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THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



havo already referred, hia inability to produce life-like characters. 

 Those who people Shakespeare's stage are real men and women, 

 with all the ordinary passions of humanity, and strongly marked 

 individuality, though showing also, it may be, the special pro- 

 minence of one quality, or the peculiar characteristics of a class. 

 Jonson has occasionally drawn a character with some life about 

 it, and which has become familiar accordingly, sueh as Bobadil, 

 the cowardly braggart in " Every Man in his Humour." But, 

 for the most part, his characters are not mnch more than mere 

 embodiments of abstract qualities, or mere types of particular 

 classes of society. 



The best among Jonson's comedies are "Every Man in his 

 Humour," the "Alchemist," the "Silent Woman," and " Vol- 

 pone, or the Fox." The last-mentioned play is a fair sample of 

 Jonson's comedies. It is the story of Volpone, a magnifico of 

 Venice, enormously wealthy, childless, and without an heir, a 

 sensualist, and a cynic. He lives in the enjoyment of every bodily 

 indulgence ; but he further allows himself the pleasure of watch- 

 ing the efforts of a number of flatterers, who hang about him, 

 striving for his favour, a'nd the chance of succeeding to his 

 wealth ; and for this purpose he feigns to be in mortal sickness, 

 trembling on the very brink of the grave. The spirit of the play 

 is expressed at the very beginning, when Volpone soliloquises 



" What should I do 

 But cocker up my genius, aud live free 

 To all delights my fortune calls mo to ? 

 I have no wife, no parent, child, ally 

 To give my substance to; but whom I make 

 Must be my heir ; and this makes men observe me : 

 This draws new clients daily to my house, 

 Women and men, of every sex and age, 

 That bring me presents, send me plate, coin, jewels, 

 With hope that when I die (which they expect 

 Each greedy minute) it shall then return 

 Tenfold upon them ; whilst some, covetous. 

 Above the rest, seek to engross me whole, 

 And counterwork the one unto the other, 

 Contend in fight, as they would seem in lores : 

 All which I suffer, playing with their hopes. 

 And am content to coin them into profit, 

 And look upon their kindness, and take more, 

 And look on that ; still bearing them in hand. 

 Letting the cherry knock against their lips, 

 And draw it by their mouths, and back again." 



The competition in degraded servility between the flatterers ; the 

 tricks to mislead them of Mosca, Volpone's cunning and ready 

 parasite ; the brutal atteinpts of Volpono to gratify his lusts by 

 violence ; the base conspiracy of all these to convict the inno- 

 cent ; and the final exposure and punishment of the guilty, 

 form the subject-matter of the play. 



There remains one more class of dramatic compositions of 

 Jonson's which must by no means bo overlooked; it is one in 

 which ho stands without a rival among dramatists. As poet 

 laureate it was a part of his duty to compose a vast number of 

 those masques or entertainments which were so much in vogue 

 at the period. In these entertainments the gentlemen and ladies 

 of the Court, or the members of an inn of court, or other bodies 

 of persons, used to take part. Their plots and the characters 

 represented were borrowed from the classical or the fairy 

 mythology. Sometimes tho inhabitants of these very different 

 regions of the imagination met upon the same stage. The 

 pieces were illustrated by elaborate scenery and by appropriate 

 dances. Such pieces afforded the most admirable opportunity 

 for delicate flattery, for the judicious use of Jonson's varied 

 learning, and the exercise of his inexhaustible invention and 

 poetical power. They are among the most pleasing of his works. 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 



It was a common practice in the ago of which we are 

 writing for two or even more dramatists to combine in pro- 

 ducing one play. Probably these combinations were generally 

 unions not so much of choice as of necessity, and were induced 

 by the exigencies of managers, who sometimes required the plays 

 they had bespoken more quickly than one man could prepare 

 them, or who wished to secure the peculiar skill of different 

 hands for different scenic effects. The partnership of Beaumont 

 and Fletcher was of a very different kind. It was founded upon 

 the warmest friendship, and lasted as long as they both lived. 



John Fletcher was born in 1579, of a very respectable family. 

