Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/451

 BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER BEAUREGARD 431 judge of the common pleas, and a member of a family which had held important state offices for several generations. In 1697 he entered Oxford, and on taking his degree became a student of law in the Inner Temple. But he neglected his profession for literary pursuits, in which he became almost immediately as- sociated with Fletcher. Of Beaumont's per- sonal history there is little record. He married (in 1613, it is believed) Ursula, daughter of Henry Isley, of Sundridge, Kent, and had two daughters, who appear to have survived him. He died when not quite 30 years old, and was buried in Westminster. The idea hinted at in an epitaph written by Bishop Corbit, and in a stanza by Beaumont's brother, that he had caused his early death by too great literary labor, seems a very probable one when we consider the long list of works to each of which he must have contributed very largely. The only writings which he is believed to have produced alone are the " Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn," and the minor poems in the collection of his and Fletcher's works, with one exception, Fletcher's " Honest Man's Fortune," accompanying the play with the same title. Jonjr FLETCHER, born in 1576, died in London in 1625. He was the son of Richard Fletcher, a prominent ecclesiastic who was dean of Peterborough, and afterward successively bishop of Bristol, Worcester, and London. He received his education at Cambridge, but of his personal history after his graduation almost nothing is known. No record of his marriage has been found, and as he lived as a bachelor with his friend Beaumont until the latter took a wife, at which time Fletcher was nearly 40, there is a fair presumption that he died unmarried. The slight clues we possess to his story seem to show that he spent most of his life in London, among a company of literary men who, as was apparently the case with him also, wrote for bread, and assisted each other in both pecuniary and literary mat- ters, forming a kind of brotherhood. Allusions in Beaumont's "Letter to Ben Jonson" show that he and Fletcher were among the circle of wits of the famous Mermaid tavern. The collected works of the two poets consist, be- sides the writings named above as attributed to Beaumont exclusively, of 52 plays. Of these Fletcher is considered by good authorities to have written 18 unaided, probably either before Beaumont joined him or after the lat- ter's death. The chief among those which were the joint productions of the two friends are " The Maid's Tragedy " (represented about 1610, and often considered the best of all their dramas), "King and No King," and "Phi- laster." Of those considered the sole work of Fletcher, "The Faithful Shepherdess" is es- pecially famous for the grace and delicacy of its verse. The plays are somewhat disfigured for modern readers by the licentious language which the time of their production permitted ; but they abound in strong and beautiful con- 80 VOL. ii. 28 ceptions, and in examples of a literary style which has been held superior to that of Ben Jonson, and has even given rise to an inge- niously defended theory that Shakespeare aided in composing two or three of the dramas. BEAOIONT DE LA UttN M Kit i:. Gnstave Angnste de, a French advocate and writer, born in the department of Sarthe, Feb. 16, 1802, died at Tours, March 2, 1866. In 1831 he was sent with Alexis de Tocqueville to the United States to make inquiry into the penitentiary system ; and the result of their visit was a report, Du systeme penitentiaire aux Etatt- Unis et de son application en France. Besides this work, Beaumont produced a kind of novel, Marie, ou de Vezclavage aux fitaU- Unix, which has been translated and reprinted in this country. In 1839 he published L'lrlande politique, sociale et religieme, which was rewarded, as well as the preceding work, with the Monthyon prize of the French institute. In 1840 Beaumont was elected to the chamber of deputies, sided with the so-called dynastic opposition, and fa- vored electoral reform in 1847. In the con- stituent assembly in 1848 he was a member of the committee on foreign affairs. Gen. Cavai- gnac appointed him ambassador to England, which position he resigned on the election of Louis Napoleon as president. He was elected to the legislative assembly, where he did not play a conspicuous part, and after the coup d'etat of December, 1851, he lived in retire- ment. In 1836 he married his cousin, a grand- daughter of Gen. Lafayette. ISKAI'MC, an old town of Burgundy, France, department of C6te d'Or, 23 m. S. S. W. of Dijon, at the foot of a hill which produces ex- cellent wine; pop. in 1866, 10,907. Its most remarkable public buildings are the church of Notre Dame, founded by Duke Henry of Bur- gundy in 976, and the hospital, founded by Chancellor Rollin in 1443. Before the revoca- tion of the edict of Nantes Beaune was among the leading manufacturing cities of eastern France; it still produces cloth, cutlery, leather, vinegar, casks, &c., but its actual importance is mostly derived from its wine trade, which is considerable. It was anciently fortified. Ear- ly in 1871 the town was repeatedly occupied by the Germans under Gen. Von Werder. BEAUNE-LA-ROLANDE, a village of France, in the department of Loiret, on the road leading from Montargis to Pithiviers, on the northern edge of the forest of Orleans ; pop. in 1866, 1,962. On Nov. 28, 1870, a battle was fought here between the 10th German army corps, belonging to the army of Prince Frederick Charles, and the French army of the Loire, under Aurelle de Paladines. The latter, who were the assailants, sustained a loss of 7,000, and fell back to their fortified lines before Orleans. BEAURECARD, Pierre Gnstave Tontant, an Amer- ican general, born near New Orleans about 1817. He graduated at West Point in 1838. In the Mexican war he earned the brevet rank