Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/736

BEAUMONT. also are shipped; and the manufactures include genius is dominant), and The Faithful Shep-sawed and planed lumber, largely cypress shingles, foundry and machine-shop products, cars, furniture, ice, brick, tile, etc. Oil, discovered in extraordinary quantity, has occa- sioned a great advance in real estate, with the projection of a number of new industrial estab- lishments, and a corresponding exploitation of the possibilities of the city. Population, in 1890, 3290; in 1900, 9427.

BEAUMONT, bu'mont, formerly bu'mont, (15S4-1616). An English poet and dramatist. FLETCHER, (1579-1625). An English poet and dramatist. These writers were so closely associated in their lives and labors that tlieir names have become indissolubly united. Francis Beaumont was the third son of Francis Beaumont, one of the justices of the common pleas. He was born at Grace-Dieu, Leicestershire, in 1584. When 12 years of age he became a gentleman commoner of Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College), but he left Oxford without taking a degree. In 1600 he was ad- mitted a member of tlie Inner Temple. An ex- pansion of one of Ovid's legends (1602) has been attributed to him. When about 19 years ot age he became the friend of Ben Jonson, and wrote commendatory verses to some of his dramas. He became acquainted with Fletcher, probably in 1606; and they lived in the same house till Beaumont's marriage in 1613 to Ursula, daughter and coheiress of Henry Isley, of Sundridge. in Kent, by whom he had two daughters. He died March 6, 1616, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

John Fletcher was born in 1579. His father, Ricliard Fletcher, a clergyman, was at that time incumbent of Rye, in Sussex; thereafter he was appointed Dean of Peterborough, and at- tended Queen Mary on the scaffold, whose last hours he embittered with irrelevant exliortation. On his elevation to the See of London, lie mar- ried a second time, and thereby incurred tlie disfavor of the Virgin Queen. A Jolui Fletcher, of London, who is assumed to be the dramatist, entered Bene't College, Cambridge, on October 15, 1591. It is uncertain how long this John Fletcher remained at the university, or whether he took a degree. The Woman-Hater, produced in 1607, is the earliest play of our author. It is not known precisely in what circumstances Fletcher passed his life. He asserts his inde- pendence in some verses introductory to The Faithful Shepherdess, published about 1610, yet he wrote more rapidly than most men then writ- ing for bread. Waiting in London, it is said, for a new suit of clothes as he was about to go into the country, he caught the plague, and died (1625), and was buried in the Church of Saint Saviour.

The works of Beaumont and Fletcher comprise in all fifty- four plays (according to Fleay) ; but it is difficult to allocate, in any satisfactory manner, the parts written by each. A good deal, however, has been aecom|)lished by the application of metrical tests. In some of the plavs other hands have been traced, especially Massinger's. And certain passages in The Two Tyohle Kinsmen are by Shakespeare. The best work of this famous collalmration is represent- ed by Philaster (mostly Beaumont's), the tre- mendous Maid's Trayedy (in which Beaumont's herdess (mostly Fletclier's), a beautiful pas- toral drama, which furnished some hints to Jlilton for his Vomus, and to Keats for his En,- dymion. Beaumont and Fletcher are the clever- est, gayest gentlemen. They rarely sound the deep sea of passion, but rather play over its surface. They have little power of serious characterization, and their numerous creations are seldom consistent; but they say the most clever and pleasant things. Morally, little can be said in their praise. No audience of the present day could sit out the representation of their purest plays. Some of the impurest are almost beyond conception, yet there is always an air of good breeding about them. The songs distributed through their plays almost equal Shakespeare's in sweetness and beauty. Consult: works. with notes and memoir, ed. A. Dyce, II vols. (London, 181.'3-46) ; Selected Plays, in Mer- maid Series (Loudon, 1887) ; Macaulay, Francis Beaumont: A Critical Study (London, 1883). For exhaustive discussion of authorship of the various plavs, Boyle, in Englische Studien, Vol. LXXIV. (Heilbronn. 1877-1901); id. in New Shakspere Societi/ (London, 1880-86) ; also Fleay in the latter publication for 1874.

BEAUMONT, Sir George Howlaito (1753- 1827). . English patron of art. He was born at Dunmore (Essex), and was educated at New College, Oxford, and from 1790 to 1796 sat in Parliament for Beralston. He made an extensive and fine collection of drawings and paintings, work of Wilkie, Landseer, and Gibson. He was one of the foimders of the National Gallery, to whose collection he made valuable additions. As a pupil of Richard Wilson, he did some amateur painting in landscapes, two examples of which now liang in the National Gallery. He was a friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, who dedicated to him many poems, notably Elcaiac Musings (1830).
 * ind was among the first properly to estimate the

BEAUMONT, bd'mSN', ,Tean Baptiste Elie nE. See Slie de Beaumont.

BEAUMONT, bo'mont, formerly bu'mont, William (1785-1853). An American surgeon, born at Lebanon, Conn. He is noted for discoveries in the processes and laws of digestion, made in watching the operations of the stomach in the case of Alexis Saint Martin. On June 6, 1822, Saint Martin, then supposed to be IS years old, while at Mackinac, Mich., was accidentally shot, receiving the entire charge of a musket in his left side, the muzzle of the gun being about three feet from his body. This discharge tore away portions of his clothing, fractured two of his ribs, lacerated his lungs, and lodged in his stomach. Dr. Beaumont, who was then stationed at Mackinac as a surgeon in the United States Army, restored Saint Martin to health within a year, though the aperture made by the shot was never closed. Two or three years afterwards, Beaumont commenced a series of experiments upon the stomach of the young man. studying its operations and secretions, the action of the gastric juice, etc. These experiments he continued from time to time, his patient presenting the spectacle of a man enjoying good health, appetite, and spirits, with an opening in his stomach, through which the action of that organ