The characterization and the poetry, "the strength and sweetness, and high choice of brain" are Beaumont's; so, too, the marvelous subtlety of dramatic device. Save in that one-fifth to which Fletcher was admitted. There Fletcher, in beauty and in tragic power, is giving us the best that he has so far produced: over-histrionic, to be sure, but of victorious excellence. And that one-fifth, for the first and almost only time in Fletcher's career as a dramatist is "untainted by obscenity."
In an anecdote preserved by Fuller, who was seventeen years of age when Fletcher died, we may fancy that we catch a glimpse of our bachelors at work upon this very play. The dramatists "meeting once in a Tavern to contrive the rude draught of a Tragedy, Fletcher undertook to Kill the King therein; whose words being overheard by a listener (though his Loyalty not to be blamed herein) he was accused of high Treason, till the mistake soon appearing, that the plot was only against a Drammatick and Scenical King, all wound off in merriment."[73] History and fable have fastened similar stories upon famous men; but if this one is authentic it undoubtedly refers to the writing of The Maides Tragedy, for, as we shall see, the killing of its King was one of the few scenes contributed by Fletcher. And the story adds colour to the ridicule which Beaumont in 1607 had heaped upon the intelligencer that lives in ale-houses and taverns; ... "and brings informations picked out of broken words in men's common talk."
The connection thus formed with Shakespeare's company was continued by Beaumont, at any rate, until 1612, and by Fletcher as long as he lived. Before the end of 1611 the King's Players had presented to the public the last of this trio of dramatic masterpieces, A King and No King. In terrible fascination, this story of a man and woman struggling against love because they think they are brother and sister is as powerful as The Maides Tragedy. In poetry and in characterization, as well as in humour, it is grander than Philaster. But in beauty and pathos its subject did not permit it to equal either; and in dénouement, tragicomic and perforce somewhat strained, it is surpassed by the Tragedy. Of its defects as well as merits, I have so much to say later, that I must refrain now. The plot is as striking an example of constructive invention as those that had preceded. Some of the names are to be found in Xenophon's Cyropædeia (Books III-VI) and in Herodotus (Book VII); and hints for situation and characterization may have been derived from these sources, and the passion of Arbaces for his supposed sister from Fauchet's account of Thierry of France,—but such indebtedness is naught.[74] Three-quarters of the play is Beaumont's; and that large portion includes the majestic passion and conflict, the tragic irony and suspense, of A King and No King; in fact,—the whole serious plot, and part of the humorous by-play. Fletcher's slight contribution is principally of complementary scenes and low comedy. In these the curb upon his fanciful rhetoric and hilarious wit has been somewhat relaxed. In the character of the roaring Bessus, Beaumont himself gives rein with the élan of the comic artist; for the Bessus of Beaumont's scenes would have gone on a strike if he had not been suffered to "talk bawdy" between brags. Beaumont for all his sobriety and clean mirth was not a prude; and he wasn't writing the psalms of Robert Wisdom.
This play was as popular as those that had preceded. The King's Players acted it at Court in December of the year in which it had been first performed. And between October 1612 and March 1613, assisting in the festivities for the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth with the Elector Palatine, they presented before royalty all three of the great Beaumont-Fletcher plays. These were numbers in a series of thirteen that included, as well, the Much Ado, Tempest, Winter's Tale, Merry Wives, Othello, and Julius Caesar of Shakespeare. They also presented about the same time, in a series of six acted before the King (including I Henry IV, Much Ado, and The Alchemist), one of Fletcher's comedies of manners and intrigue, The Captaine, and a play utterly lost, called Cardenna, in which it is supposed that Fletcher collaborated with the Master himself.
That our dramatists, however, after their association was formed with Shakespeare and his company, by no means severed their connection with the company for which they had written in their younger days, the Children of the Queen's Revels, appears from the fact that during the same festivities a tragedy written by them about 1611, Cupid's Revenge, was played by the Children three times, and their romantic comedy, The Coxcombe twice; and that, in 1615 or the beginning of 1616, the Children presented at the new Blackfriars what was, probably, the last product of the Beaumont-Fletcher partnership, The Scornful Ladie.
Neither Cupid's Revenge nor The Scornful Ladie (though the latter, at least, was very popular and had a long life upon the stage) is a drama of high distinction. The former is a blend of two stories from Sidney's Arcadia,—the story of the vengeance of Cupid upon the princess Erona (Hidaspes in the play) who caused to be destroyed the images and pictures of Cupid, and was consequently doomed to an infatuation for a base-born man,—and the painful career of Plangus (Leucippus in the play) who, having an intrigue "with a private man's wife" (the monstrous Bacha of the play) gave her up to his father, swearing to her virtue, only to find that she should attempt to renew her liaison with him and, failing, scheme his downfall. The dramatists made considerable alteration, and added to the sources. But though the main plot—that of Leucippus and Bacha—offered magnificent possibilities, they fail of realization. Beaumont wrote about one-half of the play, and it is in his scenes that whatever there is of moral struggle and sublimity, of pathetic irony and of poetry, appears.
The Scornful Ladie, which I assign to this late date partly because of an allusion to the negotiations for a Spanish marriage, 1614-1616, is principally of Fletcher's composition. It is of the type of his earlier and later comedies of intrigue. Like most of them it is extremely well contrived for presentation upon the stage and it was, as I have said, most successful. The merit of the play lies, not in any element of poetry or vital romance, but in humorous and realistic characterization, easy dialogue, and clever device. The dramatists deserve all credit for the ingenious invention, for here again there is no known source. Beaumont's contribution, about one-third, is distinguished by the observation and the vis comica already displayed in the Woman-Hater and the Knight of the Burning Pestle and King and No King. But he is not dominating the details. When they wrote a comedy of intrigue, Fletcher sat at the head of the table. It is possible, however, that some of the "rules and standard wit" which Francis was so soon to leave to his friend "in legacy" were here applied; for the play is less exuberantly reckless in tone than several which Fletcher wrote alone. The three masterpieces of romantic drama, Beaumont controlled in composition, and revised. Of this play he did not finish the revision. It was written about 1614 or 1615, after he had settled in the country with his wife, and not long before his death.[75]
FOOTNOTES:
[63] Aubrey's Brief Lives, Ed. Clark, I, 94-95.
[64] Dyce, B. and F., I, XXVI, n.