1608 — "it hath bin lately in Action by the Children of Paules." It is dated by Fleay in 1606. The Roaring Girl; 4to 1611, "lately acted on Fortune Stage, is dated by Fleay 1604-5. '^ Northiuard Ho, Aug. 6; Phoeftix, May 9; Michaelmas Term, May 15 ; Woman Hater, May 5 ; Bussy D'Ambois, June 5 ; Trick to Catch the Old One, Oct. 7; all in 1607. Mad World My Masters, Oct. 4, 1608. Northward Ho was published in 1607. 2 Nichols, IV, p. 1074. ^ For Carr's early career, cf. Nichols, II, p. 411-415, II, 161. Ill, 1076. Carr was not knighted until Dec. 24, 1607. *Stow, p. 889. 5Chr. I, 59, 60. «Chr. I, 60. 58 and their danger of losing their ears.^ The following passage in the prologue seems reminiscent of that; at any rate I know nothing else it would be so likely to refer to. " Or if there be any lurking amongst you in corners with ' ' table-books, who have some hope to find fit matter to feed "his malice on, let them clasp them up and slink away, "or stay and be converted. For he who made this play means " to please auditors so, as he may be an auditor himself here- " after, and not purchase them with the dear loss of his ears." All through the play there is ridicule of intelligencers and trumped-up charges of treason; and Fletcher's verses to Jon- son's Volpone (acted 1605, published 1607) make special men- tion of Jonson's foes. The above quotation seems tome likely to have been written at a date near that of the troubles referred to; and the passage on the title page also fits a date as early as 1605-6. The play contains several burlesque imitations of Hamlet'^ and in other places apparently parodies contemporary writers. There is at least nothing in the play to contradict 1605-6 as the probable date of composition and presentation. The Knight of the Burning Pestle. First quarto 161 3. Walter Burre, the publisher, in his preface addressed to Robert Keysar, makes a number of statements about the play. ' It was writ- ten in eight days; soon after (perhaps because it was so unlike its brethren) exposed to the wide world, who utterly rejected it. It was succoured from perpetual oblivion by Keysar and by him sent to Burre who had fostered it privately these two years and now returns it. Perhaps it will be thought to be of the race of Don Quixote ; we may both confidently swear it is his elder above a year. ' ^ Don Qziixote must refer to the translation, entered S. R. 161 1 and printed 161 2. This date and the statement that Burre had kept the play by him two years seem to fix the date at 1610-1 1. Mr. Fleay supports 16 10 with several allusions to contemporary events in the play; an examination of such allusions, however, leaves me rather inclined to place the date several years earlier. I shall state first the internal evidence in favor of 16 10 and then that which points to an earlier date. Several songs in the play* are found in Ravenscroft's collec- tions Z'^M/'t/ww^/m (entered S. R. 1609) and Pa m7nelia (entered ^Chr. I, 8r. II, 346. Jonson was also in prison again in connection with Sejanus and was accused of both Popery and treason. See Chr. II. P- 347- 211, I, p. 37: III, I, p. 41 : II, I, p. 34. See Dyce's notes. 3 Nevertheless, the indebtedness of K. B. P. to Don Quixote is un- questionable. *I, 4, p. 150, Deuteromelia. II, 4, Deuteromelia. II, 7, Pammelia (.Trowl the Black Bowl). These are all merest snatches. 59 S. R. 1609). These were, however, collections of songs and snatches already familiar. "The little child," etc., (Ill, 2,) seems to be the same as "the boy of six 3'ears old," etc., of the Alchemist (1610), (V. I,). "The hermaphrodite" (III, 2,)^ Mr. Fleay thinks is the monstrous child born July 31, 1601, at Sandwich. This is a very doubtful conjecture. The above references^ are at least in harmony with a 1610 date. The following seem to contradict it. ' ' This seven years there have been plays at this house. ' ' (Induction.) Mr. Fleay places the production of the play at Whitefriars, because he thinks the play was acted by the Revels children who were at Whitefriars in 16 10. He so placed it in his History of the Stage in violence to this passage, for he then believed Whitefriars was first opened January' 1610. Later Mr. Greenstreet's papers showed that Whitefriars was occupied 1607-1610; so in the Chr-onicle of the Drama, Mr. Fleay notices this passage and from it concludes that the play-laouse in Whitefriars must also have been occupied 1604-7. There is no evidence that it was so occupied, v Frequent references to the children show that the play was produced by a children's company. If by the Queen's Revels, the seven years can hardly refer to anything except their occupancy of Blackfriars from their organization of 1600 to 1607.^ ' If by the Paul's boys, the passage again alludes to a period beginning in 1599* and ending 1606-7. Judging from what we know of the stage history, the passage cannot refer to any theater, if spoken in 1610; if spoken in 1607, it can refer to Blackfriars or probably to the house occupied by the Paul's boys. There is an allusion (IV, i,) ^ to the Travails of Three Eng- i"The Great Dutchman" (III, 2), of the same passage has not been identified. ■^Mr. Fleay also says the statute of Jan. 7, 1609, is referred to in I, I. I can find no statute of that date. Parliament did not meet in that year. •^ A glance at the first few lines of the induction will convince any one that there is no reference to an occupancy by previous companies, as Mr. Fleay states. The lease of Blackfriars was taken 1600 (H. of S. p. 184,), but the Revels Company was acting before. *The date of the reinstatement of Paul's boys is 1599, not 1600. See The Stage Quarrel betiveen Ben Jonson and the so-called Poetasters. ^IV, I. Citizen. " Why so, sir? go and fetch me him then and let the Sophy of Persia come and christen him a child." Boy. "Believe me, sir, that will not do so well ; 'tis stale; it has been had before at the Red Bull. Mr. Fleay regards this allusion to the Red Bull, proof of a date as late as 1610 (H. of S. 195), because he thinks the Red Bull was not used until April 15, 1609. His proof of this is the patent granted Queen Anne's players on that day. But the patent (Shak. Soc. Papers IV, p. 44) reads " to shewe and exercise publickly as well within their 60 lish Brothers, printed 1607 as acted at the Curtain. Mr. Boyle ^ notes the allusion, and since the Travails was based on the adventures of the three Shirleys and was only of immediate interest, he thinks a reference to it would be likely to be con- temporary. The play ^ was hurriedly written and at once pub- lished and must have soon been superseded in favor, and for these reasons Mr. Boyle is inclined to think the reference in the Knight of the Burning Pestle fixes the date of that play about 1607. "Welcome, sir Knight, into my father's court, King of Moldavia, unto me Pomponia." (IV, 2.) In Nichols (II, 157), we find that in November, 1607, "the Turk and the Prince of Moldavia are now going away (from lyondon). In Jonson's Epicocne (acted 1609) there is also an allusion to the Prince of Moldavia (V, i,), but as Jonson spent a year or two on a play this mention corresponds with that in NidlQls. The reference in the Burning Pestle, therefore, seems to indicate an earlier date than 1610. Merrythought, who is constantly singing ditties, recalls Valerius in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, printed 1608, and of course acted earlier.^ The Burning Pestle satirizes Heywood's plays and his company (Queen's men), but perhaps Beaumont in this instance borrowed an idea which had proved a popular innovation, or perhaps Hey wood borrowed it from Beaumont. In either case 1607-8 becomes the more likely date for the Burning Pestle. This is pure conjecture on my part. There remain a number of references and allusions which give no definite evidence in regard to the date, although con- sidered cumulatively they favor the earlier rather than the later. In the Induction the following plays are mentioned: the " nowe usual houses called the Redd Bull, Clerkenwell and the Cur- " tayne in Hallowell as alsoe within any Towne Hall," etc. It is diffi- cult to conceive how Mr. Fleay concludes from this that on that date the company changed from the Curtain to the Bull. One would naturally infer that the company had used both theaters for some time. There are several references to the Red Bull in the Knight of the Burjiing Pestle; and according to Mr. Fleay's theory they indicate a date later than 1609. From my interpretation of the 1609 patent, they indicate nothing of the kind. ^Englische Studien, Vol. IX. 2 See Chr. II, 277. ■^ Fleay, in curious contradiction with his theory that the Red Bull was not opened until 1609, places Lucrece among the plays at the Bull 1609-13 rather than at the Curtain 1607-9. (H. of S. p. 189.) In the Chronicle of the Drama he gives the date of the first quarto correctly, 1608. Lucrece in modern editions is usually said to have been acted at the Red Bull, but I don't know whether the first quarto states this or not, as I have not seen a copy. Fleay CH. of S. p. 201,) says the Red Bull is mentioned for the first time in the 1635 4to. 61 Legend of IVhittingtoyi,^ Life and Death of Sir Thomas Gresham with the building of the Royal Exchange ^^ the story of Queen Eleanor,^ fane Shore,* and Bold BeauchampsJ' These are all old plays, and favorites with the citizen. He asks: "why could you not be contented, as well as others, with these?" The phrase " as well as others " seems to allude to the Queen's men. So far as can be determined these were all plays popular during the first few years of the century. Musidorus 2M^ feronimo are also alluded to in the Induction. Heywood's Four Apprentices is several times ridiculed. The citizen says (IV, i), " Read the play of the Four Appreyitices where they toss their pikes." The play was printed in 1615, but in the preface Heywood describes it as written fifteen or sixteen years before. The passage quoted seems to point to an earlier edition than that of 16 15, but there is no other indi- cation of one. As the citizen is made to speak incorrectly, Dyce thinks the passage does not indicate an earlier edition; Fleay on the contrary thinks there was one.® Heywood in the preface to the 1615 edition, alludes to the resumption of artillery practice by the citizens, which took place in 1610; Mr. Fleay, therefore, concludes that the preface was written for a 1610 edition. He also identifies the play with Godfrey of Bulloigne. All this is extremely doubtful, and to use it to establish a date 1610-11 for the Burning Pestle would be a bad case of reason- ing in a circle. There is considerable burlesque of the Mirrour of Knight- hood, printed 1602 (final part), which is also alluded to in the Scor?iful Lady. (Ill, i . ) A song" is given which occurs with variations and an additional stanza in the Captain. Another song^ is quoted in the Woman' s Prize, Monsieur Thomas, Bhirt Master Constable, and Lucrece. There is an allusion to the battle at Mile End ^ as in Monsieur Thomas. IS. R. 1604. 2 Heywood's If you know not me, you know nobody, 4to, 1605. See Chr. I, 292. ^ The famous chronicle of King Edward /. ( ?) ^Edward IV (1599). ^See Chr. I, 287. See also a possible allusion in A Mad World My Masters (4to, 1608), Middleton's Works. Ed. Bullen, V, 2, note. 6 Chr. I, 282. ''Ill, I. " Tell me, dearest, what is love ? " The Captain, II, 2. ^jIII, 5. "Go from my window, love, go! " W. P., I, 3. Mon. T., Ill, 3. B. M. C, IV, 2. The whole song is one of those added to Lucrece. ^11, 2. "I can assure thee, Michael, Mile End is a goodly matter; there has been a pitch field, my child, between naughty Spaniards and Englishmen," etc. Blon. Thomas, 111,3. A ballad is mentioned of "the Landing of the Spaniards at Bow and bloody battle at Mile End." 62 There are burlesques of passages in Henry IV,^ Romeo and Juliet ^^ and the Spanish Tragedy.^ One other passage has a sHght bearing on the date. In I, i, the wife asks: " Were you never none of Master Moncaster's scholars?"* Dr. Richard Mulcaster was headmaster of St. Paul's school 1 596-1 608. This reference to Mulcaster and the songs which occur in other plays hardly point to one date more than the other. The plays referred to by name and the plays burlesqued are all plays that were familiar early in the century, but references might have been made to them in 1 610 as well as 1607. The similarity of the burlesque of contemporary drama to that in the JVoj?m?i I/aier -mnst, however, be noticed; and that play was surely not later than 1607 and probably dates 1605-6. The evidence which we have seen points definitely to 1607 is not contradicted by anything in the play and gives us a good many difiiculties to explain if we adopt the usual 1610-11 date. On the other hand, if we assume a 1607 date, we shall have to ' assume that Robert Keysar turned the play over to Burre a considerable time after its first production and that Burre knew nothing personally of its first production. I see no escape from the dilemma, but I am inclined to think the 1607 date the less objectionable. The play at all events cannot be later than 161 1. The Faithful Shepherdess. First quarto, undated, but before May 1610, when Sir William Skipwith, one of the three per- sons to whom it is dedicated, died. 1 Induction. " By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap, To pluck bright honour," etc. This is an almost verbatim burlesque of Hotspur's speech, i Hejiry IV; III, I. V. 3. To a resolv'd mind his home is everywhere. . . * * * " Saint George and on, my hearts! " — seems reminiscent of Henry's speech before Harfleur, Henry V, III, I ; or perhaps of Antonio'' s Revenge, II, i. "A wise man's house is wheresoe'er he is wise," etc. 2 II, I. " Good night, twenty good nights and twenty more, And twenty more good nights — that makes three score." — seems to be a parody of the balcou}^ scene. ^The final speech of Ralph's ghost — When " I was mortal and my costive corpse Did lap up figs and raisins in the strand," — is a burlesque of Andrea's ghost. *Mr. Fleay comments on the passage quoted, "z. One passage seems to be an echo oi Hamlet^ and Mr. Ma- caulay and Dr, Leonhardt * have also found other similarities. The date, i6o8, adopted by Dyce, Leonhardt, Macaulay, and students in general, is no more than a conjecture; but on the whole it seems a probable one. The Maid's Tragedy. First quarto, 161 9. " As it hath been divers times acted at the Blackfriars by the King Majesty's Servants." No authors are given. It was evidently written before Oct. 31, 161 1, on which day a play was licensed by Sir George Buc, which he endorsed as ' ' this second maiden's tragedy. ' ' This is written on the manu- iH. of S., p. 250. 2Chr. I, p. 189. =^Chr. I, p. 170. Note the order in which he arranges the plays. *See page 21. ^Because Philaster v^SlS a very popular play and was doubtless on the stage in 1620. ^Philaster, Act. V, sc. 3. "I, I. Dion : " Mark but the King, how pale he looks with fear! Oh, this same whoreson conscience, how it jades us! " *Anglia, Vol. VIII. The plot includes Philaster's revenge on the King, his father's deposer, and hence there are resemblances to the earlier tragedies dealing with " revenge for a father," and of course, to Hamlet. 6 65 script of that play now in existence, but the title of the play is missing. Mr. Fleay thinks this endorsement shows that the Maid' s Tragedy was licensed immediately before the play of Oct. 31. This is pure conjecture; the superscription may, on the contrary, be taken to indicate that the Maid s Tragedy was well known. The "second maiden's tragedy" has no appar- ent relation to Beaumont and Fletcher's play, and one can only guess at Sir George Buc's reasons for using the title. Mr. Fleay thinks that the masque was inserted at the time of the court performance^ (1612-13), and even conjectures that it was written for a marriage Jan. 29, 161 2, and later inserted in the play. The masque is mentioned in the opening lines of the play and several times afterwards in the first act, which would indicate that it was a part of the play from the first. In fact it is an integrant part of the action. It may have been revised, although the irregularities instanced by Mr. Fleay hardly indicate that.'' It must be noted that the statement in the 16 19 quarto that the play was acted at the Blackfriars cannot be accepted as set- tling the place of the first performance, so even the purchase of the Blackfriars' lease in 1608 cannot be certainly taken as fixing an early limit. Mr. Fleay finds the date 161 1 in conformity with his theories of the stage history; the usual conjecture has been 1609 or 16 10. So far as I can find, there is no early limit for the date, 1609 is an unobjectionable conjecture, and the latest limit is certainly Oct. 31, 161 1. The Coxco77ib. First printed in folio 1647. Acted at court by Rossiter's Company before Lady Elizabeth and Prince Pala- tine Oct., 1612;* also acted before the King March, 1613.* There is a list of actors given in the second folio (1679). In the History of the Stage^ Mr. Fleay assigns this list to the pre- sentation before the King 1613. In the Chronicle of the Dravia^ he decides that the list "must date before August 29, 161 1, for Gary and Barkstead, who appear on it, and who had always, ^See ante, p. 29. * Mr. Fleay is at so much trouble to prove that the masque was a later insertion because he thinks the lines — " You shall have many floods fuller and higher Than you have wished for ; and no ebb shall dare To let the day see where your dwellings are." can hardly refer to the floods of 1607, and must, therefore, refer to those of 1612, Oct. -Dec, i. e., the allusion must have been made in the revision for the court performance. The allusion is very doubtful at best, but there is no reason why the play may not date early enough to make the allusion to the floods of 1607. 3H. of S., p. 175- *01dys' ms. notes to Langbaine. 5H. of S., p. 187. 6Chr., I, 185. 66 till then, been Revels boys, at that date joined the Lady Eliza- beth's men under Foster." He also decides that the date must be later than Mar. 30, i6io, because Joseph Taylor, who is on the list, was on that date with the Duke of York's men. The first statement is correct, but the last is a surprising inference. The Duke of York's Company was just established on March 30, 1610;^ so that Fleay conjectures that Taylor at once left this newly formed men's company to play with Rossiter's chil- dren. The natural inference is that Taylor^ had been with the Revels children and left them in March, 1610, to join the newly formed men's company, just as Car)^ and Barkstead did in 161 1. Taylor was evidently a prominent actor by 1610-12, for he is second on the list of Lady Elizabeth's Company, Aug. , 161 1 (which he joined with Cary and Barkstead), and is acting as manager in 1612-13^ in the list of court payments. If we take the natural inference in regard to him the Coxcomb must date not after but before March 30, 1610.^ Now, Jonson's Epiccene was performed by the Revels chil- dren in 1609, and we have a list of the actors. Rossiter's Com- pany, it will be remembered, was a continuation of the Revels (first Queen's). The question arises did the Coxcomb precede or follow Epiccene ? A comparison of the two lists leaves the question in doubt: five names are the same on both lists. I give them, with numbers denoting their order: Cox. Epic. Nathan Field, i i Giles Carey, 3 3 Rich. Allin, 5 6 Hugh Attawell, 6 5 Will Barkstead, 8 2 Three names are different on each list. I give them, with the dates and companies with which they are known to have been playing after these lists. No one of the six is found on any earlier list. Coxcomb. Joseph Taylor (2) Mar. 30, 16 10, Duke of York's. Aug. 29, 161 1, Forster's Lady Ehzabeth's. Emanuel Read (4) 16 13, the reorganized Lady Elizabeth's Company, to which Field also went. 1617, Queen Anne's, Robt. Benfield (7) 1613, Lady Elizabeth's. 1619, King'smen. Epiccene. Will Pen (4) 20 May, 16 16, Prince's men. John Smitth (7) 20 May, 1616, Prince's men. John Blaney (8) 1617, Queen Anne's. 1 H. of S., p. 188. Patent is quoted, which, was granted Mar. 30, 1610, to the Duke of York's men. -Mr. Oliphaut also comes to this conclusion. See Eng. Studien, XV, p. 322. 3H. of S., p. 175- *So Mr. Oliphant decides. Eng. Studien, XV, p. 322. 67 There is no evidence which of the lists is older, both may date at about the same time. There is no reason why the Cox- comb list may not apply to an earlier presentation than that of Epicane; possibly, then, to a first presentation at Blackfriars, 1605-8. Other evidences of date are slight. Ostend is alluded to,^ and also the pamphlet of Nicholas Breton, printed 1600- 1602.'' The source of the plot which gives the play its name is Cer- vantes' Curioso hnpertmente ; first printed with Don Quixote, 1605; translated into French and published 1608, as Le Ctirieux Impertinente .^ This fixes the earliest limit for The Coxcomb at 1605. It is certainly earlier than Aug. 29, 161 1 ; almost as certainly earlier than March 30, 1610; and, possibly enough, earlier than 1609.'* Cupid' s Revenge. First quarto, 161 5. " By John Fletcher," "As it hath been divers times acted by the Children of her Majestie's Revels." The printer in an address to the reader declares that he is not acquainted with the author and ends: " I once again dedicate this book to the judicious, some whereof ' ' I have heard commend it to be excellent — who because they ' ' saw it acted and knew whereof they spoke are the better to "be believed, — and for my part, I censure thus — that I have ' ■' never read a better. ' ' It was acted before Prince Henry and Princess Elizabeth, the Sunday following New Year's 161 2, by the Children of Whitefriars, and again at court, according to Oldys, in 16 13. All critics agree in assigning shares to both Beaumont and Fletcher. There are evidences of alteration, and Mr. Fleay thinks it was worked over for the court presentation; Mr. Boyle also finds indications of a third hand; and Mr. Oliphant of a third and fourth. Mr. Fleay fixes the date at 16 10, because Rossiter's com- pany of Revels was then at Whitefriars and because he thinks Beaumont and Fletcher stopped writing for the Revels children and went to the King's men in the fall of 16 10. This last statement, we have seen, to be contrary to evidence.^ The ^11, 2. " When they take a thief, I'll take Ostend again." Ostend was taken Sept. 8, 1604. Such an allusion as this might date anumberof years after the event. Ostend is also alluded to in Woman's Prize, I, 3, and Love's Ctire, I, i (both probably acted before 1608). ^V, 4. " Mother, do }-ou read Madcap still?" Cf. Dyce. C/., also, \.h.t. Scornful Lady, II, i. ^ Cf. Koeppel, p. 83. Don Quixote seems to have been known to Beaumont and Fletcher in Spanish. This plot from the Curioso Int- pertinente is also used in Field's Amends for Ladies (1611?) and the Seco n d Ma id en ' ^ Tragedy ( 1 6 1 1 ) . *The country scenes (especially III, 3) suggest the conjecture that the Coxcovtb may be one of the comedies written at the time of Beau- mont's stay in the country, referred to in his Poetical Epistle to Ben fonson (about 1606). ^See ante, Chap. II. 68 play may have been written for the earlier Revels and handed over by them to Rossiter's company, or it may have been writ- ten for Rossiter's company in 1610-11, while Beaumont and Fletcher were also writing for the King's men. The play, as in all cases of which we have evidence, was doubtless acted in public before the court performance; therefore its date cannot be later than the last of 161 1. The plot requires some consideration because it throws open an opportunity for conjectures in respect to the date and be- cause it illustrates the dramatic methods of Beaumont and Fletcher. It is taken from Sidney's Arcadia} Two stories are combined more closely than in the Arcadia, and the prosy narrative of the novel is developed into a series of lively situa- tions with a new melodramatic denouement, quite after the stjde of that in Thierry and Theodoret. Some of the other alterations are worth noting. ( i ) The repugnant dwarf Zoilus is substituted for the nurse's son, with whom the Princess is enamoured. This "Cupid's revenge" recalls Oberon's re- venge in Midsum7ner Nighf s Dream as Koeppel suggests, but the change is obviously due to a desire for a ' strong ' stage situation. (2) The machinery of Cupid, who descends and ascends, is added; this with the dance and songs supplies the first two acts with a masque-like element. (3) The queen, Bacha, is a very bad woman of the Megra-Brunhalt type; her portrait is, however, distinctly sketched in Arcadia. (4) Ti- mantus, the coward and poltroon of the Bessus-Protaldy type is developed from a very slight allusion in the novel to the "queen's wicked coun.sellors. " (5) Ismenus, the faithful friend of the Melantius-Mardonius type, is added. (6) Urania, the girl of the Aspatia-Bellario type, who dons boy's clothes and follows her lover, is also added. These last two charac- ters are not so much as suggested in the Arcadia. (7) Leu- cippus, the hero, is of the Philaster-Amintor sort, or as Mr. Oliphant styles the type, "the Beaumontesque lily-livered order of men." This character is hardly suggested in the novel. ^ Now the types represented by these last five characters ap- pear in Philaster, the Maid' s Tragedy, Thierry and Theodoret, and A King and No Kiyig. We shall have occasion to discuss them later, but their appearance here shows that when Beau- mont and Fletcher wrote Cupid' s Revenge they had the main features of their characteristic romances clearly in mind. They followed the plot given them rather closely at times but always ^Works, ed. 1725. Vol. I, 264 ff, 276 ff. Cf. Dyce, Vol. II, 331, and Koeppel, p. 41. 