697 



BEAUMONT, FRANCIS. 



BEAUSOBRE, ISAAC. 



598 



interesting coincidence, appears to have abounded in the love of poetry. 

 The biographers have noticed that there were four Francis Beaumouts 

 all living iii 1015, and that at least three of them were poets Francis 

 the dramatist; Francis, his cousin, master of the Charter House ; and 

 Francis, a ' Jesuit,' probably a son of the dramatist's elder brother Sir 

 John, who though perhaps too young to be a Jesuit at that time, 

 became one after his father's death. This Sir John Beaumont, author 

 of ' Bosworth Field,' was a poet of real merit ; his son and successor, 

 another John, inherited his poetical tendency. Dr. Joseph Beaumont, 

 master of Peter House, Cambridge, who lived in the time of the 

 Charleses, and was of a branch of the family, though son of a wool- 

 atapler in Suffolk, is also known to poetical antiquaries as one of the 

 writers from whom Pope thought a man might " steal wisely." 



As the life of Francis Beaumont was so short, and his writings 

 apparently so numerous, it cannot be supposed that he paid much 

 attention to the law. He probably gave himself up to the literature 

 and amusements of the town. He records, in a celebrated epistle, his 

 intimacy with Ben Jonson, and the other men of genius who assembled 

 at the Mermaid Tavern; where he says, they used to leave an air 

 behind them, sufficient to make the two next companies witty. At 

 this greatest of all literary clubs, he would meet with Shakspere ; and 

 perhaps it was here he became acquainted with the illustrious friend 

 with whom he was destined to become all but identified. The date 

 of their first play is 1607, when our author was one-and-twenty. 

 Fletcher was ten years older. If we may credit Aubrey, their connec- 

 tion was, in every respect, singularly close. They lived in the same 

 house, and in most respects had their possessions in common. The 

 friendships of that age were of a more romantic cast than at present. 

 Its poetry fell with more vigour into the prose of common life, and 

 tinctured the whole stream. 



A natural curiosity baa existed, to know what were the distinguishing 

 characteristics of the portions furnished to their common writings by 

 these illustrious friends. It has generally been believed that Fletcher 

 contributed the vivacity, and Beaumont the judgment. We can discover 

 no foundation for this opinion, except the report ; and suspect that 

 there never was any. "I have heard," says Aubrey, " Dr. John Earle 

 (since Bishop of Sarum) say, who knew them, that his (Beaumont's) 

 maine business was to correct the overflowings of Mr. Fletcher's witt." 

 Yet Earle, in hia verses upon Beaumont, expressly attributes to him 

 whole plays, in which his genuis is quite as exuberant as Fletcher's. 

 Their editors in general are divided as to the property ; tradition seems 

 to have distributed it between them at random ; and Mr. Scward, hi 

 an elaborate attempt to discriminate it, bewilders himself in refine- 

 ments which end in giving them each other's qualities interchangeably, 

 ami protesting against his own distinction. If the miscellaneous poems 

 attributed to Beaumont be hia, especially the ' Hermaphrodite,' ( which 

 Cleaveland claimed as a joint composition of himself and Randolph,' 

 there would be reason to suspect that his genius was naturally more 

 exuberant than Fletcher's : and judging from the works which they 

 are known to have produced separately, such as the ' Faithful Shep- 

 herduess,' the ' Masque,' and the ' Epistle,' there appears to be nothing 

 to forbid the conclusion that each might l.avc written either; except 

 indeed, that in the only uudramatic copy of verses extant in Fletcher's 

 name ('Upon an Honest Man's Fortune'), bia muse is the graver 01 

 the two. We are therefore inclined to think, that the reason which 

 Aubrey gave for their strong personal attachment, applies with equa 

 force to this question: "There was a wonderful cousiiuility of phanay,' 

 he says, " between him (Beaumont) and Mr. John Fletcher, which 

 caused the dearenesee of friendship between them." They loved one 

 another fully and entirely, and exhibited the only great spectacle 

 existing of two men writing in common, and puzzling posterity to know 

 which was which, precisely because their faculties were identical 



Another, and apparently more perplexing difficulty remains, in thi 

 wonderful praises lavished by the writers of those times upon thi 

 decency and chastity of a muse, which to our eyes appeal's the stranges 

 mixture of delicate sentiment and absolute prostitution. Beaumon 

 and Fletcher are the dramatists of all others whom a liberal modern 

 reader could the best endure to see hi a castigated edition. Thei 

 ideas are sometimes even as loathsome as they are licentious. Schlegc 

 has expressed his astonishment, how two poets and gentlemen couk 

 utter the things they do, nay, whole scenes ; in some measure, whole 

 plays; and Dryden, who availed hiuuelf in his dramas of all the 

 licence of the time of Charles II., said, in defending himself on tlia 

 point, that one play of Beaumont and Fletcher's (the ' Custom of th 

 Country') contained more indecency than all his put together. Ye 

 these are the writers whom their contemporaries, including divines a 

 well as fine gentlemen, compliment in the most emphatic manue 

 upon their decorum and purity. Harris, then or subsequently Gree 

 professor at Oxford, and called a second ' Chrysostom,' panegyrises thei 

 must! for being 'chaste.' Dr. Maine, celebrated for his piety as we 

 an wit, speaks of their ' chaste scene ;' Sir John Birkenhead says tha 

 Fletcher (who was son of a bishop) wrote 



" Aa if hi fathcr'i crosier awed the stage ; " 



and Dr. Earle (afterward* a bishop himself), not content with declarin 



that Beaumont's wit is ' untainted with obscenity,' protests that b 



writing* are too 'pure,' and 'chaste,' and 'sainted,' to be called plays. 



