Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/487

Rh and the plays which we owe solely to Fletcher. To others this line has always appeared in almost every case unmistakable. Were it as hard and broad as the line which marks off, for example, Shakespeare’s part from Fletcher’s in The Two Noble Kinsmen, the harmony would of course be lost which now informs every work of their common genius, and each play of their writing would be such another piece of magnificent patchwork as that last gigantic heir of Shakespeare’s invention, the posthumous birth of his parting Muse which was suckled at the breast of Fletcher’s as a child of godlike blood might be reared on the milk of a mortal mother—or in this case, we might sometimes be tempted to say, of a she-goat who left in the veins of the heaven-born suckling somewhat too much of his nurse Amalthaea. That question however belongs in any case more properly to the study of Shakespeare than to the present subject in hand. It may suffice here to observe that the contributions of Fletcher to the majestic temple of tragedy left incomplete by Shakespeare show the lesser workman almost equally at his best and at him worst, at his weakest and at his strongest. In the plays which we know by evidence surer than the most trustworthy tradition to be the common work of Beaumont and Fletcher, there is indeed no trace of such incongruous and incompatible admixture as leaves the greatest example of romantic tragedy—for Cymbeline and the Winter’s Tale, though not guiltless of blood, are in their issues no more tragic than Pericles or the Tempest—a unique instance of glorious imperfection, a hybrid of heavenly aid other than heavenly breed, disproportioned and divine. But throughout these noblest of the works inscribed generally with the names of both dramatists we trace on every other page the touch of a surer hand, we hear at every other turn the note of a deeper voice, than we can ever recognize in the work of Fletcher alone. Although the beloved friend of Jonson, and in the field of comedy his loving and studious disciple, yet in that tragic field where his freshest bays were gathered Beaumont was the worthiest and the closest follower of Shakespeare. In the external but essential matter of expression by rhythm and metre he approves himself always a student of Shakespeare’s second manner, of the style in which the graver or tragic part of his historical or romantic plays is mostly written; doubtless, the most perfect model that can be studied by any poet who, like Beaumont, is great enough to be in no danger of sinking to the rank of a mere copyist, but while studious of the perfection set before him is yet conscious of his own personal and proper quality of genius, and enters the presence of the master not as a servant but as a son. The general style of his tragic or romantic verse is as simple and severe in its purity of note and regularity of outline as that of Fletcher’s is by comparison lax, effusive, exuberant. The matchless fluency and rapidity with which the elder brother pours forth the stream of his smooth swift verse gave probably the first occasion for that foolish rumour which has not yet fallen duly silent, but still murmurs here and there its suggestion that the main office of Beaumont was to correct and contain within bounds the overflowing invention of his colleague. The poet who while yet a youth had earned by his unaided mastery of hand such a crown as was bestowed by the noble love and the loving “envy” of Ben Jonson was, according to this tradition, a mere precocious pedagogue, fit only to revise and restrain the too liberal effusions of his elder in genius as in years. Now, in every one of the plays common to both, the real difficulty for a critic is not to trace the hand of Beaumont, but to detect the touch of Fletcher. Throughout the better part of every such play, and above all of their two masterpieces, Philaster and The Maid’s Tragedy, it should be clear to the most sluggish or cursory of readers that he has not to do with the author of Valentinian and The Double Marriage. In those admirable tragedies the style is looser, more fluid, more feminine. From the first scene to the last we are swept as it were along the race of a running river, always at full flow of light and buoyant melody, with no dark reaches or perilous eddies, no stagnant pools or sterile sandbanks; its bright course only varied by sudden rapids or a stronger ripple here and there, but in rough places or smooth still stirred and sparkling with summer wind and sun. But in those tragic poems of which the dominant note is the note of Beaumont’s genius a subtler chord of thought is sounded, a deeper key of emotion is touched, than ever was struck by Fletcher. The lighter genius is palpably subordinate to the stronger, and loyally submits itself to the impression of a loftier spirit. It is true that this distinction is never grave enough to produce a discord: it is also true that the plays in which the predominance of Beaumont’s mind and style is generally perceptible make up altogether but a small section of the work that bears their names conjointly; but it is no less true that within this section the most precious part of that work is comprised. Outside it we shall find no figures so firmly drawn, no such clearness of outline, no such cunning of hands as we recognize in the three great studies of Bellario, Evadne and Aspatia. In his male characters, as for instance in the parts of Philaster and Arbaces, Beaumont also is apt to show something of that exaggeration or inconsistency for which his colleague is perhaps more frequently and more heavily to blame; but in these there is not a jarring note, not a touch misplaced; unless, indeed, a rigid criticism may condemn as unfeminine and incongruous with the gentle beauty of her pathetic patience the device by which Aspatia procures herself the death desired at the hand of Amintor. This is noted as a fault by Dyce; but may well be forgiven for the sake of the magnificent scene which follows, and the highest tragic effect ever attained on the stage of either poet. That this as well as the greater part of those other scenes which are the glory of the poem is due to Beaumont might readily be shown at length by the process of comparison. The noble scene of regicide, which it was found expedient to cancel during the earlier years of the Restoration, may indeed be the work of Fletcher; but the part of Evadne must undoubtedly be in the main assigned to the more potent hand of his fellow. There is a fine harmony of character between her naked audacity in the second act and her fierce repentance in the fourth, which is not unworthy a disciple of the tragic school of Shakespeare; Fletcher is less observant of the due balance, less heedful of the nice proportions of good and evil in a faulty and fiery nature, compounded of perverse instinct and passionate reaction. From him we might have had a figure as admirable for vigour of handling, but hardly in such perfect keeping as this of Beaumont’s Evadne, the murderess-Magdalen, whose penitence is of one crimson colour with her sin. Nor even in Fletcher’s Ordella, worthy as the part is throughout even of the precious and exquisite praise of Lamb, is there any such cunning touch of tenderness or delicate perfume of pathos as in the parts of Bellario and Aspatia. These have in them a bitter sweetness, a subtle pungency of mortal sorrow and tears of divine delight, beyond the reach of Fletcher. His highest studies of female character have dignity, energy, devotion of the heroic type; but they never touch us to the quick, never waken in us any finer and more profound sense than that of applause and admiration. There is a modest pathos now and then in his pictures of feminine submission and slighted or outraged love; but this submission he is apt to make too servile, this love too dog-like in its abject devotion to retain that tender reverence which so many generations of readers have paid to the sweet memories of