2 It may be noted that the mob which rescues Leucippus is developed from a brief reference in the Arcadia. It recalls the mob in Philaster. 69 with an eye to startling and vigorous situations and with the addition of a denouement similar to one used in another play. To this plot they added a little spectacular business and five types of characters familiar in their other plays. There is no indefiniteness in the character-drawing, little sign of experi- mentation. There is little masterly poetry in the pla}^ but the ' ' lily-livered prince, ' ' the evil, passionate woman, the blunt sol- dier-friend, the poltroon, and the childishly loving girl are all delineated with a completeness that indicates practice. The play is such a one as might have been hastily written by men who merely drew from their dramatic stock in trade — it looks like an attempt to repeat the success of Philaster. So it seems to me, but one must not rest much on conjectures of this sort. Whatever its date may be in relation to the other romances, Cupid's Revenge affords an interesting opportunitj' to study the methods of construction and the stock characters of the Beaumont and Fletcher romances. A King and No King. First quarto, entered S. R. Aug. 7, 1618. It was licensed by Buck in 161 1, and performed at court Dec. 161 1 and again 1612-13. This is the only playacted before 161 2, the j'ear of whose production is fixed. We have now examined the dates of eight plays certainly acted by the end of 161 1, we shall next consider the dates of eight others which may be conjecturally assigned to the same period. The Woman'' s Prize, or the Tajner Tamed. First printed in folio 1647. Revived in 1633; described in Herbert's licensing book as "an old play by Fletcher; " suppressed by Herbert and the Scornful Lady acted instead. Acted before the King and Queen Nov. 28, 1633 by the King's men and "very well liked." Two days before, the Taming of the Shrezc was acted and only "liked." The play is a sequel to the Taming of the Sh?'€w and intro- duces Petruchio with a second wife who tames him. Mr, Fleay is in doubt whether to date it 161 2 or 161 5, preferring the latter and conjecturing that the play was originally pro- duced by the Lady Elizabeth's men. Mr. Oliphant gives rea- sons for thinking it was an early play of 1606-7, or possibly 1604, and revi.sed about 1613-14.^ Mr. Oliphant points out tha;t Dekker's Medicine for a Curst IVife^ was acted by the Admiral's men July 1602, Hey wood's A 1Vo7?ian Killed with Kindness,"^ Feb. -March, 1603, and the Taming of the Shrew by the King's men in 1603,^ and that Patieyit Grissil was published in 1603. Fletcher's play on a lEnglische Studien, XV, pp. 388, 389. 2 See Henslow's Diary. 8 Fleay, Shaks., p. 224, 70 similar theme he thinks may have been suggested by these; or, as he thinks more likely, it may be connected with the publication of ^ Woman Killed with Kindness, in 1607, and the re-entry of the old Tami7ig of the Shrew in the same year. The play contains the following allusions (I, 3) to the siege of Ostend (July 5, 1601, to Sept. 8, 1604). " Colonel Bianca. She commands the works Spinola's but a ditcher to her." " The chamber's nothing but a mere Ostend." The fortification metaphor, moreover, runs throughout the scene. The most natural and, I think, a safe conclusion^ is that the play was written during or shortly after the siege of Ostend. There is another allusion (II, 2) which points to an early date. " his infliction That killed the Prince of Orange, will be sport To what we purpose." The Prince of Orange was murdered in 1584; a very vivid account of the punishments inflicted upon the murderer is given in A True Discourse Historical of the Succeeding Governors of the Netherlands, etc., 4to, 1602.*^ This account would seem to have been in the writer's mind when he wrote the above pas- sage. There is an allusion to the Spanish Tragedy (II, 6) and a burlesque on Hamlet (V, 3).^ A ballad is given (I, 3) which is also quoted in the Burning Pestle (III, 5) and Monsieur Thomas (III, 3). Valid reasons for dating this and other plays as early as 1604-5 might be adduced from the complete blank in Fletcher's career, 1604-7, and the large number of important plays usually assigned, 1607-11, but consideration of such evidence may well be postponed until we attempt to form a chronology of all the plays together. In this case there is sufficient internal evi- dence to determine the date. There is nothing in the play to lit is possible that the reference may have been written eight or ten years after the event, but it sounds like a contemporaneous allusion. The siege of Ostend was, to be sure, a very famous event, but it is alluded to in only two other of Beaumont and Fletcher's collected plays, Coxcomb, II, 2, Dyce, III, p. 154, and Love's Cure, I, i, Dyce, X, p. 112. Both of these, we shall find reason to think, date before 1609, and both of the allusions distinctly refer to the siege as a past event. A true history of the Memorable Siege of Ostend, etc., 4 to, was published in 1604. 2See Works, ed. Dyce, VII, p. 113. 3 Mr. Oliphant also finds a parody on Lear (II, 5) and an allusion to a Woman Killed with Kindness (III, 4). The latter speaks of a hus- band "killed with kindness," and has no reference to Heywood's play. 71 contradict the early date;^ and the references to Ostend and the murderer of the Prince of Orange, and, less surely, the plays on similar themes of about 1603, seem to fix the date at 1604. Love' s Cure or the Martial Maid. First printed in folio 1647; without an actors' list, therefore probably not acted by the King's men. The date was formerly supposed to be fixed by the allusion to the cold Muscovite^ at 1622 or a little later. Mr. Fleay, however, has shown reasons for thinking that the first produc- tion was much earlier and that the reference to the cold Mus- covite belongs to a late revision by Massinger of the original play by Beaumont and Fletcher. At the start it is necessary to show some evidence of such a revision. Fleay, Boyle, and Oliphant are all agreed that a large part of the play as it now stands is to be accredited to Massinger. No one finds any very conclusive evidence of Fletcher's work; the probability, there- fore, of an original unrevised play rests on the question of Beaumont's authorship. The prologue at a late revival, subsequent to 1625, mentions Beaumont and Fletcher as the authors, which rather implies that the play was written in Beaumont's life-time. Moreover, Beaumont's hand seems to me distinctly traceable. Two scenes in particular seem to me Beaumont's in entirety. On looking at their divisions, I find that Fleay and Oliphant also assign these scenes among others to Beaumont. Boyle assigns them to an unknown author, but an examination of his tables'' shows that these scenes must be assigned by verse tests to Beaumont. The table shows the tests for the two scenes in Love' s Cure and compares the results with the percentages of other of Beau- mont's plays. This is as near as you can come to proving authorship by verse-tests.* We are justified, then, in concluding that as iMr. Oliphant finds an allusion to Jonson's Silent Woman (III, i), and also says he finds comparisons with half a dozen of Beaumont and Fletcher's" plays. He only gives two of these, and they do not tempt one to search farther. They are : Woman's Prize, II, i. " My nose blown to my hand." Woman Hater, III, i. " My nose blow'd to my hand." Woman's Prize, II, 2. " Put up your pipes." Woman Hater, III, i. "Put up thy pipes." Obviously, Mr. Oliphant has a very keen scent for these similarities, and he thinks a good many of them belong to the conjectured revision of 1613-14. The two titles and the fact that the scene is I,ondon, while the characters have Italian names, are the onlj' definite evidences of this revision. No one has detected any author except Fletcher. 2 11, 2. See Dyce. "Englische Studien. V, p. 74, seq. The figures in the table are Boyle's. *The ' 'em-them ' test is worth noting in this connection, although it is not helpful in deciding the authorship. There are 17 thems and 21 'ems in the play : according to Boyle's division there are 13 thems 72 VERSE Si p p RUN- OVER LIGHT END- WEAK END- M > sg LINES INGS INGS Love's Cure, III, 3, 123 14 41 3 4 " V, 3, 217 40 60 7 I 8 '* " two scenes, 340 54 lOI 10 I 12 " " Percentage, 159 29.7 3- 3-5 Beaumont's share Triumph of Ivove (entire), 628 I.S.6 25- 3- 9- Beaumont's share Philaster, 1,730 15.2 26.2. 2.4 1.2 " "A King and No King, 1,650 II. 9 27.8 1.8 •7 I. Beaumont had a share in the play it must have been written before 161 6 and revised by Massinger after 1622. This hj^- pothesis is more plausible than the old one fixing the date of the first production in 1622, for then we should have a play accredited to Beaumont and Fletcher in which neither had a share. A part of the original play may have been written by Fletcher, but his work is hardly discernible through Massinger' s revision; Beaumont's work is discernible in my opinion in much that has been revised as well as in a number of scenes where it seems preserved in its entirety. We come now to internal evidence which fixes the date of the original play. Mr. Fleay has pointed out a number of refer- ences. Alvarez^ (I, 3) has had twenty years of exile; Lucio, born just after the departure of Alvarez into exile is twenty years old; ^ Alvarez had been exiled sixteen years ^ before he brought Clara to Ostend (June, 1661 — Aug., 1604). The date of the action of the play, then, is four years later, 1 605-1 608; which, Mr. Fleay adds, " is no doubt, as usual in plays where such chronological calculations are introduced, the date of writing. " Certainly it is natural for the date of action in such cases to coincide with the date of writing, but the time of action and I 'em in Massinger's half of the play and 4 thems and 20 'ems in the half assigned to the unknown author. In Oliphant's division there are 13 thems and i 'em in Massinger's part, 3 'ems in Beaumont and Massinger's, and 4 thems and 17 'ems in Beaumont's part. Even a single 'em in Massinger is suspicious ; the 'ems furnish no conclusive evidence of Fletcher's hand; and the proportion of 'ems and thems neither counts for nor against Beaumont. I. I. I them. III. 5. I them (prose). IV. 2. I them 5 'ems (all prose). IV. 3. I them 3 'ems. V. i. 3 'ems. V. 3. 3 'ems. — — I them I 'em. Total 17 thems 21 'ems. p. 121. " My twenty years of sorrow but a dream." p. 123. " Have you been twenty years a stranger to it? " p. 116. " For twenty years, which is ever since you were born, p. 112. 3- I. 2. 2. 3- 4- . 3 3. 2, n I I them (prose). I 'em. 7 thems. 4 thems. 5 'ems (2 in prose). 73 is stated directly in the first lines of the play without any chrono- logical calculations. The lines are spoken of Alvarez. "As if by his command aloue, and fortune, Holland, with those low Provinces that hold out Against the Arch-duke, were again compell'd With their obedience to give up their lives To be at his devotion." These lines and the other allusions in the first scene to the Arch-duke and Ostend can only refer to the war between Spain and the Netherlands in which the Cardinal Arch-duke Albert was governor of the Netherlands and which ended in a truce April 9, 1609. The Arch-duke was given special powers to bring about a truce Jan. 10, 1608,^ and from that time on nego- tiations were in progress; perhaps the references in Love' s Cure, then, may be taken to indicate a period earlier than 1608. At all events, they fix the time of the action, and I think un- questionably the time of the writing between 1605 and 1609. Mr. Fleay has also noticed " the use of the name Lazarilloas in the Woman Hater.'' Not only is the name the same, but this Lazarillo, like the fellow in the Woman Hater, is a glutton, interested in nothing but eating. Thus when he comes to hanging he saj's: " I have no stomach for it, but I '11 endeavor," and again when he is sent to the galleys, "Well, though I herrings want, I shall have rows." The similarity between the two Lazarillos points to Beaumont's authorship of Love' s Cure and a date not very distant from that of the Woman Hater. Mr. Fleay also says that the " miraculous maid " (II, i,) is the maid of Confolens, 1604. I haven't identified this. The other references which he cites as evidences of an early date are very doubtful." There is one other passage which bears on the date. " Why I but taught her a Spanish trick in charity and holp the King ^ There was a seven months truce beginning April 24, 1607. For an account of the Siege of Ostend, etc., see Motley's United Netherlands, Vol. IV. -Ill, I, p. 142. " You, politic Diego with your face of wisdom ! Don Blirt!" Fleay thinks that this refers to Middleton's play, Blurt Master Con- stable (4to, 1602). Don Diego, a famous and unsavory character, is mentioned in that play and in the Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt (1602), but he is frequently alluded to in the later dramatists, e. g.. Maid of the Mill (licensed 1623), so the allusion does not indi- cate an early date. V, 3, end.' Alquazier. " You have married a whore, may she prove honest." Perrato. " It is better, my Lord, than to marry An honest woman that may prove whore." Considerable ingenuity is required to find here, as does Fleay, an allusion to Dekker's play. 74 to a subject that may live to take Grave Maurice prisoner " (I, 2). This passage would most likely have been vi^ritten when Maurice was at war with Spain. He was at war up to 1609, and then, after a truce of twelve years, again from 1621 to his death in 1625. So far the passage might have been written either at the time of the original or the revised version of the play; but Graf Maurice of Nassau became Prince of Orange in 161S, and if the passage was written in 1622 the latter title would naturally have been used. The passage, then, still far- ther proves that the date of writing of the original version cor- responds with the date of the action, and that this date is before 1609 and probably 1605-8. Thierry and Theodoret. First quarto, 1621; "As it was divers times acted at the Black Friers by the King's Majesties Servants:" no authors given. Quarto, 1648, "by John Fletcher." Quarto, 1649, " by F. Beaumont and J. Fletcher." The quarto in 1621 was printed by T. Walkley, who, in 1620, printed an apparently pirated edition of Philaster, and in 161 9 a quarto of^ King a^id No King} In a preface to the latter, Walkley addresses Sir Henry Neville, from whom he says he had received the manuscript, and he speaks of both authors as living. Beaumont had been dead three years, and Walkley evidently had no intercourse with Fletcher. The testimony of the quartos is as usual untrustworthy, but it is worth noting that as far as quartos go Thierry and Theodoret has practicallj^ as good evidence for an early date as Philastcr and A King and No King and the same testimony to Beaumont's authorship as the Wojnan Hater. '^ Mr. Fleay places the date about 161 7, because he thinks the play a satire on the French court at that period. Mr. Fleay and Mr. Boyle think the play written by Fletcher, Massinger, and a third writer concerning whose identity they are in doubt. ^ Dyce and Macaulay find evidences of Beaumont's authorship which would require an early date; and Mr. Oliphant thinks the play was first written by Beaumont and Fletcher about 1607-8 and revised 1617 by Fletcher and Massinger. I shall try to show that there is good reason, apart from Mr. Oliphant' s analysis, to conclude that the play was originally written at an early date and revised at a later date by Massinger. The proof of this proposition will depend mainly on an examination of the sources of the plot and a comparison of the play with the other romances by Beaumont and Fletcher; but at the start we must look at the authorship tests to see what warrant they give for ^In these two quartos Beaumont and Fletcher were named. "^ Woman Hater, ^to, 1607, no author : 4to, 1648, "by J. Fletcher;" 4to, 1649, by F. Beaumont and J. Fletcher. 3 Mr. A. H. Bullen adopts this analysis. Diet. Nat. Biog. 75 supposing that Massinger was a late reviser and Beaumont one of the original authors. Besides the scenes which are variously assigned, four scenes (I, i; II, 2; IV, i; V, 2,) are assigned by every one to Fletcher; three others are assigned to Massinger by Fleay, Oliphant, and Boyle in his Englische Sttidien papers^ (I, 2; II, i; IV, 2). Two of the three remaining verse scenes are selected by Macaulay as most plainly Beaumont's, are assigned in large part by Oliphant to Beaumont, were assigned to Beaumont bj^ Fleay before he had fixed on 161 7 for the date, and are now assigned by Fleay and Boyle rather doubtfully to Field and Daborne, respectively. From an examination of Mr. Boyle's own verse tests, it will be seen that there is no great difficulty in accrediting the.se scenes to Beaumont; indeed a comparison with the verse tests of the two plays most probably wholly his entirely removes the difficult}'. VERSE RUN- OVER WEAK END- LIGHT END- > BS LINES INGS INGS H Th. and Th. Ill, r, 2q6 67 6q 5 2 16 Th. and Th. Ill, 2, 70 15 17 2 I 2 Percentaofe, 22.4 2,v6 1.9 0.9 4.9 Knight of the B. P., 23.2 18. 0.7 23-4 Woman Hater, 17- 22.7 2. 05 6.8 Philaster (Beaumont's share). 15-2 26.2 2.4 1.2 So much for verse tests and Beaumont's authorship; Mas- singer's share in the play is not denied, and if Beaumont was one of the original authors Massinger must be counted a reviser. Mr. Oliphant, in fact, finds portions of scenes in which he thinks Massinger' s revisal of Beaumont's work is apparent, and there is one scene (II, 3) in which Mr. Boyle finds Massinger where the others find only Fletcher. Moreover, in a scene assigned by all three critics to Massinger (II, i), there are two 'ems and eleven thems.^ Even these two 'ems rather indicate that lEng Studien, Vol. V. 2 The 'ems and thems occur as follows : I. I. 6 'ems. I them. F. IV. I. I 'em. 2 them. F. I. 2. 'ems. I them. M. IV. 2. 'ems. 2 thems. M. II. I. 2 'ems. II thems. M. V. I. I 'em. 8 thems. B.? prose II. 2. 5 'ems. I them. F. V. 2. 'ems. 2 thems F. II. 3- 'ems. 2 thems. ? — — III. I. I 'em. I them. B? Total 16 'ems. 31 thems III. 2. 'ems. them. B.? In the four scenes generally assigned to Fletcher there are 12 'ems 6 thems in 735 lines. In the three scenes assigned generally to Mas- singer, 2 'ems 13 thems (728 lines). In the two verse scenes assigned to Beaumont t 'em i them (366 lines). The 'em-them test thus indi- cates that the division between Massinger and Fletcher is roughly 76 some one besides Massinger had a hand in the scene. Still further, in another scene assigned to Massinger (I, 2), there seems to me a noticeable difference in the style before and after the entrance of De Vitry. An application of the verse tests confirms my opinion.^ Throughout the play, both in Fletcher's and Beaumont's parts, Massinger's work will similarly, I sus- pect, be found to be that of a reviser and completer." The sources of the plot were stated by Langbaine to be the chronicles of the time of Clotaire II : Fredegarius, Aimonius, Crispin, De Serres, and Mezeray. This statement has been frequently quoted by later writers, but an examination of the sources seems never to have to have been attempted. Mezeray^ did not write until towards the end of the century, long after Thierry and Theodorei ; the chronicles of Fredegarius and Aimonius* do contain the sources of the plot; but the imme- diate source seems to have been a work based on the chronicles. Lez Antiquitez et Histoires Gauloises et Frayigoises,^ by M. Claude Fauchet was published as appears by the dedicatory letter, in 1599. This work may very readily have come to the hands of Beaumont and Fletcher and seems to have supplied all the historical matter they used. It follows the chronicles so closely that one cannot say certainly whether they used it or the chronicles, but its existence and vogue (several editions) at accurate; but the 'ems in Massinger's part, and the large proportion of thems in Fletcher's, hint that the separation of the two authors is not exact. 1 VERSE LINES 11 RU>f- OVER LINES WEAK END- INGS. LIGHT END- INGS H > I, 2, a, to De Vitry's entry. Percentage, I, 2, b, after De Vitry's entry, Percentage, 78 54 18 23.1 23- 51-9 41 52.6 18. 33-3 6 7-7 I. 4 5- I. 2 2 The second part of the scene answers pretty well to the Fletcher canon though the number of run-over lines is a trifle large. The first part suits the Massinger canon better than the second, but the double endings are rather few and the run-over lines rather many. Add the two parts together and you get percentages which correspond fairly well with Massinger's work ; which shows how easily verse tests may conceal rather than disclose double authorship. The verse tests I have given don't prove double authorship, but in substantiation of an opinion formed merely in reading the lines they are rather striking. ^This will have to rest on opinion ; verse tests, at least, offer no sure help. 8 Born 1610. *I have not examined De Serres or Crispin. ^I have used an edition of Les Oeuvres de Fev M. Claude Fauchet, Paris, 1610; described as the " derni^re edition" — " r^visees et corri- g^es " — "supplies et augment^es. 77 this time make the probability great that Beaumont and Fletcher drew from it alone. ^ The principal events which form the historical basis of the play are as follows : 1 . ^ The kingdom is divided between Thierr}^ and Theodoret, and Brunhalt (Brunhaud), having outraged the Austrasians by her cruelty, is expelled from the court of Theodoret and goes to that of Thierr3\ Historically, she is the grandmother of the two kings. 2. ^ The characters of Brunhalt and Thierry and their re- spective amours are distinctly outlined. 3.'' Protaldy (Protand or Protadius), Brunhalt's minion, is elevated to the office of master of the palace. He is later killed by the nobles while seated in the tent of King Thierry, " jou- ant aux tables avec Pierre, premier medecin du Roy." 4. ^ This civil war between Thierry and Theodoret, thus prevented by the death of the leader, Protaldy, is urged on anew by Brunhalt. She incites Thierry by declaring that Theo- doret is the son of a gardener, not of the king. 5. ® Theodoret is defeated in battle, captured by Thierry, and put to death by Brunhalt. 6. ^ Thierry marries Ermemberge, daughter of the King of Spain, but he is prevented by Brunhalt ^ and her sister from ever living with his bride as husband, and Ermemberge is sent back to Spain. 7.^ Thierry wishes to marry the daughter of Theodoret (who in the play is named Memberge, evidently suggested by Ermemberge), but Brunhalt opposes and now declares that Theodoret really was his brother. She finally poisons Thierry. This account ^^ may be quoted in full to show how the historical narrative is made dramatic. " Thiebert, Roy d'Austrasie auvit, commei'ay dit laisse une tres belle fille, de I'excellente beaute de laquelle Thierry vaincu, desira I'auoir pour femme, contre la volonte de son ayeule; la- quelle n'ayant fait difficulte d'espouser Merouee neueu de 1 Apart from the dependence of the plot of Thierry and Theodoret on the historical narrative, there is evidence that Beaumont and Fletcher used either the chronicles or Fauchet. The name, Phara- mond, in Philaster seems to be taken from Fauchet, it is the name of the first king of France. In Henry VIII, I, 3, 1 10, (Fletcher's part) there is an allusion to Pepin and Clotaire. ^Book V, ch. 2, p. 151. 3Bk. V, ch. 2. *Bk. V, ch. 2, p. 153. 5B. V, ch. 3, p. 153. 6B. V, ch. 4, p. 156. "B. V, ch. 3, p. 154. ^ In the translation of Mezeray " by the witchcraft of Bruuhalt," etc. 9B. V, ch. 5, p. 157. ^Ubid. 78 Sigisbert son mary, maiutenant se monstroit plus conscientieuse a I'endroit de Thierry, & luiz mettoit deuaut les yeux, que ceste Damoiselle estant fiUe de son frere, il ne la pouuoit raison- nablement espouser. Sur quoy Thierry presque forcene d' amour, luy respondit; mechante ennemie de Dieu, ne ra'as tu pas dit qu'il n'estoit point mon frere? Pourquoy done, si ceste cy est ma niepce, m'as tu fait coramettre un si detestable parricide? Je t'assure que tu en mourras; & mettant la main a I'espee, sur I'heure s'en alloit tuer son ayeule, qui ne la luy eust oster. Toutesfois elle fut portee en sa maison, ayant eschappe la mort toute certaine : mais retenant en son courage vn appetit de vengeance qu'elle ne point longuement garder. Car a Tissue d'un bain, elle fit presenter a ce Roy vn beuuage empoisonne duquel il mourut aussi meschautement qu'il s'estoit desordon- nement porte la reste de sa vie. ' ' Throughout the play as well as in the dramatization of this chapter, the historical narrative is much changed, the chrono- logical order is avoided, and many new situations are added. We shall return later to a consideration of some of these changes and additions; for the present we are to note that the indebtedness of the play to the historical account is certainly very considerable.