I do not wonder that, as the Prologue in the first folio tells us, it was "condemned by the ignorant multitude," not only because of its length, a fault removed in the editions which we possess, but because the larger part of the play is written by Fletcher, and in his most inartistic, and irrational, licentious vein. Beaumont, though admitted to the partnership, had not yet succeeded in hanging "plummets" on his friend's luxuriance. He contented himself with contributing to a theme of Boccaccian cuckoldry the subplot of how Ricardo, drunk, loses his betrothed, and finds her again and is forgiven,—a little story that contains all the poignancy of sorrow and poppy of romance and poetry of innocence that make the comedy readable and tolerable.
As to the first production of the Philaster a word must be said here, because the event marks the earliest association, concerning which we have any assurance, of the young dramatists with Shakespeare. Until about 1609 they appear to have written for the Paul's Boys, who acted, probably in their singing-school, until 1607; and for the Queen's Revels' Children who, under various managements, had been occupying Richard Burbadge's theatre of Blackfriars since 1597. Their association with the Paul's Boys would of itself have brought them into touch with other Paul's dramatists, Dekker, Webster, Middleton, and Chapman. In their association with the Queen's Revels' Children they had been thrown closely together with Chapman again, with Jonson, and with John Day, all of whom wrote for Blackfriars; and with Marston, who not only wrote plays for the Children but had a financial interest in the company. Some of these dramatists,—Jonson, for instance, and Webster,—had occasionally written for Shakespeare's company during these years; but we have no proof that Beaumont and Fletcher had any connection with the King's Players of Shakespeare's company, as long as the Children's companies continued in their usual course at St. Paul's singing-school and Blackfriars. After 1606, however, the Paul's Boys were on the wane. Perhaps they are to be indentified with the new Children of the King's Revels, and an occupancy of Whitefriars, in 1607; but that clue soon disappears. And as to the Queen's Revels' Children, we find that in April 1608 they were suppressed for ridiculing royalty upon the stage.[67] Their manager, Henry Evans, to whom with three others Richard Burbadge had let Blackfriars in 1600, now sought to be set free from the contract; and in August 1608, the Burbadges (Richard and Cuthbert), Shakespeare, Heming, Condell, and Slye of the King's Company, took over the lease which still had many years to run.[68] Shakespeare's company had been acting at the Burbadges' theatre of the Globe since 1599,—as the Lord Chamberlain's till 1603; after that, as his Majesty's Servants. Now Shakespeare's company took charge of Blackfriars, as well; and, under their management, for about a month between December 7, 1609 and January 4, 1610 the Queen's Revels' Children, being reinstated in royal favour, resumed their acting at Blackfriars. On the latter date, the Children as reorganized, opened at Whitefriars under the management of Philip Rossiter and others; and among the first plays presented by them, there, were Jonson's Epicoene and, I believe, Beaumont and Fletcher's The Coxcombe.
But, in the process of readjustment at Blackfriars, our young partners in dramatic production must have been drawn into professional relationship with the members of Shakespeare's company and undoubtedly with Shakespeare himself. From the first quarto of Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding, published in 1620, we learn that this, the earliest of their great tragicomedies, was acted not by the Queen's Revels' Children, but by the King's Players, and at the Globe. From the second quarto, of 1622, we learn that it was acted also at Blackfriars: it may indeed have been first presented there. Our earliest record of the play shows that it was in existence before October 8, 1610. The Scourge of Folly by John Davies of Hereford, entered for publication on that date, contains an epigram to "the well deserving Mr. John Fletcher," which runs—
Love lies a-Bleeding, if it should not prove
Her utmost art to show why it doth love.
Thou being the Subject (now), It raignes upon,
Raign'st in Arte, Judgement, and Invention:
For this I love thee; and can doe no lesse
For thine as faire, as faithfull Sheepheardesse.
