Perhaps his quill flew stronger, when
'T was weavèd with his Beaumont's pen;
And might with deeper wonder hit.
These and similar statements of 1647, essentially correct, concerning the force, depth, and critical acumen of Beaumont had been anticipated in the testimonials printed during his lifetime and down to 1640, especially in those of Jonson, Davies, Drayton, and Earle.
A verdict, much more dogmatic, and responsible for the erroneous tradition which long survived, proceeded from one of the "sons of Ben," William Cartwright, himself an author of dramas, junior proctor of the University of Oxford in 1643, and "the most florid and seraphical preacher in the university." He may have derived the germ of his information from Jonson himself, but he had developed it in a one-sided manner when, writing in 1643 "upon the report of the printing of the dramaticall poems of Master John Fletcher," he implied that the genius of "knowing Beaumont" was purely restrictive and critical,—telling us that Beaumont was fain to bid Fletcher "be more dull," to "write again," to "bate some of his fire"; and that even when Fletcher had "blunted and allayed" his genius according to the critic's command, the critic Beaumont, not yet satisfied,
Added his sober spunge, and did contract
Thy plenty to lesse wit to make 't exact.
This distorted image of Beaumont's artistic quality as merely critical lived, as we shall see, for many a year. We shall, also, see that it is not from any such secondary sources that supplementary information regarding the poet himself is to be derived, but from a scientific determination of his share in the dramas ordinarily and vaguely assigned to an undifferentiated Beaumont and Fletcher.
CHAPTER XV
A FEW WORDS OF FLETCHER'S LATER YEARS
Beside the dramas which there is any meritorious reason for assigning to the joint-authorship of the two friends, some dozen plays were produced by Fletcher alone, or in collaboration with others, before the practical cessation, in 1613, or thereabout, of Beaumont's dramatic activity. After that time Fletcher's name was attached, either as sole author or as the associate of Massinger, Field, William Rowley, and perhaps others, to about thirty more. From 1614 on, he was the successor of Shakespeare as dramatic poet of the King's Players. Jonson's masques delighted the Court, but no writer of tragedy or comedy,—not Jonson, nor Philip Massinger, who was now Fletcher's closest associate, nor Middleton or Rowley, Dekker, Ford, or Webster,—compared with him in popularity at Court and in the City. He is not merely an illustrious personality, the principal author of harrowing tragedies such as Valentinian, the sole author of tragicomedies such as The Loyall Subject, and long-lived comedies—The Chances, Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, and several more,—he is a syndicate: he stands sponsor for plays like The Queene of Corinth and The Knight of Malta in which others collaborated largely with him; and his name is occasionally stamped upon plays of associates, in which he had no hand whatever. "Thou grew'st," says his contemporary and admirer, John Harris,—