-^ Any political references to the contemporary French court made in Massinger's revision of the play would not interfere with our hypothesis of an early date; but there is no evidence of any satire on the court of Mary de Medici. Mr. Fleay's evidence is : " The astrology of Lacure and the name De Vitry distinctly point to the condemnation of Concini in 1617 for treason and sorcery. Vitri arrested the Marechal d'Ancre, and on his resistance killed him." IvCcure, Protaldy's associate in villainy, is described as physi- cian to Brunhalt and is obviously suggested by Protaldy's companion in the chronicles, the "premier medecin du Roy." His astrology and the drugs by which he renders Thierry in- capable seem, also, to have been derived from the actual practices of Brunhalt in frustrating the marriage of Thierry and Her- meric. For a contemporary prototype of lyccure there is no need of going to France and the Concini case; a much better example is to be found in the notorious Dr. Simon Forman, of London, who was at the height of his quackery for the ten years preceding his death, in 161 1. Forman's practices,*^ exactly re- '^ Brunhowlte, an old play of 1597, mentioned in Henslow's diary, may have been at the basis of Thierry and Theodoret, but the latter's obligation to the historical narrative is sometimes so minute, and the development of the material so characteristic of Beaumont and Fletcher, that I don't imagine they used the old play at all. '^State Trials, I, p. 339, seq. Kennett, Vol. II, p. 667. Forman was consulted by Lady Essex (Frances Howard) and Mrs. Turner "how they might stop the current of the Earl's affection toward his wife." " He made many little pictures of brass and wax " .... "and 79 sembling those of Lecure upon Thierry, are related in the state trials and seventeenth centurj' accounts of the career and trial of Frances Howard. Forman was well known and he was only one of many; such astrologers as Lecure and such practices as his were common enough. Their exploitation in this play can have no specific reference to Concini, but is clearly only the natural development of the direct suggestions of the historical narrative. As to the name De Vitry, it is too common to point very closely at the Vitri who arrested Marechal d' Ancre. We learn from the letters of the French minister, Beaumont,^ that there was a M. de Vitry in England 1603-5, "^ perfect master of the .science of the chase," sent by Henry to insinuate himself into James' favor. Moreover this name may have been derived directly from the chronicles on Fauchet. In Gregory of Tours - — of whose chronicle Fredegarius is a continuation — in an account of an expedition by Brunhalt and her husband against Chil- peric, there is mention of a village " de nom de Vitry." In Fauchet * the village is a Vitry. So much for Mr. Fleay's conjectures in the light of the play's sources; returning now to the dramatic development of the historical material, I find additional evidences of Beaumont's workmanship. Among the most notable situations added to the historical plot are (i) those involving Protaldy and (2) those involving Ordella. The Protaldy scenes have a very close resemblance to the Bessus scenes in A King and No King. In one scene* Protaldy, the braggart-coward, is kicked and de- prived of his sword by Martell just as Bessus, a similar brag- gart and coward, is kicked and deprived of his sword by Ba- curius." In another scene'' Protaldy is again disgraced and beaten by de Vitry as Bessus is beaten by Lygones.^ Of the Ordella scenes. the final one,** a highly melodramatic denouement, quite after the style of Beaumont and Fletcher's romances, closely resembles the denoument of Cupid' s Revenge. The hero dies by the hand of the wicked queen-mother; the heroine dies apparentlj' simply for the sake of dying with her beloved; the then with philters, powders, and such drugs, he works upon their persons." His powders, according to accounts, proved successful with the Earl and also with Mrs. Turner's lover. Forman was in great demand among the court people of the day, as his papers discovered at his death made evident. 1 Translation of von Ramner, II, 201. *Guizot's edition, Book IV, p. 231. 3B. Ill, ch. XVI. *II, 2 (Fletcher). 6A King and N. K., Ill, 2. 6III, I (Beaumont?) "A. K. N. K., V, J. s V, 2 (Fletcher). For other Ordella Scenes, see III, i ; IV, i. 80 wicked qiteen-mother commits suicide; and the faithful friend is left to curse her and to lament his friend. The development of the characterization even more closely resembles that of the other Beaumont and Fletcher romances. Ordella is merely named in the history; in the play she becomes another of the devoted, sacrificing, idyllic maidens so familiar in Beaumont and Fletcher. Martell, the blunt and faithful friend, and De Vitry, a sort of understudy, are not so much as hinted at in the history but are of a type familiar in the other romances and perhaps most highly developed in Mardonius of A King and No King. Protaldy in the chronicles is the par- amour of Brunhalt, but a man "subtil et habile en toutes actions; " Mn the play he is developed into the utter poltroon and supplies the comic element. He reminds one very closely of Bessus in A King and No King. Brunhalt and Thierry are at least outlined in the history, but in the play they are developed much as their prototypes are developed in Cupid' s Revenge from a similar outline in the Arcadia. Thierry resembles most closely Arbaces of A King and No King."^ These five types of character are the same five types that we find in Philasier, the Maid' s Tragedy,^ A King and No King, and Cupid' s Revenge. The first three of these romances were probably written mainly by Beaumont, and he had a share of the fourth. These five types of character, on whose development the plays depend for their characteristic qualities, are certainly among the most salient features of Beaumont and Fletcher's work. They appear in every romance in which Beaumont had a share and the)' appear together in no play written by Fletcher alone and in no play of Massinger's. They are characteristic of the four plays mentioned above and of Thierry and Theo- doret and of no other. ^ The evidence, then, is strong that Beaumont had a share with Fletcher in creating Thierry and Theodoret. Not only do these resemblances to the other romances point to Beaumont's authorship, they point in a still more definite way to an early date. In the method of dramatizing a short narrative, in the construction of the denouement, and in the addition and development of certain fixed types of character; we have seen that the play resembles Cupid' s Revenge. Still more specifically in the character types and distinctly in the braggart- soldier scenes, we have noted its resemblance to A King and ^Fauchet: B. V., ch. 3, p. 153. 2 Thierry and Arljaces form a species by themselves, differing con- siderably from the other heroes. The Bauder and the rest are the ordinary comic people of the stage and readily suggested by the ac- counts of the amours of Brunhalt and of Thierry. * Except the poltroon. '^ Four Plays ought perhaps to be added to make the case even stronger, but all the five types do not appear there together. 7 81 No Kmg. Furthermore I venture to conjecture that in the narrative passage quoted above from Fauchet and the situation developed from it in Thierry and Theodoret , we have the source of A King and No King. No other source is known. The story of Tigranes and As- patia is merely a variation of the Philaster-Bellario and Amin- tor-Aspatia situations, and the story of Bessus may well be a development of the Protaldy situations; but the main plot, the story of Arbace's love for his supposed sister, has no parallel in the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher unless it be the story of Thierry's love for his niece Memberge. In the history and in Thierry ayid Theodoret the situation is the same: the queen has two sons; she tells number one that number two is not her son and has him killed ; then when number one is about to marry number two's daughter, the queen-mother declares that number two really was her son and that number one will commit incest if he marries the girl. In A King a7id No Kiyig the wicked queen pretends that she has a sou; he falls violently in love with his supposed sister; the queen, who hates him and has tried to kill him, finally removes his fear of incest by declaring that really he is not her son. The actors are the same and the motives are the same as in Thierry and Theodoret, but the situa- tion is exactly opposite. In Thierry and Theodoret, in order to prevent incest, the man who is supposed to be no king is shown by the queen to be a king and her son; in A King and No King, in order to prevent incest, the man supposed to be a king is shown by the queen to be no king and not her son. I conjecture, therefore, that Beaumont and Fletcher, hav- ing taken the Thierry-Memberge situation from Fauchet and used it in the play, later developed that situation into the Arbaces-Panthea plot, changed it so as to have a happy ending, and thus created A King and No King. The other resem- blances between the two plays — the two kings in each play, one of whom in each case is a somewhat furious ranter, the queen-mother who loathes her son, the cowardly soldier and the comic scenes — all these add to the plausibility of a direct connection between the two such as I have conjectured. Fur- thermore the elaboration of a slightly outlined motive into a series of effective situations and the addition of a happy de- nouement are characteristic of the authors' dramatic methods and mark A King and No King as the later play. If, how- ever, my conjecture seems to any one fantastic rather than plausible, it at least detracts nothing from the rest of our evidence. Without relying on a conjecture so insusceptible of proof, we have no small accumulation of reasons for assigning the play in its original form to Beaumont and Fletcher and to a date earlier than 1611. The evidence of the quartos and folio 82 is, so far as it goes, in harmony with this hypothesis. The opinions of critics and the evidence of verse tests point to Beaumont as one of the authors and to Massinger as a reviser. An examination of the sources shows that the authors probably drew their material from a history well known in the first dec- ade of the century and enables us to decide that there is no evi- dence for the date 1617. Not only had Beaumont and Fletcher known the same source as early as Philaster, our examination further shows that Thierry and Theodoret was constructed from a narrative in much the same way as Cupid' s Reven^^e and that in its most salient characteristics it is of the same type as the romances which Beaumont and Fletcher were writing prior to 161 1. Beaumont's large share in these romances is a further indication of his share in this play, which is still further shown by its strong likeness to A King and No Ki^ig. In this like- ness I found ground for a conjecture in regard to the origin of A King and No King which indicates that Thierry and Theo- doret preceded it. Even without this conjecture, the nature of our main hypothesis leads us to assign a somewhat early date; for if Massinger revised a play of Beaumont's at some time before 1619, the probability is strong that the play was an old and not very satisfactory one. The probability that Beau- mont and Fletcher had read Fauchet when they wrote Philaster adds a little to the probability of an early date which we may fix conjecturally at 1607.^ Monsiezir Thomas. First quarto, 1639. "Acted at the Private House in Black Fryers. " " The author, John Fletcher, Gent." There is a dedication by Rich. Brome who speaks of the play as Fletcher's whose it undoubtedly is. Mr. Fleay conjectures that this is the Father' s own Son '^ on the 1639 list of the Queen's men. Brome was writing for the Queen's men at that date, and the play, therefore, seems to have been in their possession. Mr. Fleay concludes that it was not acted by the King's men, but must have come down to the Queen's men from the Revels children and must, therefore, have been acted about 1609, /. ^Fletcher romances, the sentimental maiden had a new and'iofig lease of popularity. Thus, in altering Romeo and Juliet, Otwaj' made Lavinia (Juliet) wander from home, lose her way in the woods, meet her lover there, and offer her services, exactly like one of the heroines of Beaumont and Fletcher.^ They seem to deserve credit for the revival of the sentimental love-lorn maiden. At all events they developed the type beyond all their prede- cessors. They intensely sentimentalized the character. They emphasized over and over again the purity, the meekness, the utter self-abnegation of these maidens. They were made eager to serve when they could not marry and supremely de- voted under the most discouraging circumstances. Dorothea in James IV, who has won some praise for wifely devotion, would have to take lessons from Bellario who sacrifices herself for Philaster or his lady in every scene. For pure sentimen- tality Viola in Twelfth Night is a saucy school girl in com- parison with the watery-eyed Aspatia. The type had never before been presented so elaborately and with such exaggera- tion. ^ History and Fall of Caius Marius. IV, 2. 122 upon these maidens is expended nearly all the lyrical poetry of the plays. The authors' poetic powers are fairly exhausted in an efibrt to overwhelm them with sentimental fancy, to present them as ideally perfect. However foreign such an ideal of womanhood may be to our modern taste, we must grant that its poetical presentation was by no means lacking in charm and beauty. Such presentations of ideal maidens are very different when read and when heard on the stage. They doubtless ministered to a taste for idyllic poetry and they are by no means separate from the principal situations, and the situation itself of a girl in doublet and hose seeking her lover was not then an entirely unreal convention.^ Just what charm this style of girl exer- cised on the stage is, however, difiBcult to explain, nor is it necessary. All we need to remember is that they have little individuality, that they are utterly romantic, utterly removed from life, dependent for their charm almost entirely on the poetry with which they are described; and further, that they form one of the most distinguishing features of the Beaumont- Fletcher romances. Secondly, there are the evil women: Evadne in the Maid's Tragedy, Bacha in Cupid's Revenge, Megra in Philaster and the two queen-mothers, Brunhalt in Thierry and Theodoret, and Arane in A Ki?ig aiid No Kiiig. Four of these brazenly con- fess adultery, and four attempt or commit murder. They are generally distinguished by an absence of all shame, and utter depravity. Thirdly, there are the lily-livered heroes, as Mr. Oliphant calls them. Philaster, Amintor, and Leucippus are so abso- lutely alike that they could, so far as they have any personality, readily be exchanged. They are all very loving, very noble' very generous; otherwise they have no characteristics which outlast a single situation. Thierry and Arbaces present a somewhat different type, in which ungovernable passion is largely emphasized. Fourthly, there are the faithful friends: Dion in Philaster Melantius in the Maid's Tragedy, Martell in Thierry and Theo- doret, Ismeneus in Cupid's Revenge, and Mardonius in A King and No King. The men of this type are always blunt coun- sellors, brave soldiers, and devoted friends. They possess a rough humor, an impatience of deceit, and an eagerness for action. There is scarcely an individual peculiarity among the five. Fifthly, there are the poltroons: Pharamond in Philaster Protaldy in Thierry and Theodoret, Timantius in Cupid's Re- venge, and Bessus in A King and No King. They are all cowards, ^ See the English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare. J. J. Tusserand I/ondon, 1890. pp. 238-9. ■> j j 123 scoundrels, and beasts. Their baseness, however, is always a little relieved by humorous treatment. These five types thus include all the principal persons of the romances. Of course the examples under each type present some individual differences and also vary in vividness of por- traiture; Bellario, for example, is much more carefully drawn than Urania, and, as has been stated, Evadne has individuality enough. Nevertheless the resemblance among the examples of each type is unmistakable, and on the stage even more than in print they must have seemed to all intents identical. For further assurance of the favor in which the.se five types were regarded by Beaumont and Fletcher we may well recall our examination of CnpiiT s Revenge and Thierry and Theodoret. In both plays, it will be remembered, they developed the evil woman and the hero from slight hints in the prose narrative; and in both plays, with scarcely a hint from the narratives, they added distinctly drawn portraitures of the poltroon, the faithful friend, and the love-lorn maiden. Whether such repe- tition was deliberate or not, it could hardly have taken place unless the types of characters were popular on the stage. That they were, there can be little doubt. In spite of their lack of individuality they are presented with absolute distinctness, their predominant traits are unmistakably empha.sized, and by their very lack of individuality they are the better suited for violent acting and romantically impossible situations. C. Style. The attempt to separate the work of Beaumont from that of Fletcher has led to so thorough a discussion of the poetic style of each that any treatment on my part must be largely repeti- tion. Without attempting an)' exhaustive analysis, however, there are a few points which are of importance in distinguish- ing their styles from those of their predecessors and of interest in connection with the versification of Shakspere's romances. In order to examine these points it will be necessary to con- sider the two dramatists separately. Fletcher. The most marked trait of Fletcher's versification is the unparalleled abundance of feminine endings which often occur in a proportion of two out of three. Analogous to this is his use of redundant syllables in the middle of a line. The efiect of all this is to conceal the metre and make the verse approach as nearly as verse may to the freedom and natural- ness of ordinary speech. He uses little or no pro.se in his plays, for his blank verse answers the purpose. In comparison with the fixed rhythm of the early Elizabethans, one often wonders, indeed, if Fletcher is writing in metre at all. The change from the old, regularly accented, declamatory lines to his irregular, 124 conversational style is almost like the change from blank verse to prose. As Mr. Macaulay says: ' ' No mouthing is possible, no round- ing off of description or sentence; all must be abrupt and almost spasmodic; the outcome of the moment, untramelled as far as may be by any metre, though metre of some sort there always is. It is an absolute breaking away from the rigidity of the older style. "^ The second marked characteristic of Fletcher's verse is his avoidance of run-over and use of end-stopt lines. This prac- tice, however, by no means produces anything like the effect of the end-stopt lines of Shakspere's early plays. The effect is again an approach to the fragmentary utterance of ordinary conversation. Thus, rhyme is very rarely used, and periodic sentences are generally avoided. There is rarely an attempt at elaborate, connected description, and never anything like the descriptive set pieces of the early dramatists. Images are merely suggested, never elaborately finished; parentheses are admitted in abundance; and the whole effect is that of unpremeditated and disconnected discourse. To quote Mr. Macaulay again: " Impulses seem to work before the eyes of the spectator, the speakers correct themselves, explain by parentheses hastily thown in, or add after thoughts as they occur to the mind."^ This use of parentheses is of enough importance to be marked as the third important trait of Fletcher's style. No trick of his structure so instantly impresses the reader. To the reader, indeed, the abundance of parentheses often makes the sentences confused and unintelligible; spoken on the stage, however, with the aid of gesture, these parentheses must have contributed largely toward procuring the effect of spontaneous speech. A few lines, taken almost at random, will illustrate to what an extraordinary extent parentheses are used and how they serve to imitate naturalness and spontaneity. In Thierry and Theodoret^ Brunhalt speaks to Protaldy : " Give me leave ! Or free thyself — think in what place you are — From the foul imputation that is laid Upon thy valour— be bold, I'll protect you — Or here I vow — deny it or forswear it — These honours which thou wear'st unworthily — Which, be but impudent enough and keep them — Shall be torn from thee with thine eyes." After studying a while for an ingenious defence, Protaldy replies: " Oh, I remember't now. At the stag's fall As we to-day were hunting, a poor fellow 1 Francis Beaumont, p. 45. ^Francis Beaumont, p. 45. ^11, 3- 125 (And, now I view you better, I may say Much of your pitch) this silly wretch I spoke of With his petition falling at my feet, (Which much against my will he kissed) desired That, as a special means for his preferment, I would vouchsafe to let him use my sword To cut off the stag's head." " I, ever courteous (a great weakness in me) Granted his humble suit." We have here an extravagant use of parentheses; serving, in one case, the purpose of quick stage asides, and in the other, the hesitating verboseness of the stage liar. These examples may indicate the variety of action which the parenthetical structure can serve; it is used most frequently, of course, in passages of violent passion and consequently, very broken and rapid utterance. A fourth trait of Fletcher's style, perhaps not so distinctly characteristic as the others but still unmistakably manifest, is his use of conversational abreviations as ' I '11 ' for 'I will,' ' he ' s ' for 'he is, ' and ' ' t is ' for ' it is. ' Of the same sort is his decided preference for ''em' rather than 'them.' He uses such abbreviations in great abundance, and the effect of this practice, like that of the other traits of his verse, is clearly toward a conversational style. Now all these traits become mannerisms and prevail to an unwarrantable degree. The end-stopt lines produce a tedious monotony, and his redundant syllables a slovenly approach to prose. Parentheses are often so numerous that they make the sense difficult, and colloquialisms often give a vulgar effect to passages otherwise dignified. There are other points, however, more important for our purpo.se than his faults. In the first place his verse shows a divergence from the practice of his predecessors. Totally unlike Marlowe's sounding line or the lyrical blank verse of Shakspere's early plays, it also differs markedly from the blank verse of plays 1 60 1 to 1 6 10. Nor is the difference merely that of indi- vidual mannerisms, it is a structural difference which is ot significance in the history of versification of the Elizabethan drama. That history has never been fully investigated, but its general outline is clear. The change from the old rigid, periodic structure to a freer, looser style was not an instanta- neous one but a gradual advance, of which the development of Shakspere's versification is the most typical example. The advance of his verse in dramatic freedom from Romeo and Juliet to Othello and Antony and Cleopatra is an advance which can be paralleled by a comparison of the plays of the early nineties with those ten years later. In this general structural development, however, Fletcher was more than a contributor; he was a leader and a revolutionist. From the very first he 126 wrote a verse which, in the freedom of its metre, not only far surpassed that of the dramatists before 1600 but was unap- proached either by his immediate predecessors or followers. From the very first, too, he wrote a verse which in its conver- sational looseness, not only surpassed the early dramatists but also remained an unapproached limit. This metrical freedom and conversational looseness are found, it must be remembered, not only in comedies of manners but also in heroic dramas. Fletcher marks the breaking down of blank verse, if you will; but he certainly marks the introduction of a revolutionary fashion. In comparison with his immediate predecessors, his style was an innovation, especially in heroic tragedy; and, it can hardly be doubted that his style exercised a strong influence on his contemporaries and successors. In the second place, the question may be raised whether the adoption of this style was not to some degree deliberate. The fact that in his Faithful Shepherdess he wrote a regular ten- syllable verse with carefully developed images and with few disconnected phrases and parentheses, at least shows that he could write in a lyric, descriptive style when he chose. The radical nature of his structural innovations also suggests that he could not have made them unconsciously. At its best, how- ever, his verse shows no sign of artificiality, rather it seems more spontaneous than that of his predecessors. Even the marked change from the style of the Faithful Shepherdess to that of the romances may have resulted from the nature of the plays. The Faithful Shepherdess is full of lyrical descriptions and is, in fact, throughout distinctly lyrical, while the romances are, above all, effective acting plays. Whether or not he defi- nitely planned an innovation in Elizabethan blank verse, he must have formed his style with especial reference to stage- action. At all events, whether there was conscious purpose or not, the effect of Fletcher's innovations is certain. In the third place, then, we may note that all the traits of his style unite to produce a verse suited to stage action. The early Eliza- bethan blank-verse, with its long periods and carefully elabo- rated descriptions, was by turns declamatory or lyrical; it did not lend itself readily to action. Fletcher's verse differs in every respect from that ; but in comparison with blank verse as late as 1600, no such sharp distinction can be drawn. The general progress was toward dramatic freedom in style, and Fletcher took part in the general progress. Even in com- parison with his contemporaries, however, the qualities noticed in his verse mark it as dramatic. It is not dramatic in the sense that it is especially suited to the speakers and their vary- ing emotions, but in structure it is dramatic in that it is suited to be spoken and acted on the stage. The style of Othello, 127 for example, is often instanced as being magnificentl}^ responsive to dramatic requirements; " not only is every word in charac- ter, but every word also adds to the beauty of a noble tragic poem."