Since there is nothing in Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding, to indicate a date of composition earlier than 1608, and since this is the first of Beaumont and Fletcher's dramas to be performed by Shakespeare's company, we may be fairly certain that the performance followed the readjustment of affairs between the Globe and Blackfriars in August of that year. Now, there had been regulations for years past of the City authorities and the Privy Council in accordance with which theatre in the City proper and the suburbs of Surrey and Middlesex were closed whenever the number of deaths by plague exceeded a certain limit per week. In and after 1608 this limit was set at forty; and it is probable that, in accordance with a still older regulation, the ban was not lifted until it was evident that the decrease in deaths was more than temporary.[69] That actors sometimes performed at Court while the plague rate was still prohibitive in and about the City, does not by any means justify us in assuming that they were ever allowed at such times to play in theatres thronged by the public.[70] Between August 8, 1608 and October 8, 1610, the only continuous period in which plays might have been presented by Shakespeare's company at the Globe or Blackfriars, without violating the plague law, was from December 7, 1609 to July 12, 1610; and we therefore conclude that it was during those months that Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster was first acted. The only other abatement of the plague that might have given promise of continuance was between March 2 and 23, 1609; but on March 9 the rate of deaths rose again above forty, and it is not likely that the authorities would have permitted the theatres to resume operations during those three weeks.[71]
THE GLOBE THEATRE, WITH ST. PAUL'S IN THE BACKGROUND
From Vischer's long view of London, 1616
With Philaster Beaumont and Fletcher leaped into the foremost rank as dramatists. I have so much to say of this tragicomedy in my discussion of the authorship of its successive scenes, that but a word may here be said concerning the reasons for its success. Hitherto, practically Shakespeare alone had written for the King's Servants romantic comedies of a serious cast; and they were generally based upon some well-known story. Here was a comedy of serious kind with a romantic and original plot, by authors comparatively new to the general public, written in a style refreshingly unhackneyed, and played in the best theatres and by the best company that London possessed. The Hamlet-like hero seeking his kingdom and his princess—the daughter of the usurper—and, through misunderstandings and misadventures, tragic apprehensions, swiftly succeeding crises, bloodshed, riot, and surprising reversals of fortune, attaining both birth-right and love; the pathetic innocence and nobly futile devotion of his girl-page; the triangular affair of the affections; the humour of the secondary characters; the allurements of spectacle and masque; the atmosphere of the palace, heroic,—of the country, idyllic,—of Mile-end and its roarers of the borough, somewhat burlesque,—the diapason of the poetry from bourdon to flute,—all combined to win immediate and long continuing favour, both of the City and the Court. Beaumont had, here, become to some extent "the sobriety of Fletcher's wit"; he had restrained "his quick free will,"—not, however, so much by pruning what Fletcher wrote as by admitting him to but one-quarter of the composition. Something of the intrigue, the bustle, the spectacle, the easy conversation are Fletcher's; and his, such sexual vulgarity—very little—as stamps a scene or two. The rest is Beaumont's. As in the two great romantic dramas which followed, and in Beaumont's subplot of The Coxcombe, the story is of the authors' own invention. It is not necessary to trace the girl-page and her devotion to the Diana of Montemayor, or to Bandello, or even to Sidney's Arcadia. The girl-page was a commonplace of fiction at the time; and the differences in the conduct of this part of the story are greater than the resemblances to any one of those sources. Much more evidently is the devoted Euphrasia-Bellario a younger sister of Shakespeare's Viola. But, in general, external influences bear upon details of character, situation, and device, not upon the construction of the play as a whole.
Toward the end of 1610 or early in 1611, the partner-dramatists gave Shakespeare's company another play,—in many respects their greatest,—The Maides Tragedy. Here, again, the novelty of the plot attracted, in a degree heightened even beyond that of Philaster. The terrible dilemma of the duped husband between allegiance to the King who has wronged him and assertion of his marital honour, the astounding effrontery of his adulterous wife, her gradual acquirement of a soul and her attempted expiation of lust by murder, the mingled nobility and unreason of her brother and her husband, and the pathetic devotion and self-provoked death of the hero's deserted sweetheart, will be sufficiently discussed elsewhere. This was the highly seasoned fare that the Jacobean public desiderated, served in courses, if not more novel, at any rate of more startling variety than even Shakespeare had offered—whose devices, restrained within limit, these young dramatists were exaggerating to the n-th degree. As four-fifths of the composition of this tragedy was Beaumont's, so, too, we may be sure, four-fifths of the conception and invention of the plot.[72] I have remarked, incidentally, that none of the great Beaumont-Fletcher plots is borrowed. Nearly every play, on the other hand, which Fletcher contrived alone, or in company with others than Beaumont, borrows its plot, major and minor, from some well known source, classical, historical, French, Spanish, or Italian. Mr. G. C. Macaulay states the bare truth, when he says that "in constructive faculty, at least, Beaumont was markedly superior to his colleague." Here there are traces, indeed, of external suggestion: something of Aspatia's career in relation to Amintor, who has deserted her, may be an echo of Parthenia's in the Arcadia; and the quarrel of Melantius and Amintor reminds one of that between Brutus and Cassius in Julius Cæsar; but the plot has no definite source.