Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/179

 128. VIII. FEB. 19,1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 141 LONDON, FEBRUARY 1'J, 1521. CONTENTS. No. 149.
 * _ Nathaniel Field's Work in the '* Beaumont and

Fletcher" Plays, 141 Ha/.ebrouck, 143 Among the Shakespeare Archives : Master John Bretchgirdle, 146 " Hogle Grodeles" A Coachman's Epitaph" Counts of the Holy Roman Empire," 148 " Lhnmig," Earl of Chester: Lymage, co. Hants The Albert Memorial, Hyde Park Dickens, Mrs. Blimber, and Colley Cibber, 149. > )UERIE^ : Skelton of Hesket and Armathwaite Castle, Cumberland Arms : Identification sought- John Crook, Quaker . Portrait Wanted John Bear, Master of the Free School at Ripon Volunteering in "The Forties," I?,Q _ Early History of the Scottish and Irish Gael " The Sword of Bannockburn " Hawke Family Wilson, the " Ranger of the Himalayas" Innys Collection of Maps Phaestos Disk American Customs: A Long Grace Bonte, 151 Embroidered Bible. 1660 : Stewart : Beal^s Dr. Robert James Culverwell-John Barne Heraldic Arms Wanted Route through Worcestershire Arch- bishop John Williams' " Manual," 152. REPLIES : St. Thomas's Day Custom, 152 The Pancake Bell Grey in sense of Brown Hamiltona at Holyrood, 154 _ Edward Booty Representative County Libraries : Public and Private Shilleto, 155 Col. Owen Rowe Lamb in Russell Street, 156 "To outrun the Constable" _ Book of Common Prayer The Green Man, Ashbourne, . is; Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon Books on Eighteenth Century Life Old Song Wanted Rogei- Moinpesson Tobacco : " Bird's Bye," 158 Snuff : Prince's Mixture" London Coaching and Carriers' Inns in 1732, 159. Volume of a New Edition of the Works of Shakespeare ' The Composition of ihe Saxon Hundred in which Hull and Neighbourhood were situate as it was in its Original Condition ' ' The English Klement in Italian Family Names '-Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Man- chester.' ^Notices to Correspondents. NATHANIEL FIELD'S WORK IN THE BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER " PLAYS. THOUGH it has with good cause been sus- pected that Nathaniel Field had a hand in some of the plays printed in the Beaumont and Fletcher folios, and portions of certain plays have (more or less tentatively) been assigned to him by different critics, there is no general agreement either as to the iden- tity of the plays in which he collaborated, or the extent of his contributions to them. It is not strange that this should be sc, since Field is not a writer whose work can easily be recognized. He does not, like Malinger, constantly repeat himself, nor ha^ he, like Fletcher, strongly marked metrical peculiarities. The most distinctive characteristic of Field's verse a charac- teristic exhibited in both his acknowledged plays ( ' A Woman is a Weathercock ' and 'Amends for Ladies '), in the parts of 'The Fatal Dowry ' written by him, and in all the work here assigned to him on other internal evidence is the free use of rimed couplets, not only at the ends of scenes as commonly in the dramatic work of the period but interspersed with the blank verse. This feature makes it easy to dis- tinguish him from Massinger or Fletcher, both of whom are sparing in the use of rime, but is useless as a means of distin- guishing between Field arid Beaumont, since Beaumont also introduces rimed couplets in his blank verse. Field's style has indeed much in common with that of Beaumont and it is therefore not surprising to find that Beaumont has been credited with work written by Field. This mistake has been made both by Boyle and by Fleay. Speak- ing of what he calls Boyle's " absurd theory " that Beaumont contributed certain scenes to 'The Knight of Malta,' Fleay ('Biog. Chron. Eng. Drama,' i. p. 205) observes that Boyle " is, as I have frequently pointed out, incapable of distinguishing Field's work from Beaumont's." But Boyle's error is a venial one compared with that of Fleay, who has actually made use of a work of Field's to establish the canon for Beaumont's verse. Of ' The Four Plays in One ' (Op. cit. i. 179) he remarks : "the shares of Beaumont and Fletcher are singularly independent and the marked difference of their metrical forms afforded me the starting- point for the separation of all these [Beaumont and Fletcher] plays in 1874, which was till then regarded universally as an insoluble problem." The two first "Triumphs " of 'The Four Plays in One,' assumed by Fleay to be by Beaumont, are Field's, as I hope shortly to prove. Fortunately for Fleay, however, the metrical styles of these two authors are so similar that the value of his conclusions has not seriously been affected by his choice of these "Triumphs" as the standard for Beaumont's verse. The other plays of the Beaumont and Fletcher folios in which Field collaborated are 'The Queen of Corinth,' Acts III. and IV., of which are his, and 'The Knight of Malta,' of which he wrote Acts I. arid V. There is no evidence to connect Field with the authorship of any of these plays, but such as can be obtained by comparing them with his acknowledged works, 'A Woman is a Weathercock ' and ' Amends for Ladies, ' and his 'share of 'The Fatal Dowry,' written in collaboration with Massinger. Field's
 * NOTES ON LOOKS : ' The Tempest : being the First