^ No one would think of comparing any of Fletcher's plays with Othello in these respects. A few facts, however, will show how Fletcher may sometimes surpass Othello in adapt- ing his verse to mere stage action without regard to the repre- sentation of character or tragic emotions. In Othello, there are 76 speeches of 10 lines or more,^ comprising i, 144 lines. In Bonduca (the nearest in date to Othello of any tragedy by Fletcher alone) there are only 48 speeches of ten lines or more, comprising 686 lines. In Othello there are 12 speeches of twenty lines or more, comprising 301 lines; in Bonduca 6 com- prising 148 lines. In Fletcher's tragedy there are fewer long declamations and more rapid dialogue. * In this respect his style in Bonduca seems more directly designed for utterance on the stage than even the most masterly dramatic verse of Shakspere. Fletcher wrote a verse which by the freedom of its metre and the looseness of its structure was suited both to the varied play of passion and the lively exchange of repartee. It was a verse neitlier to be declaimed nor recited, but a verse to be spoken on the stage. We have seen two examples which show how his broken phrases served two specific ends in stage action; and almost any page from Fletcher will exemplify the same thing. Now, however, we are dealing not with specific effects but with the general effect. His style varies, of course, with the situations, but all his innovations in structure must have aided in adapting his plays for stage action. His very faults and mannerisms only emphasize this general tendency. Every line helps to give the effect of unpremeditated speech. Beaumont. Beaumont's verse differs decidedly from Fletch- er's. Although he does not avoid the double ending, he uses it far less frequently. He also uses unstopt lines in profusion and has a marked liking for a periodic structure and extended descriptions. Mr. Macaulay has further endeavored to prove that his style shows traces of Shakspere' s influence and that, in general, his style is distinguished by its resemblance to the 1 William Shakspere. B. Wendell, p. 286. ^Speeches iu prose are counted according to the number of lines in the Globe ed. 3 Fletcher cannot be said always to be sparing of long speeches. In Wit Without Money, one of his early comedies, the number of speeches both over ten and over 20 lines is much less than in Bonduca. In Valentinian, however, there are a great many long speeches, 67 of ten lines and 16 of twenty. The number of long speeches varies with the character of the plays, and no generalization could be made without very extensive examination. On the whole I think it can be said that Fletcher in his tragedies and tragi-comedies uses more dialogue com- posed of very brieif speeches of a line or two than will be found in any other tragedies in his time. 128 style of Shakspere's middle period, notably that of I/amlef and Twelfth Night. To my mind, this resemblance is mainly due to the fact that Beaumont's imagination in intensity and origin- ality, more than any of his contemporaries, approaches Shak- spere's. In considering versification, we shall keep our attention on the structure. In respect to Beaumont's structure, its difference from Fletcher's, while noticeable, may for the sake of contrast easily be overestimated. While he is in no respect the innovator that Fletcher is, it must not be thought that his verse has much of the early rigidity or that it is wanting in Fletcher's freedom. If not a radical revolutionist, he is at least a Girondist. There are many distinctively lyrical passages in the romances where the verse is naturally lyric in structure rather than dramatic; and these passages are usually assigned to Beaumont. In the portraiture of the love-lorn maidens, in particular, there is a good deal of descriptive poetry which is in the old manner rather than in Fletcher's; and this is usually assigned to Beau- mont. Moreover, he always keeps more closely to a fixed metre than Fletcher, and he has not mannerisms like Fletcher's which tend directly to give the effect of natural speech. Never- theless, when Beaumont is not writing purely descriptive poetry but is writing speeches to be acted, his structure is marked by broken phrases, repetitions, and parentheses. An examination of the parts oiPhilaster, the Maid's Tragedy, and Cupid s Revenge generally assigned to Beaumont, will in- dicate, I think, to how great a degree this is true. Since in the eflfort to distinguish his verse from Fletcher's, this fact has been somewhat overlooked, one or two illustrations may be pardoned. The first shall be from one of Aspatia' s long speeches which is purely operatic in character. Here, we should hardly expect verse suited to action; but note: " If you needs must love, (Forced by ill fate) take to your maiden bosoms Two dead-cold aspicks, and of them make lovers: They cannot flatter, nor forswear ; one kiss Makes a long peace for all. But man. Oh, that beast man ! Come, let's be sad, my girls ! That down-cast eye of thine, Olympias, Shews a fine sorrow. Mark, Antiphila; Just such another was the nymph Ojnone, When Paris brought home Helen. Now, a tear; And then thou art a piece expressing fully The Carthage queen, when, from a cold sea-rock. Full with her sorrow, she tied fast her eyes To the fair Trojan ships; and, having lost them. Just as thine eyes do, down stole a tear. Antiphila, What would this wench do, if she were Aspatia? Here she would stand, till some more pitying god Turn'd her to marble ! 'Tis enough, my wench ! Shew me the piece of needlework you wrought." ^ 1 Maid's Tragedy. II, 2, last of the speech. 129 The remainder of Aspatia's speeches in the scene will be found to exhibit the same broken structure, the same imitation of natural conversation. These qualities are still more apparent in passages requiring more action; for example, in the quarrel scene between Melan- tius and Amintor,^ or in the following passage from Philaster. Bellario. [aside] "Oh hear. You that have plenty ! from that flowing store Drop some on dry ground. — See, the lively red Is gone to guide her heart ! I fear she faints — Madam? look up! — She breathes not. — Open once more Those rosy twins, and send unto my lord Your latest farewell ! Oh, she stirs : — How is it. Madam? speak comfort." Arethusa. " 'T is not gently done. To put me in a miserable life, And hold me there : I prithee, let me go : I shall do best without thee : I am well." [Enter Philaster.'] Philaster. " I am to blame to be so much in rage : I'll tell her coolly, when and where I heard This killing trutli. I will be temperate In speaking, and as just in hearing. Oh, monstrous! Tempt me not, ye gods! good gods. Tempt not a frail man ! What's he, that has a heart, But he must ease it here ! " ^ Or take Philaster's speech to Pharamond,® or, indeed, any pas- sage in the play, and we find a style that is notably suited to action on the stage. Beaumont's very freedom from Fletcher's mannerisms re- moves Fletcher's faults without removing the acting quality. Without stopping at the end of every line, he writes discon- nected and broken sentences which give the effect of spontaneity. Without straining his metre out of joint, he writes a verse which is like spoken discourse. While far less revolutionary than Fletcher's, his style is representative of the general ad- vance toward a thoroughly dramatic verse. Indeed, when one reads the first three acts of the Maid's Tragedy, omitting perhaps the masque and the idyl of Aspatia, one feels like ques- tioning if poetry was ever written better adapted to stage presentation. D. Stage Effects. We have seen that the blank verse of both Beaumont and Fletcher, like their varied situations and exciting denouements, helped to give their romances stage-effectiveness. All the charac- teristics of the romances, in fact, serve the same end; whatever "^Ibid. Ill, 2. "^Philaster. IV, 3. ^Ibid. I, I. 130 their permanent literary value, they certainly must have acted capitally. Moreover, in addition to this general stage-effective- ness, they were not wanting in stage pageantry but abounded in devices which may fairly be called spectacular. Almost all of these spectacular devices were borrowed from the court masques. These were very popular in the years 1608-1611,^ and there can be no doubt that Beaumont and Fletcher turned to them for stage pageantry. In the Four Plays there is a " scaffolding full of spectators ' ' and in the Maid's Tragedy, a "gallery full of spectators." In these cases there is an obvious attempt to represent the setting of a court masque, and there is considerable jesting at the crowds which thronged to those entertainments. In the Four Plays, the various deities that descend and ascend, the numerous processions, and the curious machinery where " the mist ariseth and the rocks remove," ^ are all like similar performances in the court masques. The Four Plays are, in fact, given the form of an entertainment before a king and his bride, and the last, the Triumph of Time, has unmistakably the form of a masque. Theme, spectacle, and dances all follow the recog- nized fashion. Mercury and Time appear; " one-half of a cloud is drawn," "singers are discovered," then " the other half is drawn and Jupiter seen in his glory." The main masque is danced by Delight, Pleasure, Lucre, Craft, Vanity, etc. , and there is also an anti-masque of a " Troop of Indians, singing and dancing wildly about Plutus." Here we have not merely an introduction of masque-like pageantry but a complete court masque on the public stage in combination with a romantic drama. In the Maid's Tragedy, there is also a masque, complete and elaborated after the usual manner of court masques. In Cupid' s Revenge there is the machinery of Cupid's descents and a dance by " four young men and maids." ® In Thierry and Theodoret there is a dance of revellers.* In many other plays by Beau- mont and Fletcher besides the romances, there are also masques or bits of masque-like pageantry — distinct masque elements occurring in eighteen of their plays. ^ 1 Seven of these elaborate and costly entertainments were given at Whitehall in these years. See Soergel, pp. 72, 73. 2 Triumph of Honour. Sc. II. n, 2. *III, i. ^The simplest form of the masque appears in the Coxcomb (I, 2,) and Wit at Several Weapojis (V, 2). In the Nice Valour there is a dance of masquers led by a lady disguised as Cupid (II, i) ; and also an anti-masque of fools, the lady leading again (V, i). Anti-masques also occur in the Little French Lawyer (IV, 5), " Gentlemen, habited like RufiSans; " in the Queen of Corinth (II, i), "six disguised, sing- ing and dancing to a horrid music ; " in the Fair Maid of the Inn (III, I), "by Tailor, Dancer, Muletteer, Schoolmaster, etc.," and again (IV, 2,) by "four boys shaped like Frogs ; " and in the Mad Lover (IV, i), " the Fool and Servants, disguised in a masque of Beasts and 131 Now, the masque in its simple form — a dance by a group of masked revellers, with or without an introductory speech — ■ was common enough in plays before the time of Beaumont and Fletcher, and the influence of the masque on the drama in a general way has been emphasized by Mr. Fleay and treated at length by Dr. Soergel. The nature of this influence in the reign of James I, however, has not been fully examined. Then, as the court masque grew more elaborate, its machinery, costumes, mythological devices, anti-masques, and, indeed, its general construction, were borrowed or imitated so freely by the dramatists that its influence on the drama was distinctly im- portant. Beaumont and Fletcher were undoubtedly promoting what Ben Jonsou, who did not mix his masques and plays, called the " concupiscence of dances and antics," ^ which in 1612 he declared began to reign on the stage. There is rea.son to believe that Beaumont and Fletcher were leaders in this fashion of introducing elements from the court masques on the public stage. Beaumont wrote the very suc- cessful court masque of the Inner Temple and Grays Inn; and Jonson told Drummond that " next himself only Fletcher' and Chapman could make a mask." Moreover, I know of no other dramatist except Shirley who drew so much from the court ma.sques as did they. Of the dramatists writing 1 608-1 1, Shakspere is the only one who is in this respect comparable with them. If Beaumont and Fletcher did not set this fashion, they were certainly among the first to follow it; and Jonson' s scoffs alone are sufficient proof that this innovation was very popular with the patrons of the theater. In addition, then, to the other distinguishing characteristics of the romances, we must note that in a way quite different from any preceding plays and to an extent greater than other contemporary plays, they pos- sessed a good share of stage pageantrj^ much like that of the fashionable court masques. Trees." In this last play there is also some masque-like business connected with the priestess of Venus ; in the Prophetess there is a throne on a cloud drawn by dragons (II, 3), a mist (IV, i), and "a Dance of Shepherds and Shepherdesses, one disguised as Pan leading the men, another as Ceres, the maids" (V, 3). In the Humourous JAeutenant {W , 3), there is a dance of spirits; in the Maid in the Mill {11, 2), a dance of goddesses, nymphs, and a shepherd; in the Faithful Friends (IV, 3 J, a masque danced by the ladies with the gentlemen dressed as furies. There are more elaborate masques with especial poetry attached in Woman Pleased (V, 3), when there is also a morris dance (IV, i); in a Wife for a Month (II, 6); and in the False One (III, 4). This list, while not including all the masque pageantry and devices is sufl&cient to indicate their abundance in the plays of the Beaumont-Fletcher folio. For masque elements in Henry F///and the Tivo Noble Kinstnen, see Chap. VIII. ^See "Address to the reader," Alchemist ^to, 1612. See also the Induction to Bartholomew Fair. 2 Possibly Drummond's mistake for Beaumont? 132 CHAPTER VIII. General Characteristics of Shakspere's Romances. We shall now consider the most important traits of Shak- spere's romances. According to my hypothesis these will be found to distinguish the romances clearly from Shakspere's earlier plays and will also be found to resemble those traits which mark the romances of Beaumont and Fletcher. While the points of difference from Shakspere's early work will be emphasized, it must not be forgotten that there are many points of likeness. Shakspere repeated motives, situa- tions and types of character. The romances owe an immense debt to his preceding plays. All this cannot be constantly dwelt upon in this investigation, but it must be freely admitted. I shall treat, however, of the influence of his early work only when that seems to interfere with the hypothesis of contem- porary influence. In the main we are concerned with the traits which differentiate the romances from his preceding plays. A. Plots. The plots of the romances differ decidedly from those which Shakspere had been using in the preceding eight years. During those years he had drawn his plots largely from history and especially from classical history, and with one or two excep- tions each plot had dealt with the life and death of some heroic person who gave his name to the play. In Cymbeline he con- nected several very distinct stories with a -historical narrative; in the Winter' s Tale he dramatized an old romance by Greene; and in the Te^npest, possibly on the basis of an Italian novella, he built up a marvellous story apparently of his own invention. Although the cases of Cloten and Jachimo might be cited to the contrary, he did not use stories of abnormal or gross sexual passion such as attracted Beaumont and Fletcher. For the basis of each play he did take a story of pure and sentimental love. Such sentimental love stories, it will be remembered, were given a similar prorninence in the romances of Beaumont and Fletcher; and such sentimental love stories, it will also be remembered, had received no like prominence in Shakspere's work from 1601 to 1608. About these love stories he weaves many novel and varied incidents. The course of Hero's love, or even of Juliet's, is smooth compared with that of Imogen's. The attempted se- 133 duction by Jachimo, the results of his over-ingenious villainy, the attempted poisoning by the wicked queen, the idyllic ad- ventures of Imogen in boy's clothes, her supposed death, her resurrection, her repulsion by her lover, their final reconcilia- tion — all these are the sort of incidents which Beaumont and Fletcher used in their romances. Like Beaumont and Fletcher again, are the ingenious plots of the Tetnpest and the Whiter' s Tale — the love story of a girl who had never seen a man, and the changing of an image to a woman. In brief, the material of the plots, never taken from history nor resembling real life, is of a sort that we call romantic, of a sort that gives theatrical novelty and variety. Particularly noticeable is the mixture of tragic incidents with idyllic. In this respect Shak.spere returns to his practice in early comedies like the Two Gentlemen of Verona and Much Ado about Nothiyig ; and in this respect he also agrees with the contemporary romances of Beaumont and Fletcher. And this last resemblance is much the more marked of the two. There is plenty of idyllic material in the Elizabethan drama, and it is often contrasted with tragic material in Greene, Chettle, and Hey wood, as well as in Beaumont and Fletcher and Shakspere; but never before these plays, I think, had Shakspere united events so purely idyllic and events so essentially tragic in so marked contrast as in the story of Imogen. In the eight years preceding the performance of Cymbeline and Philaster we have found, in fact, that the conjunction of heroic tragedy and a sentimental idyl is practically absent from the work of all the other dramatists as well as Shakspere. In the romances of Shakspere, however, as in those of Beaumont and Fletcher, the tragic and idyllic always appear in heightened contrast. Still further we may notice the variety of emotions which one of the plots presents. Shakspere was no longer dealing with stories exemplifying one central emotion, he now took plots dealing with every variety of emotion. The emotional unity which characterizes the tragedies and the best of the comedies is no longer present. The emotions described range from the wild jealousy of Leontes to the pretty sentimental love-making of Florizel. There is an evident choice of intense, exaggerated emotions; there is no sign of unity. Thus in variety of emotions as well as of incidents, in the nature of the central theme, and in the marked contrast of tragic and idyllic scenes, these plots differ from those of Shak- spere' s preceding plays. In all these particulars they also differ from all plays after 1600 and before Philaster, but they resemble the material of the plots of Beaumont and Fletcher. Not less striking than this change from his earlier practice in the choice of material, is Shakspere's change in the con- struction of plots. Kxcept in the historical parts of Cymbeline 134 lie abandons the chronicle-history method which he had used up to Coriolanus and adopts the method of romance — the con- necting of a series of effective situations so that they will lead up to a telling denouement. There is nothing epical about these plays, and except in Cymbeline there are no camps, battles, parleyings, heralds, trials by combat, and other paraphernalia of the historical tragedies. The heroic romances owe no allegiance to history, they aim solely at theatrical effectiveness. A cur- sory examination of any one of them, of Cymbeline in particular, will show that in every act there is a medley of stage situations affording continual variety and excitement. Such an examina- tion will also show that in comparison with earlier plays there are almost no merely narrative scenes, and almost no scenes which are merely operatic interludes. We shall have occasion to revert to these statements when we come to examine the separate plays; for the present, we may pass to the more de- finable feature of the construction, the treatment of the de- nouement. Cymbelhie may be taken to show the transition from the meth- od of the historical tragedies to that of the romances. Shakspere was nominally writing a chronicle-history, but in constructing the play he was not chiefly concerned, as in Antony and Cleo- patra and Coriolanus, in giving dramatic form to the histori- cal narrative. He was chiefly concerned in supplementing the narrative with a large number of good stage situations. The historical part, in fact, has so little connection with the stories of Imogen, Posthumus and Jachimo, Belarius and his sons, that there is some reason for Mr. Fleay's conjecture^ that it was written earlier than the rest of the play. At all events the method of construction is clearly that of linking together a series of situations, involving intense and varied action, and preparing for elaborate denouement. No earlier play of Shakspere's is so overladen with situations, or places so much emphasis on the denouement. As Mr. Wen- dell has stated: "the last scene of Cymbelhie is among the most notable bits of dramatic structure anywhere. The more one studies it, the more one is astonished at the ingenuity with which denouement follows denouement. Nowhere else in Shak- spere, certainly, is there anything like so elaborate an untying of knots which seem purposely made intricate to prepare for the final situation. Situation, however, is an inadequate word. Into 485 lines Shakspere has crowded some two dozen situa- tions any one of which would probably have been strong enough to carry a whole act." ^ This last statement proves, on Mr. Wendell's analysis, to be ^Lifeo/Sh. p. 246. 2 William Shakspere. p. 358. 135 literally true. Such a denouement is evidently not the natural outcome of a tragedy or a comedy; it is the elaborate climax, in preparation for which the preceding situations have been made involved and perplexing. It is the denouement of the drama of situations so arranged as constantly to excite and vary the attention of the spectators up to the moment of the final unravelling. As, a matter of fact, the denouement of Cynibcliyic is so ingeniously intricate that it is ineffective on the stage and thereby defeats the purpose for which the ingenuity was apparently expended. One feels inclined, indeed, to assert with some positiveness that the artistic skill required in man- aging so elaborate a scene was not exerted without definite purpose. The new technical achievement bespeaks delibera- tion. Again one feels inclined to conjecture that this artistic efibrt may have been exerted for the purpose of rivalling simi- larly heightened denouements in Beaumont and Fletcher. Without insisting too much on deliberate rivalry, we may surely say that, just as in the Beaumont-Fletcher romances, the elaborate denouement is the most marked characteristic of the construction of Cymbcliyic. In the same way in the Win- ter' s Talc, and the Tempest, denouements are prepared for, postponed, and heightened. In each, to quote Mr. Wendell again, "there is a new and bold technical experiment" and " the experiment consists chiefly of a deliberately skillful hand- ling of the denouement."