The solution of this mystery gives us an extraordinary idea of sue 



[ays of the time as have not come down to posterity, and of the 

 istinction drawn by our ancestors between licence of speech and 

 onduct; for the panegyric appears to be almost wholly founded upon 

 le comparative innocence of double meanings. 



" Here, ye foul speakers, that pronounce the air 

 Of stews and sewers," 



ries the gallant Lovelace, the Sir Philip Sydney of hia ciay, speaking 

 f the very comedy above-mentioned, 



" View here a loose thought said with such a grace, 

 Minerva might have spoke in Venus' face ; 

 So well disguis'd, that 'twas conceived by none, 

 But Cupid had Diaua'g linen on ; " 



lid so he goes on, objecting nothing to the thought, but holding the 

 xample to be spotless, and desiring it to spread, as if for its own 

 ake. It thus appears that other writers used language, homely words, 

 r grosser images, such as Beaumont and Fletcher never uttered ; 

 ud if it were objected that Shakspere, as well as several other 

 .ramatists, did not allow themselves a twentieth part of the licence 

 ven of Beaumont and Fletcher, the reply would be, that the accom- 

 liahed duumviri more expressly set themselves to represent the 

 manners and conversation of high life and the town elegance, and 

 hat their ingenuity hi avoiding cause of offence was therefore tha 

 more singular and meritorious. 



Beaumont and Fletcher were two open-hearted men and genuine 

 >oets, spoilt by town breeding and the love of applause. It is a pity 

 hat two such poets could have been so spoilt ; but still, in the best 

 >art of their genius, they survived the contamination, strong in their 

 sympathy with the great nature that bestowed it, and " pure in the 

 ust recesses of the mind." Even the purest characters in their plays 

 re not free from an intermixture of things which they ought not to 

 mow or talk about ; while the practical chastity ia overwrought, and 

 >ut to absurd and gratuitous trials, as if there could be no faith in it 

 jut from the most extravagant proof. In short, a something not 

 entirely true to nature pervades almost all their writings, running side 

 jy side with the freshest and loveliest passages; and while one half 

 of a scene, or sometimes of a speech, or even a couple of sentences, 

 gushes out from the authors' heart, the other is brought from some 

 iautastic fountain of court mauneis and talk, and produced for the 

 eake of town effect. 



Although this unwholesome and objectionable matter pervades 

 their writings, there might be formed from the works of Beaumont 

 and Fletcher a selection of passages of as refined sentiment, lofty and 

 iweet poetry, excellent sense, humour and pathos, as any in the 

 language, excepting Shakspere and Chaucer. Nothing can surpass 

 the tender delicacy of the page's scenes in ' Philaster,' the dignified 

 sentiment in the ' Elder Brother,' the wit and happy extravagance in 

 the ' Woman Hater ' and the ' Little French Lawyer,' the pastoral 

 luxuriance in the ' Faithful Shepherdess,' or the exquisite and virgin 

 poetry scattered throughout the whole collection, sometimes in the 

 midst of the most artificial and even disgusting passages. In lyrics 

 they have scarcely an equal, even iu Shakspere himself, or Milton : 

 their lyrical compositions sing their own music. 



BEAUMONT, SIR GEORGE HOWLAND, was the seventh baronet 

 of the ancient family of the Beaumonts of Stoughton Grange, Leicester- 

 shire. He was born in 1753, was educated at Eton, a distinguished 

 amateur of the arts and friend of artists, possessed himself consider- 

 able skill as a landscape painter, and was one of the most munificent 

 donors to the British national collection of pictures. He was mainly 

 instrumental in the establishment of the National Gallery ; in further- 

 ance of which object he promised to contribute part of his own col- 

 lection at Coleortou Hall : he accordingly presented to the National 

 Gallery sixteen paintings, chiefly landscapes a landscape and figures 

 by Nicolas Poussin ; Hagar and the Angel, Narcissus and Echo, the 

 Death of Procris, and a study of trees, by Claude ; a view of Venice 

 by Canaletto ; a large landscape and figures by liubens ; a landscape 

 and figures by Botb, called Morning ; a landscape and figures, called 

 the Return ot the Ark, by Sebastian Bourdon ; the Villa of Maecenas, 

 and the Niobe, of Wilson ; a portrait of a Jew, and ;i sketch of the 

 Descent from the Cross, by Rembrandt ; a profile of a man by Sir 

 Joshua Reynolds; Py lades and Orestes by West; and the Blind Fiddler 

 by Wilkie. Sir George was one of Wilkie's earliest patrons and best 

 friends. There are also two of his own landscapes in the National 

 Gallery a small piece on wood, and Jacques contemplating the 

 Wounded Stag, from 'As you like it.' These two pictures were pre- 

 sented by Lady Beaumont after the death of Sir George. Ho died in 

 February 1 827 without issue. Lady Beaumont, who was the grand- 

 daughter of Lord Chief Justice Willes, survived Sir George little more 

 thau two years ; ehe died in July 1S29. 



BEAUSOBRK, ISAAC, was born iu 1659 at Niort, in the province 

 of Poitou. His ancestors, being Protestants, had emigrated from 

 France at tho time of the St. Bartholomew massacre, but returned 

 afterwards in consequence of the edict of Nantes. Young Beau- 

 sobre studied at Saumur, was afterwards ordained, and took charge 

 of the Protestant church of ChiVtillou-eur-lndre, in Touraine. When 

 Louis XIV. renewed the persecution against the Protestants, by 

 tho revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 16S5, tho church of ChiV 

 tillon was closed, and the gates sealed by the king's officer?. 