 His father was a bishop, and filled successively tho sees of 



Bristol, Winchester, and London. Soon after he was translated 

 to the last-named see he incurred the displeasure of the Queen by 

 a most imprudent, and almost indecent, second marriage. He 

 was for some time suspended from his bishopric. His promo- 

 tions, too, with their burdensome incidents of fees, first-fruits, 

 and other expenses, had followed one another with fatal 

 rapidity. The consequence was that he died in embarrassed 

 circumstances, leaving a very scanty provision for his family. 

 His son, tho poet, in all probability, therefore, began life amid 

 the same poverty aa most of his brother dramatists. He ap- 

 pears, however, to have received a university education, and 

 from his works it seems probable that ho was a competent, if 

 not a profound, scholar. 



Francis Beaumont was born in 1586 of an ancient family, 

 which had for some generations been settled in Leicestershire. 

 His father was a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He 

 himself received his education at Oxford, and upon leaving 

 the university became a student of the Inner Temple. He soon, 

 however, abandoned the law for the more congenial pursuits of 

 literature. 



When or how the intimacy of these two men began we cannot 

 tell. Both had certainly appeared as poets, Fletcher very pro- 

 bably as a dramatist, before they began to work in concert. 

 Both were among the younger friends of Ben Jonson, and both 

 seem to have been regarded with peculiar affection by that 

 great literary chief ; and it is not improbable that they met 

 and formed their life-long friendship amid the brilliant circle of 

 wits and poets over which Jonson presided. However this may 

 be, it is certain that from an early period the two men lived 

 together on terms of the closest intimacy until the marriage of 

 Beaumont ; and their literary partnership continued until Beau- 

 mont's death in 1615. Fletcher survived his friend only ten 

 years, dying in 1625. 



The plays which have como down to us bearing the joint 

 names of Beaumont and Fletcher are very numerous, rather 

 more than fifty in number. Which out of the long list were 

 really the joint productions of the two friends it is in many 

 cases impossible to determine. Some of them were probably 

 written by Fletcher before tho literary partnership was formed ; 

 some were certainly written by him after that partnership had 

 been dissolved by the death of his colleague. But where to 

 draw the line so as to distinguish precisely the plays belonging 

 to those several periods cannot bo accurately ascertained, and 

 still less is it possible to say what portions of tho plays 

 jointly written are to bo attributed to Beaumont, and what to 

 Fletcher. It is a generally received tradition that the genius 

 of Beaumont lay more in the direction of tho tragic and pathetic 

 than that of his colleague : while tho comic powers of Fletcher 

 were more strongly marked. And this is probable, though not 

 certain. Their plays range over the widest diversity of cha- 

 racter, from severe ana lofty tragedy, such as tho very power- 

 ful play of the "Maid's Tragedy," to the broadest burlesque, 

 like the " Knight of the Burning Pestle." But the plays from 

 which, probably, all readers derive the greatest amount of 

 pleasure are of a class intermediate between these two extremes. 

 Beaumont and Fletcher have left us a large number of romantic 

 dramas, belonging to mnch the same class as tho majority of 

 Shakespeare's comedies, a class of which the very pleasing play 

 of " Philaster," tho play which is said to havo established their 

 fame aa dramatists, ia an excellent specimen. 



The plota of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays are almost all of 

 them, like Shakespeare's, borrowed from Italian novelists or 

 play-writers. They are, for tho most part, worked out with dis- 

 cretion and good taste, though the authors show neither the 

 elaborate diligence of Jonson in this department, nor the con- 

 summate judgment of Shakespeare. In one point, however, the 

 plays of Beaumont and Fletcher stand especially high, that is, in 

 dramatic effect. Some of the scenes in the " Maid's Tragedy," 

 especially that in which Evadne, the guilty wife, reveals her 

 infamy to her husband, seem to us among the most striking 

 in all our dramatic literature. In delineation of character these 

 authors are far more life-liko than Jonson, though, aa compared 

 with tho greatest dramatists, they each want both depth and 

 variety. Their style ia peculiarly attractive. It is always clear 

 and perfectly intelligible, and though without either the won- 

 drous wealth of metaphor which belongs to Shakespeare alone, 

 or the dignified eloquence of Jonson, it is an instrument admir- 

 ably adapted for the fixnresaion of passion or the simpler p<u> 