^ Entirely unprecedented in the preceding plays of Shakspere, such heightened construction of the denouement is practically unprecedented in all earlier Elizabethan plays; it has its only parallel in Beaumont and Fletcher. Finally, these plays all end happily. Essentially tragic as are the incidents of Cymbclinc, the first three acts of the Win- ter' s Tale, and the Italian story at the basis of the Tempest, no one of these stories is carried out to its tragic conclusion. In Cymbeline, the happy ending is secured by a violation of the most liberal notions of poetic justice; in the Winter's Tale the happy ending is deliberately substituted for the tragic one of Greene's novel; and in the Tempest the happy ending is ex- panded into an entire plaj'. In consequence there have been many speculations in regard to Shakspere's forgiving charity, his reconciliatory temper, and his attainment of a serene, calmly philosophical maturity. These speculations are interesting so far as they express to us the emotional components of the artistic moods in which these plays were composed. The feel- ings which arise in any artist during creative work must, how- ever, be distinguished from the practical objective circumstances which for most artists, as for Shakspere, play an important part 1 William Shakspere. p. 377. 136 in determining the subject and form of production. Shak- spere's moods may have had little resemblance to the emotional experiences of Beaumont and Fletcher, but so far as stage representation goes, his romances were tragi-comedies, just as Philaster and A King and No King were tragi-comedies. We have seen that those plays marked a development on earlier tragi-comedies. In the same way all the traits which we have noticed in Shakspere's romances differentiate them from any earlier tragi-comedies; and in particular, the height- ened contrast of tragic and idyllic circumstances and the treat- ment of denouement show that Shakspere was now using tragi-comedy with a fuller realization than before of its theat- rical possibilities. In comparison with earlier plays like Much Ado and Measure for Measure, the romances appeal to more varied and more contrasted emotions and present happy end- ings which are more ingenious, elaborate, and surprising. Without the archaic abundance of murders, the virtuous people are involved in all sorts of difficulties and entanglements and are brought out in the end triumphantly happy. The emotions of the spectators are intensely stimulated, and at the same time their sympathies are gratified. Shakspere may possibly have written these plays to inculcate forgiveness or serenity of dis- position; he certainly did write them to be acted on the stage of the Globe theater. The happy culmination of tragic cir- cumstances seems likely, then, to have had its origin in a de- sire to gratify the public. At this time, too, it was a new structural experiment for Shakspere and an innovation on the practice of his contemporaries, unless it was an adoption of a fashion already successfully set by Philaster. B. Characterization. In characterization, no less than in plots, the romances show a marked difference from Shakspere's other plays. The charac- ters^ show, above all, a surprising loss of individuality. They are less consistent, less subtly drawn, less plausibly human; they are more the creatures of stage situations. Their salient characteristics are exaggerated and emphasized by descriptions placed in the mouths of other persons; and thus they often become such heightened types of perfect virtue or utter deprav- ity as we found in Beaumont and Fletcher. These wholesale assertions will not be readily accepted by those for whom Shakspere's wonderful phrasing has made vital the romantic atmosphere and the people who breathe it. But these assertions do not detract one whit from one's admiration 1 In discussing characters, I shall rarely refer to the comic charac- ters. They seem to me to resemble closely those in the earlier plays and to have little likeness to Beaumont and Fletcher's. For our pur- pose, then, they may be disregarded. 137 and delight in Imogen and Perdita; the}' merely point to a new method in producing that delight. That this change in method is a real one, may be seen by examining the methods used in the characterization of the romances and comparing them with the methods used in the earlier plays. It is well, however, to remind ourselves again that Shakspere must have created these people with their stage presentation in view. Their poetical qualities have immortalized them; but in studying the methods of their creation, we mu.st keep in mind their stage qualities. It is unsafe to suppose that an Elizabethan audience appreciated poetry in a play more keenly than audiences do to-day; and in studying the stage qualities of the characters, it is advisable to put the poetry in the background. Keeping, then, to the point of view of spectators at an Elizabethan theater, we shall be better able to see what effects Shakspere sought to produce and in what ways his characters resembled those of his fellow playwrights. Coming now to specific characters we may note the lack of individualization and the subservience to situation in Leontes. It is easy, of course, to find intuitive psychology almost any- where in Shakspere 's phrasing; but one must be something of a casuist, I think, to discover a very real human being in Leontes. His vileness and rage and his subsequent tenderness and re- pentance do not impress one as the traits of an individual. His feelings are all intensified to suit the situations. He is, on the stage, merely a representative of the common Eliza- bethan type of the suspicious husband in the presence of imaginary cuckoldom. He is a piece of a play, a convention. He is true to life only as a conventional type is true to life. We have only to recall how Othello wooed and loved and mur- dered and died, and how every act and every phrase seemed a part of a living man in the face of some of the most intense problems of life — and we shall see how greatly the method of characterization has changed in the Winter' s Tale. In the same way as Leontes, Hermione is also a creature of situations. The archness and wit of her repartee in the first act, her noble declamation in the trial scene, and the unfor- giving chastity of her sixteen years wait, do not convince one that they belong to the same woman. They belong to the plot. The bad characters display the same lack of consistency and an extraordinary intensification of their evil traits for the sake of situation. Thus, lachimo is neither the mere figure-head that Don John is in Much Ado, nor the astonishingly human monstrosity that lago is; he is a stage villain who has a telling acting part in two or three situations and very little else in this world. This exaggeration of salient traits is equally apparent in the Queen in Cynibeline and in Sebastian and Antonio in the Tempest. 138 This same method of exaggeration is also apparent in the heroines as well as the other methods of a romantic drama. To substantiate this statement, we may begin wnth one who, to many people, seems the most delightful of Shakspere's heroines — Imogen. " Of all his women," says Mrs. Jameson, " considered as individuals rather than as heroines, Imogen is the most perfect." " Imogen, the most lovely and perfect of Shakspere's female characters," is the comment of Nathan Drake. "Of all his heroines," says Charles Cowden Clarke, " no one conveys so fully the ideal of womanly perfection as Imogen." " In the character of Imogen," says Schlegel, " no one feature of female excellence is omitted." These quotations indicate well enough the impression Imogen gives — she is perfect. Like most perfect people, she is not real, she is idealized, and that is possibly what these critics mean by their perfects. In comparison with the women in the early sentimental comedies, Rosalind, Beatrice, Portia, and Viola, she lacks the details of characterization, the mannerisms which remind us of real persons and suggest the possibility of portraiture. In comparison with these heroines, an analysis of Imogen's character fails to supply really individual traits; one is thrown back on a general statement of her perfectibility. She is extremely idealized, or in other words, the exigencies of the romantic drama required a heroine who should be very, very good; and Shakspere, by the delicacy and purity of his fancy, by the exquisite fitness of his verse, succeeded in doing just what Beaumont and Fletcher were forever trying to do with their Bellarios and Aspatias. That the methods of characterization are the same, may be seen when one examines Cymbeline and notes just what Imogen says and does. She is good and chaste and spirited; she resists an attempt at seduction; she wears boys' clothes; she leaves the court in search of her lover; she remains true to him after he has deserted her and sought to kill her; she dies and is brought back to life again; she passes through all sorts of im- possible situations to final reconciliation and happiness. In all this there is little trace of an individual character; all this can be duplicated in the stories of Bellario and Arethusa. Take, again, what she says. Take for example, her speeches in the dialogue with lachimo:^ read the lines by themselves — "What makes your admiration?" — "What is the matter, trow?" — "What, dear sir, thus raps you, are you well?" — " Continues well my lord? His health beseech you?" — and so on. Manifestly, there is no individuality there. What she says is suited admirably to the situation, but Bellario, Are- , , lAct I, 6, 38-210. 139 thusa, or auy one of half a dozen of the romantic heroine type might say it just as well. Take again the rest of her dialogue with lachimo, or with Pisanio on the way to Milford Haven; ^ or take her soliloquy on cruel fate;^ or the one bemoaning her weakness and fatigue;^ or her speeches in the final act; con- sider how these speeches spoken by a boy actor would have appealed to an Elizabethan audience, and you will see how complete the similarity is between these speeches and similar matter in the Elizabethan drama. They are part and parcel of the ordinary situations of the romantic drama. Moreover, even the inten.se sentimentalization does not pro- duce consistency. The girl who makes some very spirited re- plies to her father when he interrupts her parting with her lover,* the girl who declaims so oratorically to Pisanio when he delivers her lover's letter,* the girl who stains her face in the blood of her .suppo.sed lover,® and the girl who recovers immediately to follow Lucio as a page," are hardly recognizable as the same individual. Still further, it must be noticed that the character is presented largely by means of comments and descriptions on the part of others. The tributes of lachimo, Posthumus, Pisanio, Guiderius, Arveragus, do more to create our ideas of Imogen's beauty of character than anything she does or says. Perdita and Miranda have even less marks of individuality than Imogen. Mrs. Jameson says, to be sure, that "Juliet herself is not more firmly and distinctly drawn than Perdita. The picture is perfectly finished at every point." But when one reads Juliet's balcony speech, full of spontaneous and subtle revelation of character, and then reads Perdita' s speech to Florizel,* one hardly knows what Mrs. Jameson means. Per- dita never says anything which any heroine might not say ex- cept this mixture of beautiful poetry and poor gardening. A further reading of Mrs. Jameson and other critics shows that they gain their notions of the beauty and grace of the character from what others of the dramatis personae .say about her, and their notions of her tenderness and delicacy largely from the fact that she is so often silent. The fact that she says so little has given rise to pages of ecstasy over Shakspere's subtle de- lineation. In fine, she is a conventional romantic heroine, beautifully de.scribed, but she is not a successful piece of purely dramatic characterization. Miranda has still less to say or do and is consequently regarded as more ethereallj'^ ideal. On the stage, she must have seemed an even less vital represent- ative of the sentimental type. lAct. Ill, 3, 23-84. '^III, 4, 44-108. 21,6,1-9. 61V, 2, 330. 8 III, 6, 1-27. "IV, 2, 367, seq. *l, I, 130-150. *IV, 4, 110-135. 140 These three heroines, then, who seem to many to possess the lasting suggestiveness of noble ideal conceptions of human nature, could have appeared on the stage only as ordinary heroines. Idealization in poetry becomes on the stage mere emphasis and description of the salient qualities of purity and winsomeness. On the stage, Shakspere's heroines have few traits to distinguish them from almost any of Beaumont and Fletcher ' s. The same beardless boy who one day played Bellario might the next day, without change of make-up, appear as the page Fidele. Nor is the resemblance merely one of stage appear- ance. Beaumont and Fletcher and Shakspere alike seem to have sought to produce a heroine — the personification of ideal womanhood, garnished with beautiful poetry — who should fill the requirements of the romantic situations which they built up out of sentimental love stories. I^imited by the same re- quirements, their methods, too, were similar. In connection with these similarities, it becomes important to remember that the sentimentalized heroine had almost no part in Shakspere's plays during the eight years from Trvelfth Night to Cymbeline. Our emphasis on the similarities between the heroines must not be misinterpreted to indicate a blindness to their differences. They differ in many ways; they differ just as Beaumont's imagi- nation or Fletcher's phrasing differs from Shakspere's imagina- tion or phrasing. Shakspere's imagination, for example, does not delight to linger over the theme of unrequited love to the extent that Beaumont's did. Beaumont and Fletcher, again, fail to suggest by their phrasing the delicacy of sentiment with which Shakspere's heroines are dressed. We must not forget, either, that there are many heroines of this general type in the Elizabethan drama and that there were some on the stage be- fore Shakspere had established himself as a dramatist or Beau- mont had been sent to school. This type, however, plays little part in the drama for six or seven years before the probable date of Philaster and little part in Shakspere's plays from Twelfth Night to the romances. Two facts are very significant — a sentimentalized heroine plays an important role in each of the Beaumont- Fletcher romances and a sentimentalized heroine likewise has an important part in each of Shakspere's romances. While Shakspere trans- formed her into a beautiful idealized being, characteristically his own; on analysis as a stage personage, she still presents the characteristics of Beaumont and Fletcher's ideal maidens. To put the case boldly, even Imogen is no other than Bellario plus Shakspere's poetry. There are other characters, too, in Shakspere's romances who show resemblances to the Beaumont- Fletcher stock types. Thus the wicked queen in Cymbeline is very like the wicked queens of Beaumont and Fletcher. The faithful counsellors, 141 Gonzalo, Camillo, and the faithful servant Pisanio supply the place on the stage of Beaumont and Fletcher's faithful friends. The king in Cyvibelijie has a close likeness to the king in Philastcr; and the king in the Winter's Tale, something of the royal fury of Arbaces in A King and A^o King. Exact resemblances are not at all to be expected; but a summary of the characters of the romances shows that Shak- spere, like Beaumont and Fletcher, used only a few fairly con- ventionalized types. The heroines are all of one piece, the villains are of one piece; the heroes can hardly be distinguished from each other except that Posthumus has much more to do; the aged counsellors appear in two plays: and these types in- clude about all the principal characters. To see how great a change these types indicate in Shakspere's method of charac- terization, we have only to remember that within two years before the time when he probably wrote Cymbeline, he w^as probably writing Ayitony and Cleopatra. On the whole, then, the characterization of the romances shows little of the immense creative power that distinguishes Shakspere's work from Romeo and Juliet through Antony and Cleopatra. The characters, on the contrary, are in the main only such conventional types as the romantic situations demand. That this change was conscious cannot, of course, be asserted; but that it had its cause in the immediate demand of the Lon- don stage, seems in every way probable. It is, at least, in harmony with the supposition that in his effort to produce plays wnth varied and intense situations, and with tragic and idyllic contrasts, culminating in elaborate denouements, Shak- spere followed so closely the style of play which Beaumont and Fletcher had made popular that, consciously or unconsciously, he adc)pted their methods of characterization and even made some use of their conventionalized types. C Style. The romances differ from the rest of Shakspere's plays not only in plots and characters but also in versification. Up to Cymbeline. the development of Shakspere's versification is regular enough; the increase in unstopt lines and feminine endings and the decrease of rhyme, mark a gradual develop- ment in freedom of versification with a constant increase in mastery. In comparison, however, with the splendid phrasing of Afitony and Cleopatra, Cymbeline shows a puzzling deca- dence; nor can its characteristic traits readily' be explained merely as a stage in the development discoverable in Shakspere and in Elizabethan dramatic versification in general. An ex- amination of these structural traits, which are also manifest in the IVifiter's Tale and the Tempest, is necessary in order to distinguish the style from that of the preceding plays and is 142 of interest in connection with the contemporary versification of Fletcher. In the first place, we find an increase in the proportion of double endings. In addition there seems to be a constant de- liberate effort to conceal the metre. The rhythm is often hardly discernible until we piece together the broken lines, count the syllables, and place the accents. The verse con- stantly borders on prose. In the second place, the end-stopt line is often carefully avoided; there being, in point of fact, two unstopt for every five end-stopt lines. Here, Shakspere's practice differs de- cidedly from Fletcher's, but in one particular the effect is much the same. Shakspere's verse, like Fletcher's, clearly tends to imitate the natural, unpremeditated manner of ordinary speech; and in attaining this effect, the broken phrases, avoiding the strict metrical limitations of hnes and syllables, largely con- tribute. The unstopt lines, like Fletcher's stopt lines, imitate the discontinuity of actual speech. Fletcher wrote in discon- nected lines; Shakspere in disconnected phrases. Other than this, their technical methods are similar. Shak- spere's use of unstopt lines involves a use of weak and light endings, but his structure in general is like Fletcher's. It is never periodic. On the contrary, the speakers repeat them- selves, break off abruptly, correct themselves, and add apparent after-thoughts. The speeches of the actors seem suggested by the action of the moment and are almost necessarily accom- panied by action. One image is never fully developed, nor are set descriptions indulged in as in the early plays; but image is piled upon image as if one suggested another. As Mr. Macaulay says: ' ' Point is added to point, each one as it comes being apparently suggested by that which has preceded it. . . . . the whole conveying the impression of thoughts uttered as they passed through the mind rather than of any elaborate composition." Important in producing this loose structure and of itself one of the most distinguishing traits of Shakspere's late verse, is his use of parentheses. Sometimes the parenthetical structure is used to such a degree that the meaning is almost unintelli- gible; it usually requires the assistance of gesture and skillful elocution. Even bits of operatic convention take on this form, as Pisanio's comment on Imogen's change of clothing.^ Pa- rentheses serve also to break the declamatory monotony of the early style, as in Hermione's great speech.^ They are most often used, however, in cases where violent passions demand confused, ejaculatory speech. Take, for example, Imogen's '^Cvnbeline, III, 4, 156-168. 2 Winter's Tale, III, 2, 92-117. 143 speech on receiv'ing Posthumus' letter/ or her dialogue with Pisanio/ or Leontes' wild outbreak of jealousy/ or his speech to Camillo/ or his speech to Antigonous.* All these examples indicate how well the parenthetical structure is adapted to stage action. These examples, which may be multiplied almost at random, also illustrate the other traits of style which have been men- tioned and which are, indeed, generally recognized as charac- teristic of Shakspere's late style. Another trait which seems to me especially characteristic of the romances is the frequent use of colloquialisms, as ' he's' for ' he is,' ' 'tis' for 'it is,' 'I'll' for 'I will,' and so on.^ While not of much importance of itself, this trait of phrasing resembles the more important traits of structure in the evident imitation of natural speech. All these traits of the late style seem aimed at producing an effect of natural and unpremeditated speech which should lend itself readily to action; yet, as a matter of fact, one of the most noticeable results of these changes is the obscurity of the verse. This is due partly to the extreme to which the broken sentence structure is carried, and partly to the over- burdening of the verse with thought, and partly to the inten- sity and rapidity of Shakspere's imagination. In avoiding set descriptions he heaps metaphor upon metaphor, and as a result gains a brevity which is forcible but by no means clear. In this intensity and rapidity of imagination lies a funda- mental difference between his verse and Fletcher's. As Charles Lamb" says, " (Fletcher) lays line upon line, making up one after the other, adding image to image so deliberately that we may see where they join. Shakspere mingles everything; he runs line into line, embarrasses sentences and metaphors; before one idea has burst its shell, another is hatched and clamorous for disclosure." Fletcher was not troubled with complexity of thought or exuberance of imagination to such an extent that he had difficulty in fitting them for stage utterance; in 1 Cymb., Ill, 2, 53-61. "^Cymb., Ill, 4, 72-85, 104-109. ^W. r., I, 2, 185, seq. *W. T. I, 2, 267, seq. ^W. T. II, 3, 154-162. ^ An examination .of the first acts of Merchant of Venice, Antony and Cleopatra, and the Winter's Tale shows the number of abbrevia- tions to be 16, 49, and 89, respectively. In the case of 's for is, I '11 for I will, 'tis for it is, '11 for will, the ratios of the abbreviated forms to the total number of abbreviated and unabbreviated were .28, .61, and .74, respectively. This furnishes some evidence that Shak- spere's increase in the use of colloquialisms was marked in his latest period. A similar examination of several acts in Fletcher's plays in- dicates that his preference for similar abbreviations was equally marked. ''Lamb's Specimens of Dramatists. Second Edition, p. 419. 