The uncertainty regarding the respective shares of the two authors in the production of this large number of dramas and, consequently, regarding the quality of the genius of each, commenced even during the life of Fletcher who survived his friend by nine years, and it has continued in some fashion down to the present time. Writing an elegy "on Master Beaumont, presently after his death,"[143] that is to say, in 1616-17, John Earle, a precocious youth of sixteen, at Christ Church, Oxford, is so occupied with lament and praise for "the poet so quickly taken off" that he not only ascribes to him the whole of Philaster and The Maides Tragedy (in both of which it was always known that Fletcher had a share) but omits mention of Fletcher altogether. So far, however, as the estimate of the peculiar genius of Beaumont goes, the judgment of young Earle has rarely been surpassed.
Oh, when I read those excellent things of thine,
Such Strength, such sweetnesse, coucht in every line,
Such life of Fancy, such high choise of braine,—
Nought of the Vulgar mint or borrow'd straine,
Such Passion, such expressions meet my eye,
Such Wit untainted with obscenity,
And these so unaffectedly exprest,
But all in a pure flowing language drest,
So new, so fresh, so nothing trod upon,
And all so borne within thyself, thine owne,
I grieve not now that old Menanders veine
Is ruin'd, to survive in thee againe.
The succeeding exaltation of his idol above Plautus and Aristophanes, nay even Chaucer, is of a generous extravagance, but the lad lays his finger on the real Beaumont when he calls attention to "those excellent things;" and to the histrionic quality, the high seriousness, the "humours" and the perennial vitality of Beaumont's contribution to dramatic poetry.
A year or so later, and still during Fletcher's lifetime, we find Drummond of Hawthornden confusing in his turn the facts of authorship; for he "reports Jonson as saying that 'Flesher and Beaumont, ten years since, hath written The Faithfull Shipheardesse, a tragicomedie well done,'—whereas both Jonson and Beaumont had already addressed lines to Fletcher in commendation of his pastoral."[144] By 1647, as Miss Hatcher has shown, the confusion had crystallized itself into three distinct opinions, equally false, concerning the respective contribution of the authors to the plays loosely accredited to their partnership. These opinions are represented in the commendatory verses prefixed to the first folio. One was that "they were equal geniuses fused into one by the force of perfect congeniality and not to be distinguished from each other in their work,"—thus put into epigram by Sir George Lisle:
For still your fancies are so wov'n and knit,
'T was Francis Fletcher or John Beaumont writ;
and repeated by Sir John Pettus:
How Angels (cloyster'd in our humane Cells)
Maintaine their parley, Beaumont-Fletcher tels:
Whose strange, unimitable Intercourse
Transcends all Rules.
A second, the dominant view in 1647, was that "the plays were to be accredited to Fletcher alone, since Beaumont was not to be taken into serious account in explaining their production." This opinion is expressed by Waller, who, referring not only to the plays of that folio (in only two of which Beaumont appears) but to others like The Maides Tragedy and The Scornful Ladie in which, undoubtedly, Beaumont coöperated, says:
Fletcher, to thee wee do not only owe
All these good Playes, but those of others, too; ...
No Worthies form'd by any Muse but thine,
Could purchase Robes to make themselves so fine;
and by Hills, who writes,—"upon the Ever-to-be-admired Mr. John Fletcher and his Playes,"—