"Fletcher, the King of Poets! such was he,
That earn'd all tribute, claim'd all soveraignty."
The third view was—still to follow Miss Hatcher—that "Fletcher was the genius and creator in the work, and Beaumont merely the judicial and regulative force." Cartwright in his two poems of 1647, as I have already pointed out, emphasizes this view:
Though when all Fletcher writ, and the entire
Man was indulged unto that sacred fire,
His thoughts and his thoughts dresse appeared both such
That 't was his happy fault to do too much;
Who therefore wisely did submit each birth
To knowing Beaumont ere it did come forth;
Working againe, until he said 't was fit
And made him the sobriety of his wit;
Though thus he call'd his Judge into his fame,
And for that aid allow'd him halfe the name,
'T is knowne that sometimes he did stand alone,
That both the Spunge and Pencill were his owne;
That himselfe judged himselfe, could singly do,
And was at last Beaumont and Fletcher too.
A similar view is implied by Dryden, when, in his Essay of Dramatick Poesie, 1668, he attributes the regularity of their joint-plots to Beaumont's influence; and reports that even "Ben Jonson while he lived submitted all his writings to his censure, and 'tis thought used his judgment in correcting, if not contriving, all his plots."
This tradition of Fletcher as creator and Beaumont as critic continued for generations, only occasionally disturbed,[145] in spite of the testimony of Cockayne to Fletcher's sole authorship of most of the plays in the first folio, to the coöperation of Massinger with Fletcher in some, and to the fact that there were enough plays not here included, written conjointly by Beaumont and Fletcher, to warrant the publication of a separate volume, properly ascribed to both. To the mistaken attributions of authorship by Dryden, Rymer, and others, I make reference in my forthcoming Essay on The Fellows and Followers of Shakespeare, Part Two.[146] The succeeding history of opinion through Langbaine, Collier, Theobald, Sympson and Seward, Chalmers, Brydges, The Biographia Dramatica, Cibber, Malone, Darley, Dyce, and the purely literary critics from Lamb to Swinburne, has been admirably outlined by Miss Hatcher in the first chapter of her dissertation on the Dramatic Method of John Fletcher.
With Fleay, in 1874, began the scientific analysis of the problem, based upon metrical tests as derived from the investigation of the individual verse of Fletcher, Massinger, and Beaumont. His method has been elaborated, corrected, and supplemented by additional rhetorical and literary tests, on the part of various critics, some of whom are mentioned below.[147] The more detailed studies in metre and style are by R. Boyle, G. C. Macaulay, and E. H. Oliphant; and the best brief comparative view of their conclusions as regards Beaumont's contribution is to be found in R. M. Alden's edition of The Knight of the Burning Pestle and A King and No King. To the chronology of the plays serviceable introductions are afforded by Macaulay in the list appended to his chapter in the sixth volume of the Cambridge History of English Literature, and by A. H. Thorndike in his Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher upon Shakespeare.
Concerning the authorship of the successive scenes in a few of the plays undoubtedly written in partnership by Beaumont and Fletcher a consensus of opinion has practically been reached. Concerning others, especially those in which a third or fourth hand may be traced, the difference of opinion is still bewildering. This divergence is due, perhaps, to the proneness of the critic to emphasize one or more tests out of relation to the rest, or to forget that though individual scenes were undertaken now by one, now by the other of the colleagues, the play as a whole would be usually planned by both, but any individual scene or passage revised by either. The tests of external evidence have of course been applied by all critics, but as to events and dates there is still variety of opinion. Of the internal criteria, those based upon the peculiarities of each partner in respect of versification have been so carefully studied and applied that to repeat the operation seems like threshing very ancient straw; but to accept the winnowings of others, however careful, is unsatisfactory. Tests of rhetorical habit and tectonic preference have also been, in general, attempted; but not, I think, exhaustively. And, though much has been established, and availed of, in analysis, there remains yet something to desire in the application of the more subtle differentiæ yielded by such preliminary methods of investigation,—what these differentiæ teach us concerning the temperamental idiosyncrasies of each of the partners in scope and method of observation, in poetic imagery, in moral and emotional insight and elevation, intellectual outlook, philosophical and religious conviction.
FOOTNOTES:
[141] See G. C. Macaulay (Camb. Hist. Eng. Lit., VI), and other authorities as in footnote toward end of this chapter.
[142] See authorities as in footnote, below.