144 his late period, at any rate, Shakspere undoubtedly was. To this is due in part the difference in the general impression re- ceived from their styles. In total effect they are very unlike. In comparing versifications, however, habits of thought or imagination may well be left out of consideration; we must confine ourselves to resemblance in structure. In his greater use of run-over lines and in his more moderate use of double endings, as well as in traits of his imagery and phrasing, Shak- spere 's verse is readily distinguished from Fletcher's; but in other technical qualities, its resemblance is worth noting. Shakspere uses feminine endings more frequently than before, he is at pains to conceal the metre, he writes in disconnected phrases, he avoids carefully elaborated images, he uses paren- theses to an extraordinary degree, he uses colloquialisms with frequency. In all these respects he seems, like Fletcher, to have been imitating the unpremeditated, disjointed utterance which is best suited to stage action. It is in these structural changes, also, that the verse is dis- tinguished from that of the earlier plays. How complete its departure is from the old lyric style can at once be seen by comparing it with the first act of so late a play as Lear. How marked is the structural transformation can be seen by referring to the still later play oi Antony and Cleopatra. A comparison of this last play with Cymbeline also reveals a decided loss of mastery, an apparently conscious and not quite successful struggle to overcome the difficulties of the new structure. More than in the case of any of the other traits of the romances, one is tempted to suggest that the versification, particularly in Cymbeline, indicates effort and deliberation. The cause of this effort may be sought in various directions. The structural peculiarities may have been the outcome, con- scious or unconscious, of the new style of play and of the ac- companying mood. The general progress of Shakspere's style toward freedom in metre and structure must be given some share in the production of the style of the late plays. Our examination of the traits of the style does, however, emphasize the important influence of another factor. It does not indicate that there was any direct imitation of Fletcher, even in the structural peculiarities. The resemblances in structure between the two styles were probably not related as cause and effect, but were the results of similar dramatic conditions and similar plays. Shakspere does seem to have used means similar to those used by Fletcher, because he was trying as Fletcher w^as to suit his verse to stage action. This effort to imitate unpremeditated, disconnected, natural speech seems, in fact, sufficient to account for all the marked variations in structure which Cymbeline presents in comparison with earlier plays. 145 D. Stage Effects. In considering the plots, characters, and style of the romances we have reached the conclusion that all the traits which dis- tinguish them from Shakspere's other plaj's show a common tendency to secure greater stage-effectiveness. In face of the fact that the romances have not since the Restoration proved very effective acting plays, this conclusion may still seem ques- tionable. In the first place, it must be remembered, both Shakspere's and Beaumont and Fletcher's romances lack the unity of construction and still more the verisimilitude demanded by modern audiences. Further, it may be repeated, Shakspere's romances do not show anything like Beaumont and Fletcher's cleverness in constructing startling situations and plots. As Elizabethan plays, however, as series of entertaining situations and elaborate climaxes, they must have ministered to the same taste as the Beaumont- Fletcher romances. Apart from regular dramatic methods, there are still further evidences of efforts for stage success which appeal even less to modern taste. The extraordinary variety of situations in Cyni- beli7ie^ was perhaps sufficient, but in the Whiter' s Tale there are additional devices. There is the bear which chases Antig- onous off the stage during the storm," there is the antick dance by the twelve satyrs/ the graceful dance of shepherds and shepherdesses,^ the change of clothes, which may easily have afforded a good piece of comic business,^ and, finally, there is the transformation of the statue to life.® No dramatist intro- duced any of these into his play without a deliberate effort for stage effect. The day of warring armies and revengeful ghosts was passing, but the audiences' craving for novelty was un- ceasing, and it is amply cared for both here and in the Tempest. The Tempest, to us a beautiful poem full of beneficent ideal- ism, on the Elizabethan stage must have seemed largely an effort to satisfy this craving. Caliban, that immensely taking Elizabethan stage-beast, who has proved so prophetically philo- sophical, must have been the hit of the play. Then there was the old device borrowed from the Midsummer NighV s Dream of the invisible Ariel bewildering the courtiers,^ and the still older business of the vanishing banquet, " accomplished with ^The curious spectacle of Jupiter and the ghosts in Posthumus* dream (V, 4) must not be overlooked. '^III, 3. See note, p. 34, ante. 2 IV, 4, 352. See p. 32. Compare with the dance of Indians in the Four Plays. nv, 4- 165. ^IV, 4, 640-670. ^ V, 3. For a transformation of a statue to life, see Lyly's Gallathea. For use of statues in court masques, see the Masque of the Inner Temple, etc. (1613), and the Golden Age Restored (1616). '111,3- 146 a quaint device."^ Then there were the drunken scenes, such as Shakspere had used before, but now made especially diverting when the climax was reached and the dogs chased the drenched and filthy boors about the stage while Prospero and Ariel cried on quarry ! Prospero himself, with his magi- cian's robes and wand, must have made an imposing spec- tacular figure. Prospero and Ariel are, indeed, proper figures for a court masque, and the "strange Shapes," like the satyrs in the WtJiter's Tale, are nothing more nor less than an anti-masque. Note, for proof the stage directions : III, 3. " Enter several strange Shapes, bringing in a banquet ; they dance about it with gentle actions of salutation ; and, inviting the king, etc., to eat, they depart." Again, a little later, after Ariel in the form of a harpy has vanished in thunder: III, 3, 82. — " then, to soft music, enter the Shapes again, and dance with mocks and mows, and carrying out the table." Still again — IV, I. "A noise of hunters heard. Enter divers Spirits, in shape of dogs and hounds," etc. The anti-masques at the court often appeared in shape of animals, as goats {Honour of Wales, 1619) and bears {Augurs, 1622) and monkeys {Middle Temple arid Lmcoln's Inn, 1613). These grotesque spirits, then, in shape of dogs, and, earlier, with their dancing and mocks and mows, must, just as certainly as the masque proper in the fourth act, have been suggested by the court masques. The antic dances and performance of the Shapes, together with the devices of Prospero and Ariel, make, in fact, an unmistakable masque-setting for the masque proper with its goddesses and graceful dance of nymphs and reapers.^ Thus in the Tempest Shakspere was combining the construc- tion, pageantry, and devices of the court masque, just as Beau- mont and Fletcher did in the Four Plays. It is interesting to note, by the way, that Shakspere combined his masque-material with his play much more skillfully than any of his contempo- raries. Beaumont and Fletcher's Four Plays is a rare instance of a similar attempt to unite the diverse elements. Usually, the anti-masque or the spectacle or the masque proper is dragged into the play. In the Tempest, however, the strange shapes and the goddes.ses suit the atmosphere of the enchanted ^III, 3- ... 2 IV, I. 138. "Enter certain Reapers, properly habited; they join with the Nymphs in a graceful dance ; towards the end whereof Pros- pero starts suddenly and speaks; after which, to a strange, hollow, and confused noise, they heavily vanish." 147 island and play a natural part in the magic of Ariel and Prospero. Very distinctly, then, in the Tempest, and at least in the dance of shepherds and anti-masque of satyrs in the Winter'' s Tale, Shakspere was adding to the attractiveness of his plays by the introduction of a g«od deal of pageantry after the style of the court masques. This fashion of imitating the court masques was certainh^ a new one at the time, and Beaumont and Fletcher were leaders in it. Shakspere also seems to have been regarded as a leader and prominent offender by Ben Jonson, for in protesting against the "jigs and dances" he especially mentions "those that beget tales, tempests and such like drolleries. ' ' ^ Our chronology of the plays indicates that Beaumont and Fletcher preceded Shakspere in the imita- tion of the court ma.sque, but the question of precedence cannot be certainly settled nor is it very important. The development of the court masque in the reign of James I must inevitably have been followed by an adoption of some of its important and novel features on the public stage. Shakspere was a leader in the same fashion in which Beaumont and Fletcher were leaders and was playing to the same taste to which they played. Before leaving the subject of the stage pageantry of Shak- spere' s plays, we must note that it is especially abundant in the two plays in which he probably collaborated with Fletcher. Henry VIII, according to Sir Henry Wotton, " was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, ' ' ^ and the stage directions amply testify to the fact. The trial scene, the coronation, and the christening make the play a succession of pageants, and in addition there are noticeable masque elements. In Act V, scene 4, there is the porter's scene with the satire on the crowds that thronged to masques and pageants, like similar scenes in the Four Plays ^ and the Maid's Tragedy.* In Act I, scene 4, there is the masque at Wolsey's with the king and others disguised as shepherds. Again, in the vision which appears to Katharine, there is a spectacle and dance decidedly like those of the court masques. ^ ^Bartholomew Fair. Induction, (acted 1614). 2 See p. 37, ante. ^Induction. *I, 2. ^ IV, 2, 80. "Sad and solemn music." Then after line 82: "The vision. Enter, solemnly tripping one after another, six personages, clad in white robes, wearing on their heads garlands of bays, and golden vizards on their faces ; branches of bays or palm in their hands. They first congee unto her, then dance; and, at certain changes, the first two hold a spare garland over her head ; at which the other four make reverent curtsies .... and so in their dancing vanish, carrying their garland with them. The music continues." 148 These last two masques or dances occur in scenes by Fletcher, but we can't be quite safe in concluding that he devised them, although this is very probable. In the Two Noble Kinsmen, apart from the pageantry of the "funeral solemnity"^ and of the prayers in the temple,^ we have a masque and an anti-masque. The wedding masque* is in the approved form and the anti-masque,^ as we have seen, is borrowed from the court Masque of the hiner Temple. With the addition of some action, this forms a whole scene repre- senting a performance by some country folk before Theseus. In these two plays we thus have additional evidence of Fletcher's use of the court masques in stage plays, and also additional evidence that Shakspere was trying to satisfy the taste for stage pageantry. E. Summary. The results of our investigation up to this point may be briefly summarized. The three romances by Shakspere show many common traits and a marked divergence from his plays of the preceding eight years. While in a few particulars they resemble the earlier comedies, they stand together and form a new style of drama. The relation of each play to the general type, its resemblances and variations, have been left to suc- ceeding chapters. So far we have dwelt mainly on common traits and common divergences from the preceding plays. To emphasize this divergence reference may be profitably made to Coleridge's discussion of the qualities which distinguish Shakspere from all other dramatists. Among the seven char- acteristics enumerated are the following four : ' ' expectation in preference to surprise; " " independence of the dramatic interest in the plot ;" " independence of the dramatic interest in the story as the ground of the plot;" "the characters of the dramatis personse like those in real life are to be inferred by the reader, they are not told to him." ^ These four charac- teristics are certainly manifest in most of Shakspere' s plays, especially in the tragedies which preceded the romances; in the romances, however, no one of them holds with any exact- ness. In fact the reverse of each seems generally a noticeable trait. In our analysis we have found varied and ingenious plots, tragic and idyllic scenes furnishing emotional varietj^ and con- trast, telling situations, emphasized denouements, characteri- ^1.5- 2V, 3. 81, I. (Shakspere's part.) *III, 5, by Fletcher. ^Characteristics of Shakspere' s Drama. Complete works of Cole- ridge. Ed. Professor Shedd. New York, 1854, 7 vols. Vol. 4, p. 61, seq. 149 zation sacrificed to convention and situation, a versification perceptibl)^ designed for stage effect, and considerable pageantry taken from the court masques. In all these, and in more spe- cific ways as well, the romances not only dififer from Shak- spere's preceding work, they resemble the contemporary romances of Beaumont and Fletcher. Moreover, we have found from an examination of all the plays acted i6or-i6ii that there are none by other authors which offer marked resemblances to those by either Beaumont and Fletcher or Shakspere. Not only is there no play by an- other author which possesses in any considerable degree the characteristics of either set of romances; there are few plays which ofier any resemblances. Among the plays from 1601- 161 1 there are few romantic plots, almost no tragi-comedies, little emphasis of sentimental heroines, few idyllic scenes, no full-fledged imitations of court masques. There is, in short, no indication of a revival of romance, to say nothing of the formation of a new type of romantic tragedies and tragi-come- dies. Shakspere' s romances seem not only unlike his own preceding plays but also unlike any contemporary plays except those of Beaumont and F'letcher. When we remember that Shakspere's change from historical tragedy to romance was very abrupt, that it was almost exactly contemporaneous with the success of Beaumont and Fletcher's romances, that Shakspere and Fletcher wrote two plays together for the King's men, and that three of Beaumont and Fletcher's romances were acted by the same theatrical company as Shakspere's, then the resemblances between the two sets of plays become very significant. So strong do the> seem that we must conclude there was consider- able indebtedness from one to the other. The co-existence of two sets of romances closely resembling each other has been established, and a study of contemporary drama indicates that the only possible explanation is that of mutual influence. The question of which group influenced the other remains to be considered. So far we have been discussing resemblances without dwelling on questions of which was cause and which effect. Some light, however, has been thrown on these ques- tions. In some particulars there seems no way of determining the cause, and in some no reason to suppose that there was any definite relation of cause and effect. Common traits in versification, for example, cannot be held to show direct imita- tion; at the most they indicate only a common purpose. Re- semblances in stage pageantry likewise merely indicate that each was securing similar effects by similar means. While in the absence of a certain chronology it is impossible to say who was the innovator in this respect, we can assert that there may have been conscious rivalry and that there must have been 150 conscious effort to meet the same stage demand. In other traits, Hke the material of the plots, the emphasis placed on a surprising- denouement, the sentimental heroines, we find reason to expect more definite indebtedness. Questions of indebted- ness must, in fact, include methods of construction and charac- terization and all the defining characteristics of the romance type. Before considering this whole question of mutual influence we may best turn to an examination of some further resem- blances between typical representatives of either class — Cym- beline and Philaster. 151 CHAPTER IX. Cymbeline and Philaster. Cymbcline is generally considered the earliest of the romances. In Cyvibclhie , then, if anywhere, we may expect to find specific traces of the Beaumont-Fletcher romances. A study of Shak- spere's plays after his earliest period does not lead us to expect to find Shakspere absolutely imitating; but it does show that he was constantly influenced by dramatic conditions and fash- ions and that he was using and perfecting dramatic types which other men had originated. In the first play in which, if our hypothesis be true, he adapted the Beaumont-Fletcher type, there ought to be some definite resemblances to the original. Such resemblances may be found between Cytnbeline and Phil- aster. The majority of these have already been discussed by Dr. B. Leonhardt in an article on the relations of Philaster to Hamlet ?i\\di Cyvibeline} He is so impressed with the many resemblances between Philaster and Cymbeline that he thinks Beaumont and Fletcher used the Cloten-Imogen plot. Further, he takes 1608 as the date of Philaster and is therefore moved to suggest in a foot-note that Cymbeline was written before 1608. The idea that Shakspere could have imitated or adapted any one's work does not seem to have occurred to him. In comparing the two plays, it must be remembered that many resemblances have been instanced in the preceding chap- ters. All that has been said of the romances of Beaumont and Fletcher applies to Philaster, and all that has been said of the romances of Shakspere applies with especial force to Cym- beline. Here we are to look for more specific resemblances and we will begin, as usual, with the plots. The historical narrative and the Italian expedition of Posthumus have no parallels in Philaster, and most of the Megra affair and the rising of the mob in Philaster have no parallels in Cymbeline. In the main, however, the plots are strikingly similar. ^Anglia, Vol. 8, p. 424. (Jber Beziehungen von Beaumont und Fletcher'' s Philaster , or Love Lies-a-Bleeding zu Shakespeare's Hamlet und Cymbeline. B. Leonhardt, 1885. The resemblances, to Hamlet have been frequently noticed and may be due to a conscious imitation of that play. The resemblance, however, arises mainly from the use of the common motive of "revenge for a father;' and the frequent burlesque of Hamlet in Beaumont and Fletcher's plays counts against the likelihood of conscious imitation. 152 Imogen, heiress to the throne, is destined by her royal father to marry his boorish step-son, Cloten ; but she is wedded to a noble youth, Leonatus Posthumus.^ Arethusa, only daugh- ter of the King of Calabria, is likewise destined by her father to marry the boorish Spanish prince, Pharamond, but she is in love with Philaster the rightful heir. ^ Leonatus is- favorably contrasted by the courtiers with Cloten,* and so Philaster is contrasted with Pharamond.* Both I^eonatus^ and Philaster' are driven from court by the royal fathers. As he is leaving Arethusa's apartments, Philaster has an encounter with Phara- mond,' and as L^eonatus is leaving Imogen, he has an encounter with Cloten.^ In the absence of Leonatus, lachimo tries to seduce Imogen,® and Pharamond makes similar proposals to Arethusa. *° Both are repulsed. lachimo slanders Imogen to Leonatus," and Arethusa is falsely accused to Philaster by Dion.^^ Imogen is brought to despair by Ivconatus' letter charging her with unfaithfulness,^* and Arethusa is likewise in anguish when similarly upbraided to the face by Philaster." Each lover has a passionate soliloquy in which he denounces his mistress and all woman-kind. ^^ ^® Imogen leaves the court in disguise to seek I^eonatus and, after dismissing Pisanio, loses her way; " and Arethusa parts from the hunting party to wander "O'er mountains, through brambles, pits, and floods." ^^ Both, because falsely slandered, wish to die.^® ^^ Each king is very much disturbed at his daughter's absence. ^^ ^^ Cym- beline accuses Pisanio of knowing where she is,^* and so Cala- bria accuses Dion." Arethusa is wounded by Philaster, ^^ and Imogen is struck down by I,eonatus.^^ Finally the disentangle- ments of the two plots are made in similar ways. In Philaster, Bellario explains that in spite of her page's clothes she is a woman, and Megra confesses that she has falsely slandered Arethusa.^' In Cymbeline, Imogen explains and lachimo con- fesses.^* In Philaster, all are forgiven, even Megra and Phara- mond,^® so in Cyinbeli7ie lachimo is pardoned;*" and in each play the lovers are happily united under the king's favor. 1 Cymb., I, I. ^^PhiL, III, 2. ^ Phil. ,1,1. ^'' Cymb., 111,6. ^ Cymb., 1,1. ^^Phtl.,IV,3. *Pkil., I, I. ^^Cymb., Ill, 4, 75-95 : IV, 2, 15. ^Cymb., I, I, 120-130. ^Phil., Ill, 2: IV, 3. *Pkil., I, I. ^^Cymb., Ill, 5, 28-52. ''Phil., 1,2. ^Phil.,lV,2. ^Cymb., 1,2. ^ Cymb., IV, 3,^-^2. ^Cymb., 1,6. "^ Phil. ,1V , 2. ^^ Phil., 1,2. ^ Phil., IV, 3- " Cymb., II, 4. ^ Cvmb., V, 5, 228. ^Phil., Ill, I. 27/%//., V, 5- 13 Cymb., Ill, 4, 20, seq. ^a Cymb., V, 5. ^*Phil., III. 2. ^Phil., V, 5. 15 Cymb., II, 5. *° Cymb., V, 5. 153 These parallels indicate a close similarity between the two plots, yet after all the similarity does not lie so much in the stories as in the situations. The basis of the Imogen story is probably the ninth novel of the second day in the Decamerone. This story, the slor}' of lachimo's trick, forms no part of Philaster. To this lachimo-Iraogen story, however, Shak- spere added a dozen or so situations which are almost exact counterparts of situations in Philaster. Although the resemblance is not so close, the idyllic scenes in Cy77ibeline have more than a chance likeness to those in Philaster. The scenes in the mountains between Belarius and his foster sons, which give an opportunity to display Imogen's character with so much charm, recall a passage in Philaster. " Oh, that I had been nourished in these woods With milk of goats and acorns, and not known The right of crowns nor the dissembling trains Of women's looks; but digged myself a cave, Where I, my fire, my cattle, and my bed, Might have been shut together in one shed ; And then had taken me some mountain girl, Beaten with winds, chaste as the hardened rocks Whereon she dwelt, that might have strewed my bed With leaves and reeds, and with the skins of beasts, Our neighbors, and have borne at her big breasts My large, coarse issue! This had been a life PVee from vexation."^ The same ideas receive a much greater amplification in Cytn- beline, where Belarius dwells in a cave and upholds the free, isolated life in a long discussion with his sons.'^ The passage in which Philaster describes his meeting with Bellario : " Hunting the buck, I found him sitting by a fountain's side," etc' gives expression to similar idyllic sentiments. The scenic representation of the idyl in Philaster is much less notable than in Cymbeline but occupies the whole of the fourth act. The four scenes of that act are located in a forest whither come a hunting party, a country fellow, woodmen, and the two maidens wandering forlorn. Into this forest, as in the moun- tains of Belarius, tragic events press thick and fast. The idyllic elements in each play have still further similarity in the developments of the stories of Imogen-Fidele and Euphrasia-Bellario. As a princess at court, Imogen resembles Arethusa, but as a page in the country scenes she has a closer likeness to Bellario. As Dr. Leonhardt has shown, the resem- blance is also much closer than that between Bellario and Viola. The resemblance between the two latter consists mainly '^Phil., IV, 2. ^Cymb., Ill, 3. 8 /%?■/., I, 2. 154 in their one common situation, each being the messenger from the man she loves to the woman he loves. Imogen and Bel- lario, however, are alike in their situations, sentiments, and characters. In noting their likenesses, we may join our dis- cussion of the plots with that of the characterization of the two plays. They both serve as pages, in their boys' clothes they wander through the woods, they suflFer fatigue,^ they beg for food,' they are heart-sick, again and again both wish for death ; and throughout all their misfortunes they appeal in every line to the most sentimental sympathies of an audience. Their tenderness, simplicity, and utter devotion to their lords are emphasized over and over again. They are both extremely romantic ideahzations of the 'love-lorn maiden' type; and for all the finer shading she receives from the meeting with her unknown brothers, Imogen does not unquestionably present the more exquisite poetry. Dramatically, at least, she says nothing quite so sympathetically effective as Bellario's sub- mission : " Alas, my lord, my life is not a thing Worthy your noble thoughts ! 't is not a life, 'T is but a piece of childhood thrown away." ^ Other characters in the two plays offer points of likeness. The two kings are almost identically the same, except that the king of Calabria receives a certain coarseness from his belief in his daughter's guilt, and Cymbeline a certain importance from the historical narrative. The queen in Cymbeline and Megra in Philaster at least supply the same dramatic require- ment for a wicked woman ; and Dion and Pisanio for a faithful friend. Philaster and Leonatus have similar situations in the love stories and resemble each other not only in the general attributes of nobfe heroes but specifically in the fury of their jealousy, in their freedom from any sensual motives, and in the strongly marked, sentimental character of their love. Cloten and Pharamond are both out-and-out boors, both brutish, and both braggarts. They fill similar situations, and each one serves to supply the comic element in the play. Thus, the persons of the main action of each play may be paired together; and if the resemblance is apparent to the reader, despite the different imaginative development and phrasing given by the different poets, it must have been very marked on the stage where the two representatives of the same type had similar situations, similar action, similar costumes, and very probably the same actors.* ^Cymb., Ill, 6, i, seq. Phil., IV, 4, i, seq. '^Cymb., Ill, 6, 45, seq. Phil., IV, 3, 8, seq. ^Phil., V. 2, 14-17. * Both plays were acted by the King's men. 155 The general similarit}^ of characters, situations, and senti- ments, and even some slight verbal similarities may be further seen by comparing the following parallel passages. First, take the opening sixty or seventy lines of each play. Second, com- pare Arethusa's speech at the end of act III : " Peace guide thee ! Thou hast overthrown me once ; " etc. with Imogen's speech on Leonatus' falseness: " True honest men being heard, like false iEneas," etc.^ Third, compare Posthumus' soliloquy, beginning: " O, vengeance, vengeance ! " -^ with Philaster's, " Now you may take that little right I have To this poor kingdom," etc. ' Or the beginning of Posthumus' soliloquy where he dwells on Imogen's apparent chastity with the opening lines of another by Philaster: " Oh, let all women That love black deeds, learn to dissemble here," etc.* Fourth, compare Philaster's speech after he is hurt by the country fellow*^ with lachimo's after he has been overcome by Posthumus.* There is also a similar word play on ' strange ' and ' stranger : ' ^ and in connection with the resemblance be- tween the idyllic scenes, it may be noted that the name Bel- lario in Philaster appears in Cyvibeline as Belarius. Between Philaster and Cymbctinc, then, there is a closer resemblance than has been indicated between Beaumont and Fletcher's and Shakspere's romances. In plot, characters, and style, each play possesses the distinguishing traits of its class; but in addition to these there are enough specific similarities to make it very probable that one play was directly suggested by the other. When we remember that both plays w^ere written at nearly the same time, for the same company, and by drama- iIII, 4, 60-66. 211, 5, 8, seq. 8III. 2. ^Phil., Ill, I. ^ Phil. IV, 3. " The gods take part against me : could this boor Have held me thus else?" ^Cymb., V, 2, 1-6. "^ Megra. " Near me, perhaps : but there 's a lady endures no stran- ger ; and to me you appear a very strange fellow." Lady. " Methinks he's not so strange; he would quickly be ac- quainted." [Philaster, I, i. First Lord. " Did you hear of a stranger that's come to court to- night? " Cloten. " A stranger, and I know not on't ! " Second Lord. " He 's a strange fellow himself, and knows it not." [Cymbeline, II, i. 156 tists who must have been acquainted, the probability approaches certainty. Our comparison of the two plays thus re-enforces the con- clusion already reached that there must have been some direct indebtedness of one set of romances to the other. It also brings us face to face with the question, which was the debtor and which the creditor? It is not only practically certain that Philaster was written for the King's men while Shakspere was still writing for that company; it is also probable that it was written before Cym- belme} In that case we could not escape the conclusion that Shakspere was indebted to Philaster. Suppose for a moment that our chronology was certain instead of probable, and let us see what the nature of Shakspere' s indebtedness would be. Beaumont and Fletcher had already experimented with several plays when they produced Philaster. Acted by the King's men at the Globe and at the more fash- ionable Blackfriars, the play made an instant and complete success. This was due not only to the skill of the authors in constructing the plot, in developing telling situations, and in writing a verse notably suited to stage action; it was also due to many novel features. There had been no play for seven or eight years at all resembling Philaster. During that time, at least, there had been no character like Bellario, no play con- taining such a contrast of tragic and idyllic scenes, or presenting such a surprising and ingenious denouement. With all the excitement and pathos of a heroic tragedy, it had all the charm of a sentimental comedy. After the long succession of gloomy tragedies, historical plays with armies and battles, and satirical and realistic comedies of London life, this romance filled the audience with surprise and delight. During the year or two preceding, Shakspere had been yvritvagAyitony and Cleopatra, Timon, and Coriolanus. Perhaps he was growing tired of tragic and classical themes; perhaps his mood was changing and he was beginning to take a more cheerful view of life; perhaps Timon and Coriolaiius had not achieved great success on the stage — at any rate the success of Philaster aroused his interest. He may have known of the play before it was acted, and followed its development in the hands of his brilliant young friends; he may have watched their earlier work with a generous appreciation of their talents. As soon as Philaster was acted by his company, he must cer- tainly have perceived its dramatic and poetic excellencies, the theatrical value of some of its innovations, and the appeal which its romantic situations made to the audiences. With his usual quickness to take advantage of anything the con- ^See p. 95, ante. temporary drama offered, he at once forsook the themes with which he had been dealing for some seven years and started to write a play in friendly rivalry of Pliilaster. Possibly he already had the historical story of Cymbeline partially com- posed; to this he added other stories andmany situations which were like those in Philaster. He made his yjlaj' tragic in many of its circumstances and, recognizing the effectiveness of Beau- mont and Fletcher's use of a happy ending, he labored especially over a happy denouement. He introduced idyllic scenes and developed them more fully than had Beaumont and Fletcher, and he introduced a sentimental heroine that should surpass Bellario. Perhaps the sweetness and tenderness of that maiden touched Shakspere's feeling and harmonized with his new mood of peaceful reconciliation with life; and it may be the clever boy-actor who had made a success in Bellario wanted a similar part. If so, the task proved a congenial one to Shakvspere. The part of Imogen seems to have been created with freer fancy and more spontaneous expression than the rest of the play. He recalled the women of his earlier comedies, Julia, Hero, Rosalind, Helena, and Viola, but he also had in mind the traits of Beaumont and Fletcher's heroines. In the case of some of the other characters, in the new structural experi- ment of the denouement, and in the versification, he worked with much less spontaneity and with apparent effort. In fact, however much he was moved by thoughts of reconciliation, gentleness, and peace, he was also striving to make a play which should equal in theatrical effectiveness the recent success gained by the skill and innovation of Beaumont and Fletcher. Seeking the same end as they did, he used similar means. When completed, however, Cymbelme did not owe a very large share of its total effect to Philaster. Shakspere was in posses- sion of all the dramatic ma.stery which he had learned in twenty years' experience. Whatever changes he made in methods of con.struction, characterization, or versification, were directed by his own experience. Whatever hints or suggestions he received from Beaumont and Fletcher for situations or traits of character were colored by the plots and people of his own plays and transformed by his genius. But he was trying to produce and did produce a play with many of the specific characteristics and of the same type as Philaster. Some such statement of the influence of Philaster on Cym- beli?ie could be adopted if we were certain of our chronology. But the evidence for the priority of Philaster is not conclusive, and its support cannot be confidently relied on. Leaving aside, then, the question of exact date and only premising the fact that both plays were written at about the same time, we must face the question.s — which is more plau.sible, that Shakspere influenced Beaumont and Fletcher or that they influenced 158 Shakspere? — which on its face is more likely to be the original, Cymbeline or Philaster? The question is not which play owes most to other plays, but which was the earliest representative of the ' romance ' type ? Many situations and characteristics in Philaster show the influence of earlier plays, but it represents a type that was new. Beaumont and Fletcher were new writers for the stage; it is one of the earliest of their notable plays; it was followed immediately by five romances of the same style in plot and characters; it possesses all the important traits and is one of the most masterly plays of the class. It presents traits of characterization, style, and plot which mark Fletcher's work for the next twenty years. All these facts create a strong presumption that Philaster was the original. We began this investigation with the premise that Shakspere was as eager as any Elizabethan dramatist for stage success, that he was as likely as any to be influenced by current fashions and the practice of his contemporaries. At every point we have found definite indications that he was striving for stage- effectiveness and no evidence which would make his imitation of Philaster seem unplausible. Apart from his relation to Beaumont and Fletcher, our study has revealed several results which illustrate his adaptability to theatrical conditions. The fact that he abandoned romantic comedy for tragedy at the time other dramatists were turning away from romance is significant; and his plays from 1601 to 1609, even on the briefest consider- ation, reveal an evident observance of current forms and fashions. His collaboration with Fletcher bears further testimony to his subservience to theatrical conditions. It might reasonably be held to justify the inference that he recognized in Fletcher the dramatist best able to satisfy the stage-demand of the day. At all events, Henry VI/I and the Two Noble Ki7iS7nen do not indicate that Fletcher was an imitator of Shakspere; they do indicate that if Shakspere in his late period was influenced by any contemporary dramatist, Fletcher was the man. We also started with a suggestion that there was an a priori likelihood that Shakspere would prove on careful investigation an adapter rather than an inventor of dramatic forms. Since this investigation was undertaken, that hypothesis has received a very striking confirmation in Mr. Sidney Lee's masterly discussion of the sonnets. Of all Shakspere' s work they have generally been regarded the most expressive of his personal opinions and experiences. Mr. Lee has shovv^n that they were undoubtedly indebted to preceding sonnet series, and that in them Shakspere frankly adopted many of the conventions and methods of a fashionable literary form. Our examination of his indebtedness to the court masques has shown him in a similar way borrowing and imitating many features of a fash- ionable dramatic form. 159 We may, indeed, safely assert that Shakspere almost never invented dramatic types. In his earliest plays he was a ver- satile imitator of current forms, and in his later work he was constantly adapting dramatic types used by other men. He wrote chronicle-histories, romantic and sentimental comedies, farcical comedies of manners, tragedies based on classical his- tory, a tragedy of blood- revenge. In none of these cases did he originate a dramatic type or first introduce one on the Elizabethan stage; in all these cases he was to a large extent an adapter and transformer. Cymbcline differs markedly from any play he had previously written; and its differences prove to be traits similar to those characteristic of the Beaumont- Fletcher romances. These facts create a strong presumption that Cymbcline was the copy. Still further we must remember the well-attested success of Philaster and its manifest spontaneity. No play of its day was more warmly praised by its contemporaries; no play by its authors seems more completely their own, more characteristic of their temperaments and methods. Cymbcline, on the con- trary, has no such evidence of success as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, or the Tempest, nor has it a tithe of their spontaneity. In the opinion of most critics, it shows decided creative effort. It was an experiment in new fields made at the close of his career by a consummate adapter, and made with evident effort. These considerations surely add to the probability that Beau- mont and Fletcher were the inventors and Shakspere the adapter. The final deci.sion must hinge on such considerations as these. If we leave aside the direct evidence in regard to the dates, all our knowledge of the authors of the two plays and of the dramatic conditions of the time seem to me to point to the conclusion that in some such way as has been hypothetically described, Philaster influenced Cymbeline. 1 60 CHAPTER X. A Winter's Tale and the Tempest. A Wintfr's Tale and The Tempest do not show so close a relation as Cymbeline to the Beaumont-Fletcher romantic type. Neither seems to have been suggested by any one play as Cymbeline by Philaster; they are both plays, however, which link themselves with Cymbeline in separation from the rest of Shakspere's work and which possess, as has already been in- dicated, many of the characteristics of the Beaumont-Fletcher romances. Which of the two was written first is hardly de- terminable, but there is general agreement that they both succeeded Cymbeline. If this order is the true one; there is no reason for expecting traces of anything like direct imitation to be longer prominent. We may rather expect to find Shakspere transforming the experimental form of Cymbeline into something indisputably his own. We may, however, ex- pect to find evidences of the Beaumont-Fletcher methods and fashions and of Shakspere's development of them. At the risk of repetition, we will consider some of the ways in which the two plays show Shakspere's development of the Beaumont- Fletcher romance, which he had first tried in Cymbeline. The Winter' s Tale gives prominence to a sentimental love story and has an involved plot with decided contrasts of tragic and idyllic incidents. The stories of Leontes' jealousy and fury and of the apparent deaths of Hermione and Perdita oc- cupy the whole of the first three acts. Instead of weaving the idyllic scenes and the sentimental love story into the main plot, Shakspere added them in an almost separate play which occupies the whole of the fourth act. It goes without saying that he has treated this idyllic element with complete origin- ality, and with a reality which Beaumont and Fletcher never approached. This fourth act is, indeed, about the only part of the romances which has an atmosphere of reality. In the fifth act, the two distinct plays are united with due regard for an unexpected and effective denouement. The use of a happy ending, it will be remembered, is a change from Greene's novel. This change and the carefully prepared denouement are general traits of the romances; and so, too, is the construction of the main plot. It is notably a succession of situations. Sometimes, indeed, situations suc- ceed each other with a rapidity which destroys all effect of i6i plausibility, however well it may favor varied and violent action. For example, the first act opens conventionally with a conversation between some gentlemeti of the court explaining the circumstances of the succeeding action. Then follows the lively dialogue in which Hermione succeeds in persuading Polixenes to lengthen his visit; ^ Leontes, immediately aroused to jealousy, is left to soliloquize and to talk with the child Mamillius;"^ Hermione and Polixenes return and add a little fresh fuel to his fire; as they retire again, he breaks out in the exceedingly vile and violent speech, beginning: " Gone already, Inch deep, knee deep, o'er head and ears a fork'd one! "^ There is some further accentuation by Mamillius' prattle; then comes the dialogue with Camillo, whose belief in Hermione's innocence furnishes a good acting contrast with the king's impatient jealousy, and who is finally persuaded to agree to poison Polixenes; then Camillo has a soliloquy, one phrase of which seems almost an echo from Beaumont and Fletcher: " If I could find example Of thousands that had struck annointed kings And flourished after," etc.* Polixines next enters: Camillo explains the circumstances to him, and they agree to flee. Thus in 450 lines, in addition to all the necessary expository matter, Shakspere has contrived to bring in seven or eight dis- tinct situations. By means of these situations Leontes' jealousy is given its origin and development, and the Polixenes-Florizel story is well introduced. To see how great is the change from the old methods of construction we have only to recur again to the treatment of Othello's jealousy. In dramatizing Greene's old and popular romance, Shak- spere, after the fashion of Beaumont and Fletcher, created a play distinguished by its effective situations and the construc- tive feat of its remarkable denouement. How great the de- parture is from his earlier methods may be seen by comparing the Winter's Tale with Pericles (1607-8?) a play that seems to many to be connected with the romances.^ There Shakspere was also dramatizing an old and popular story and one similar to the story of the IVifiler's Tale, but he gave it a form that is primitively undramatic and in most striking contrast with the constructive ingenuity of the later play. Of the fourth act, one dislikes to say anything which may even appear to indicate a failure to appreciate its spontaneity: but even here Shakspere is only giving an original development ^I, 2, 1-108. *I, 2, 357. "I, 2, 108-146. ^See Appendix. *I, 2, 185, seq. 162 to the inevitable id}-!. We have already seen that the business of a girl gathering flowers in March had been seen on the stage before Shakspere was born.^ The business of shepherds and shepherdesses was also an old and popular theatrical convention, and the dance of satyrs was an entertainment probably directly borrowed from a court masque. The reality given to these conventions and to the equally conventional love story is Shak- spere's own, and is secured largely by the introduction of comic characters from real life. Of the characters of the play; we have already considered many. It may be added that Perdita's vitality arises rather from that atmosphere of real life in the country scene than from anything individual in her own lines. The style, too, structurally considered, is the same as that of Cymbeline; and the various devices for stage effect have already been noticed. The Wmter' s Tale, then, seems in its main traits a develop- ment from the same type as Cymbeline. Its most marked dis- tinction from the imitative character of that play is found in the very vital connection established between the sentimental love story and the comic elements of real life. In the nature of the plot, in its mixture of tragic and idyllic, in ingeniously dramatic situations and denouement, in weakened characteriza- tion, and in a more dramatic style, the play belongs to the romance type of Beaumont and Fletcher. The Tempest at first sight seems to differ much more than the Wmler's Tale from a romance like Cymbeline. This is perhaps mainly due to the fact that we always think of it as a poem and never as a play. More than any other of Shakspere' s plays, it seems to embody a conscious effort at the expression of a definite artistic mood. The beauty of its ideal- ized picture of life, the serenity of its philosophy, the charm of its verse make it a poem to be treasured and pondered over and loved. To understand, however, just what its effect must have been on the Elizabethan stage, we must minimize the effect of its poetry and recall some elements of the play which are no longer salient. We must analyze not the aesthetic mood which it creates in us but the structure of the pla}^ itself. A few truisms may again be repeated. The play was not printed until Shakspere' s plays were collected long after his death: it was written for and acted on the stage where it was evidently popular. While Shakspere's imagination has filled it with permanent beauty and truth, he could not have written it without having in mind its stage-effectiveness. If we look, then, at the qualities which distinguish it as a stage play, we find many indications of current dramatic fashions and many points of resemblance to the general type of romances. ^See p. 4, ante. 163 For the plot there is, as usual, a story of sentimental love and a correlated plot of intrigue and murder.^ We have only to see the play on the stage to realize that the story of the bewildered courtiers (however uninteresting to modern taste) is the best acting part of the play. That story, probably from some Italian source, forms the basis of the plot. As Mr. Wen- dell has shown, ^ Shakspere has elaborated the denouement into five acts. The play is simply the expanded fifth act of a tragi- comedy — a surprising, romantic denouement. This is the distinguishing feature of the construction, but there are many other evidences that Shakspere was striving for stage effect. Perhaps for this reason he followed the unities of time and place, for whose observance Beaumont had praised Jonson. Moreover, he added to the tragic-idyllic story, inci- dents, characters, and scenes, almost surely suggested by tales of a voyage to the new world which were just then exciting general interest. The enchanted island, the magic of Prospero, the monster Caliban, and the fairy Ariel must certainly have been novel and interesting to Elizabethan audiences. As in the Winter' s Tale, he also gained stage-effectiveness and les- sened the artificiality of the idyllic element by introducing comic personages after the style of those in his early comedies. He also used some of the stage devices which he had earlier used in the Midsummer Night's Dream. Most notable, however, of all the devices for stage effect, was the pageantry borrowed from the court masques. We have already seen that the Tempest was in part a stage pageant, definitely constructed on the style of those popular entertain- ments. In this respect it re.sembles Beaumont and Fletcher's Four Plays in One, which also combines romantic situations with masque-like pageants. In borrowing from the ma.sques Shak- spere was making use of a very popular fashion. Most of the characters, as we have noted, are developments- of the conventionalized types. Miranda says little or nothing- which has a trace of direct individualized characterization. The speech which comes the nearest to this, her proposal to Ferdinand, sounds very much like one of Beaumont and Fletcher's heroines. " Wherefore weep you ? At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer What I desire to give ; and much less take What I shall die to -want. But this is trifling; And all the more it seeks to hide itself, The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning ! And prompt me, plain and holy innocence ! I am your wife, if you will marry me; If not, I '11 die your maid : to be your fellow ^Note also Caliban's attempted rape of Miranda. ' William Shakspere, pp. 317-318. 164 You may deny me ; but I '11 be your servant, Whether j'ou will or no."^ To-day the audience laughs as Miss Ada Rehan speaks the lines. The}"- have no individual vitality; and we are not used to the Beaumont-Fletcher idyl.^ The style of the Tempest shows far more mastery than that of the two other romances; but, for all its greater beauty, it is structurally the same. From the nature of the play, some- thing of a return to the old lyrical structure might be expected, but there are no indications of this. One or two examples will indicate that the disjointed, parenthetical structure of Cymbeline is retained but used with greater skill. For an ex- ample of its use in passages involving intense action, take the speeches of Antonio.'^ For its use in narrative take Prospero's account of his misfortunes,* or his account of Caliban's plot.^ To see how far this structure had become a matter of habit even in set declamations, take Prospero's speech at the begin- ning of the last act,*' or Ariel's speech to the courtiers.'' In style, therefore, as well as in characters and plot, the Tempest resembles the other romances. In style, however, and in all other elements, the differences are not less notable than the resemblances. The characteristics of the romances of Beaumont and Fletcher which appear in Cymbeline, reappear in the Tempest, but altered and transformed. While Cymbeline seems an experiment suggested by Philaster, the Tempest is a development of the 'romance' type, which is in the highest degree masterly and original. Perhaps there is no better way of appreciating its supreme art than by recalling some steps in its creation. We can best estimate Shakspere's accomplish- ment by remembering with what materials and conditions he began. Our analysis has shown that his transformation of the ro- iIII, I, 76-85. 2 The resemblance between Ariel and the Satyr in Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess has frequently been noticed. Not only is there a close verbal resemblance between some of their lines ; both have traits in common, and each is the servant and nimble messenger of a superior being. Fletcher's Satyr has also many points of similarity to the faun-like satyrs and ' wild-men ' of the early English pastoral enter- tainments; particularly to the satyr in Ben Jonson's Complaint oj Satyrs against Nymphs (1603). There the satyr is a singer, a piper, a merry fellow, a companion of the fairies, and also serves as a mes- senger and sort of chorus. Possibly Shakspere's Ariel is a develop- ment of the same type, which may have received some suggestions from the theatrical part of Fletcher's Satyr. See Modern Language Notes, April, 1899 ; the Pastoral Element in the English Drama. ^11, I, 226-290. *I, 2, 106-188. ^V, I, 268, seq. ^Note particularly V, i, 61, seq. nil, 3, 60-82. 165 mantic type involves much besides a more masterly expression of the artistic impulses which seem to have dominated his latest period. He was dealing as in the other romances with an idyllic love story and a counterplot of tragic possibilities, and he was trying to treat both with ingenuity and novelty. He found suggestions for much new and sensational matter in the reports of a recent voyage. He undertook a constructive feat in handling the denouement such as he had experi- mented upon in Cymbeline, and for some reason he chose strictly to observe the unities. He borrowed many devices, conven- tions, and situations from earlier plays, and he constructed a stage pageant on the style of the court masques. In all these respects he was aiming to make his play eifective on the stage, and in some particulars he was following methods and fashions used by Beaumont and Fletcher. Yet all his varied aims are perfectly harmonized in the final result. The Italian story finds its true home in the Bermudas, and marvellous adventures are told with strict adherence to Aristotle's laws. The love of a maiden, the old plot of villainous intrigue, the superb wisdom of Prospero, all find one haven through "calm seas, auspicious gales." The drunken clowns, the Italian courtiers, the strange monster, and the ' zephyr-like ' Ariel play their parts with antick dancers such as Shakspere had seen in the court masques at Whitehall. Out of such varied driftwood rose Shakspere' s enchanted island. 1 66 chapter xi. Conclusion. A brief glance at our conclusions will serve for a recapitula- tion. The conjectural nature of some of these has often led us to avoid using one probable conclusion in support of another; taken together, however, their cumulative effect must be con- sidered. In the first place, an examination of the chronologj' of Shakspere's romances and Beaumont and Fletcher's plays showed that some of the latter certainly preceded the former, and that six of the Beaumont-Fletcher romances were probably written by the time Shakspere had produced three. Philaster seemed probably earlier than Cymbeline. An examination of the stage history of the period indicated that mutual in- fluence between Shakspere and the 3'ounger dramatists was probable from the fact that they were all writing plays for the King's men at the same time. The evidence that Shakspere and Fletcher collaborated on two or three plays made this probability almost a certainty. Our study of the chronology and stage history of the plays discovered no evidence at any point contradictory to the hypothesis that Shakspere was in- fluenced by Beaumont and Fletcher, made plain the likelihood of some mutual influence between them, and on the whole indicated that the first contributions of Beaumont and Fletcher to heroic romance preceded Shakspere's. An examination of all the plays acted 1601-1611 revealed a surprising paucity of plays which could be classed with either set of romances and a still more significant absence of experi- menting with romantic material. In the light of the work of other dramatists, it became clear that the romances were neither the development of current forms nor the results of manifest tendencies in the drama, but that they must have been an un- expected departure largely due to the innovation of either Beaumont and Fletcher or Shakspere. In showing the inde- pendence of Beaumont and Fletcher's revival of romance from current influence and in emphasizing the significance of Shak- spere's abrupt change from tragedy to romance, our examina- tion presented further indications that Beaumont and Fletcher were the innovators. A study of the six romances by Beaumont and Fletcher produced before the end of 161 1 demonstrated that they con- 167 stituted a new and distinct type of drama. A similar study of the three plays by Shakspere showed that they constituted a type of drama decidedly different from the rest of his work. Both types of romances showed a revival of romantic material, a use of new dramatic methods, and an effort to secure varied and lively action on the stage with some added spectacular eflfects. They resembled each other so closely in all their dis- tinctive traits that it seemed impossible that they could have been produced independently of each other. While some of these resemblances seemed due to current conditions and common purposes, we concluded that one set of romances was indebted to the other for the defining traits of the type. And there were not lacking further indications that Shakspere was the debtor. An examination of Philaster and Cymbeline, each an early representative of either type and each wTitten for the King's men before the fall of 1610, revealed further specific similarities which made it almost certain that one influenced the other. Philaster appeared to have been the earlier of the two ; but apart from considerations of dates, the general character of the plays indicated that Philaster was the original. This was made still more probable by consideration of the habits and positions of the authors themselves. There seemed good ground for the supposition that Shakspere, desirous of producing a play which should have the same effect on the stage as Philaster, produced in Cymbeline a play of the same type and of many of the same specific characteristics. It was admitted that this conclusion would be accepted only by those who believe that Shakspere wrote plays with a keen eye for theatrical success, and that he was as ready as any of his fellow-dramatists to follow current fashions and to receive suggestions from his contemporaries. This investigation was based on the premise that such a view is justified by a study of the recognized facts of his career, and on the a priori probability^ that further investigation might be expected to substantiate and enlarge the opinion that he was constantly indebted to his fellow-dramatists. Apart from the considera- tion of his relation to Beaumont and Fletcher, many specific results of our investigation increase our confidence that Shak- spere was likely to have been the adapter. In the romances which followed Cymbeline, Shakspere ap- peared to have so far mastered the romantic type that evidences of imitation became slight, and the plays seemed his by birth rather than by adoption. Instead of degenerating, as it did in Beaumont and Fletcher, into a pretty distinctly conventional- ized form, the romance type developed under his genius into the Winter' s Tale and the Tempest. Even in these plays he seemed still to be using the methods he had adopted in Cym- 168 beline and still to be answering the same theatrical demand which Beaumont and Fletcher had first supplied. In analyzing Shakspere's obligations to their romances, we have noted many varieties from direct imitation in Cymbeline to original tranformation in the Tempest. Sometimes there is no indication of indebtedness; he is merely following the same fashion which they did or writing with the same purpose. Sometimes he seems to have adopted a method or a type of character which they had used successfully, sometimes to have tried to outdo them at their own game. In no case was he merely adopting or imitating, he always adapted and usually transformed what he borrowed; but in many details in Cym- beline, and generally in the material of his plots, his construc- tive feats, and his characterization, Shakspere appears to have been working either in conscious imitation or conscious rivalry of the younger dramatists. On the whole the evidence seems sufiicient to establish the probability of our two main hypotheses: first, that Shakspere's change from tragedies to romances is to be accounted for by the contemporaneous production of the Beaumont- Fletcher romances; and second, that these latter definitely influenced Cym.beline , a Wmter's Tale, and the Tempest. Shakspere's romances thus aiford another illustration of the way in which his genius worked, transforming dramatic forms which other men had invented into vital creations of his own. They afford, too, another evidence of the great influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on the history of English drama, and they add greatly to the indebtedness we owe to the astonishing invention and poetic genius of those two dramatists. 169 APPENDIX. Pericles. Pericles is thought by many to resemble the three romances and to bear to them a relation similar to that borne by the early to the great comedies. This possible relation to the romances, rather than questions of date and authorship, is the problem before us. We must examine what evidence there is that in Pericles Shakspere was experimenting with the romance type and consider what bearing such evidence has on our con- clusion that his romances were largely influenced by those of Beaumont and Fletcher. Questions concerning date and authorship are important for our purpose, but they are complicated by so many difficulties that we can only arrive at solutions which are extremely con- jectural. We must therefore be content with noting the con- jectures that seem to afford the safest hypotheses and then pass on to the main problem. Pericles was entered S. R. May 20, 1608, for Edward Blount, and was published by Henry Gosson in 1609. This first quarto states that the play was ' ' by William Shakespeare ' ' and had " been divers and sundry times acted by his Majesty's Servants at the Globe, on the Bankside. " Pericles was not included in the first or second folio, but was added with six other plays to the third folio of 1663. It appeared in five different quartos before the end of 1630. Whether the 1608 entry refers to the 1609 quarto or not, and how the publisher of the quarto got hold of the play, are de- bated questions. There is general agreement that The Pain- full Adventures of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, by George Wilkins (i6o8j, appeared after the play had been acted; but even this conclusion is open to doubt. ^ The latest limit for the date is fixed by the quarto, 1609; and, while there is no certainty that the play in some form may not have been acted earlier, verse tests indicate that Shakspere's part was written about 1608. In thus accepting 1608 as the conjectural date we have been forced to rely on the hypothesis that the " Marina Story " ^ is wholly Shakspere's. At least that is in part surely his and ^ There is probably no other case in Elizabethan drama where a novel was made out of a play as it is supposed was done by Wilkins. If he had a share in the play, such a proceeding seems the more surprising. 2 The last three acts, with possible exception of scenes 2, 5 and 6 in Act IV. 171 is in a style distinct from the rest of the play. Some critics/ however, believe that he wrote the entire play; some believe that his share was very small ;'^ and there are all shades of opinion as to his possible collaborators. The first two acts are assigned by some to Wilkins,' and the offensive scenes in Act IV to Rowley/ While there is little more than conjecture in such assignments, we are fairly safe in saying that three dis- tinct styles are discernible, that the first two acts are not by Shakspere, and that only the Marina story can be with any certainty assigned to him.^ Working on these hypotheses, it seems likely that Shakspere did not work directly in collaboration with the other author or authors. Unlike his shares in //ifw^j F///and the Tivo Noble Kins7nen Shakspere' s share appears quite distinct from the rest of the play.® Neither does it seem probable that he had much to do in planning the plaj^ or in retouching the first two acts. Nevertheless, Pericles was acted by Shakspere's com- pany and published with his name, and he must to some extent be held responsible for its final form. In examining it, how- ever, as a play of his, we are safest in keeping pretty closely to the Marina part. Remembering that Shakspere's share in the play and its date are very uncertain, we may return to our main problem, its relation to the romances. If the play was as late as 1608, there is a pos.sibility of Beaumont and Fletcher's influence just as in the romances. If Pericles is a play of the same type as the romances, and if Shakspere's part is a foreca.st of his later work, these facts are of importance on the general relationship be- tween the Beaumont-Fletcher and the Shaksperean romances. We must consider to what extent Pericles was a forecast of the romances and to what extent it possesses traits of the two contemporary series of romances. The plot is taken from Laurence Twine's Pattertie of Pain- full Adventures and Gower's Coyifcssio A^naniis. A sentimental love story appears, but is not given the prominent place that similar stories receive in each of the three romances and also in each of the Beaumont-Fletcher romances. The plot is, however, like those of the romances and particularly like that ^C/. Introduction to ike Bankside Shakespeare, Vol. XIV. New York, 1891, bv Appleton Morgan. 2See H. P. Outlifies I, p. 205. ^ * See the Transactions of the New Shakspere Society for 1874, pp. 130, 253, and also for 1880-86, p. 323, for articles by Mr. Fleay and Mr. Boyle. ^ The offensive scenes (2, 5 and 6) in Act IV are more closely connected with the Shaksperean part than the first two acts; are in prose and less distinguishable in style; and on the whole of more doubtfully non-Shaksperean authorship. *It is especially distinct from Wilkins' part, Acts i and 2. 172 of the Winter's Tale in dealing with a long series of tragic events leading to a happy ending. It presents, too, a similar variety of emotional effects and a contrast of tragic and idyllic elements ; the idyllic elements, however, which we have found highly developed in all Shakspere's and Beaumont and Fletcher's romances, do not receive a similar development in Pericles. Considered in detail, the plot contains incidents, common enough in Elizabethan literature, which Shakspere had pre- viously used and which he used again in later plays. Thus the shipwTeck, which had been used in the Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night, appears later in the Tempest ; -^ and the reunion of Pericles and Thaisa both recalls that of ^geon and Amelia in the Comedy of Errors and anticipates that of Leontes and Hermione in a Winter'' s Tale. The story of Marina is something like that of Perdita; but in the extraordinary emphasis placed on the trial of her chastity, it is more like the story of Isa- bella in Measure for Measure. In Pericles, then, Shakspere chose to dramatize an old story which has some general and some detailed resemblances to the material he later used in the romances. There is, however, nothing of the invention and ingenuity of the romances and little of their emphasis of the love story and idyllic element. In general character the plot is not unlike those of the earlier comedies, and the leading motive of the Marina story is similar to that in Measure for Measure. In construction, Pericles is hardly a play at all. It is aston- ishingly undramatic. The story is largely told by the rhymed narrative of the choruses or presented in the dumb shows. There is no effort made to secure effective dramatic situations, and no pains are taken with the denouement. The final happy reconciliation has none of the dramatic importance that it has in the Winter s Tale ; it is merely an explanation. In all the characteristics of dramatic construction, the most marked con- trast exists between Pericles and the romances either of Shak- spere or Beaumont and Fletcher. Pericles, indeed, is not only altogether unlike the romances of varied dramatic situations and intense, heightened denoue- ments: it is so utterl}' lacking in dramatic construction that one wonders that it could have been written as late as 1608. Plays of this archaic style, however, were not uncommon even at so late a date. In 1 607 the Travels of the Three English Brothers'^ was brought out by the Queen's men. The play dealt with the wonderful adventures of the three Shirleys in iSee Pericles III, i; C. ofE., I, i, 63, seq. ; T. N., I., 2 ; Tempest, I, i. 2 See Chr. II, p. 276. Wilkins, who is thought to have had a share in Pericles, had a share in the Three Brothers. For an account of similar plays, see p. 98, ante. Russia, Turkey and Persia and the marriage of one of them to the Sophy's daughter. Its construction is decidedly like that of Pericles : dumb shows, narrative choruses, much para- ding, and no real dramatic action. It is repeatedly ridiculed in the Knight of the Btirning Pestle, and evidently appealed to the same vulgar taste that contemporary references show Pericles^ greatly delighted. We cannot be sure that the construction of Pericles was by Shakspere; but even in the Marina story the same archaic methods are adhered to and there is no attempt to secure dramatic effectiveness. In construction, then, the plot of Pericles has no resemblance to those of the three romances. So far from using any of the innovations of Beaumont and Fletcher, Shakspere seems to have returned to the methods then recognized as primitive and ridiculous hut which still aroused the delight of the vulgar. The characters of the play have little importance except Marina. By some she is thought to anticipate the heroines of the romances. The similarity of her situation to Perdita's has been noticed, and she certainly resembles the later heroines more than she does the women of the preceding tragedies. Sentimental love, however, the dominant characteristic of Imogen, Perdita, and Miranda as well as of the Beaumont- Fletcher heroines, receives very slight exploitation in Marina. Of course she has a lover and marries him after the fashion of all heroines, but her utter devotion to him is not the theme of her story, nor is it her crowning glory. Shakspere used the sentimental lov^e story and heroine as he had used them in the early comedies and in AW s Well and Measure for Measure, but not as Beaumont and Fletcher used them nor as he used them in the later romances. Marina appears mainly as a pure girl who in the most trying circumstances maintains her chastity. The same motive also appears in Imogen and Isabella. In Imogen it receives a treat- ment after the style of Beaumont and Fletcher and quite unlike that in Pericles. In Isabella, however, it receives a treatment very similar to that in Pericles. Her purity is brought into contrast with the same loathsome aspects of life; her chastity endures equally trying circumstances; and its defense involves considerable vigorous argument like Marina's. On the whole Marina resembles Isabella quite as much as the romance hero- ines. She resembles the latter in the nature of the story rather than in the treatment of her character. The style of Pericles, according to verse tests, takes a place at about 1608 in the general development of Shakspere' s versifica- tion. It shows nothing of the marked structural change of Cymbeliyie which also characterizes the other romances. In ^ See Centurie of Prayse. 174 devices for stage eflfect, it is decidedly archaic with its dumb shows and choruses. There is a dance of the knights in armor, alone and with their ladies, after the fashion of the masque;^ but the pageant of the knights and their devices'^ is after the fashion of such exhibitions vsx Jeronymo. On analysis, Pericles thus proves to be a play dealing with a story similar to those of the romances, but giving this story an entirely different treatment. In construction, characteriza- tion, style, and general stage effect, it presents none of the leading traits of the romance type. It seems to have been one of those Elizabethan ' plays of adventures, ' whose character and the character of the taste to which it appealed are indicated in the title page of the first quarto: "The late and much "admired play, called Pericles, Prince of Tyre, with the true "relation of the whole Historic, adventures and fortunes of "the said Prince: As also the no less strange and worthy " accidents, in the Birth and Life of his daughter Mariana." A word remains to be said about the artistic mood of Pericles. There does not seem to me to be much in the Shaksperean part which indicates any definite mood. There is some very fine phrasing in the account of the tempest, a subject that constantly appealed to Elizabethan rhetoricians; and the choice of the Marina story may have some artistic significance. Its underlying mood seems to resemble that of Measure for Measure as much as that of the Tempest. Those who insist on the forgiving serenity of the romances can at best find only slight indications of such a mood in Pericles. As a precursor of the romances, the most that can be said of Pericles is that Shakspere was using material distinct from that of his tragedies and resembling in some ways the material of the romances; and that his artistic mood may in a similar way be conceived to have altered from that of the tragedies and to anticipate slightly that of the Tempest. Such opinions, however, have little significance in connec- tion with our discussion of the romances. Pericles is doubtless earlier than Shakspere's romances, but there is no probability that it preceded all of Beaumont and Fletcher's. Even if it did, the mere fact that Shakspere used an old romantic story is the only evidence that he began to experiment with the romantic type earlier than did Beaumont and Fletcher. About 1608, Phil aster yN2iS acted as well as Pericles ; and two more difierent plays can hardly be imagined. They not only differ entirely in their methods of construction and their general stage effect; they differ as well in their treatment of the senti- mental love story, of the heroine's character, and of the happy ending. Pericles was a return to archaic methods, Philaster III, 3, 98 and 106. 211, 2. 175 was a remarkable dramatic innovation. Probably shortly after these two plays, came Cymbcline ; and there can be no doubt which play it followed. If Shakspere had already experimented with romantic material and in a romantic mood, he had certainly not determined the characteristics of a new romantic type. If we make all possible allowance for the influence of Pericles and of all other plays dealing with romantic stories upon the work of Beaumont and Fletcher, the evidence remains unim- paired that their type of romance was an innovation and that it distinctly influenced Shakspere's romances. Pericles, how- ever, seems to me in no appreciable degree a precursor of the romances, but rather a return to the old chronological, narra- tive dramatization of stories of wonderful adventures, such as were popular on the stage even later than 1608. At any rate, for our discussion of the relations between the romances of Shakspere and of Beaumont and Fletcher, it has either little or no significance. 176 ERRATA. Page 37, Hue 11 ; for period after "side," substitute a comma. Page 41, line 6 of the foot-note ; the reference should be to page 31. Page 43, line 15; insert a reference to the foot-note after "doors." Page 58, line 5; "the two allusions"— omit "the." Page 74; Fleay's identification of the "miraculous maid" is correct. The Fasting of a Maiden of Confolens was published in 1604, with introductory verses by Dekker. Pages 91 and 93 ; for Lover's Progress, read Lovers' Progress. Page 107, foot-note; the Wit of a IVomafi, probably acted 1600-1604, is another play which I have not seen. Page 112, line 4 ; read " as that of Leontes." Page 125, line 23 ; for "thown," read "thrown." 11.19- :>, ^ 190V . -, ;., V THE INFLUENCE OF BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER ON SHAKSPERE ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE, Ph. D. Associate Professor of English, Western Reserve University WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS. Press of Oliver B. Wood 1901 MAR. 2? 1901 COPtfiJljMT ENTR' CLASS <\oXXo. N* COPY B. Copyright. 1901, By Ashlry H. Thorndixe. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 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