THE AUTHORSHIP OF THREE DISPUTED PLAYS
With the tests which have thus been described we are equipped for an
examination of the plays written before 1616, which have, in these
latter days, been with some show of evidence regarded as the
joint-production of the "two wits and friends."[180] While attempting
to separate the composition of one author from that of the other, we may
determine the dramatic peculiarities of each during the course of the
partnership, and obtain a fairly definite basis for an historical and
literary appreciation of the plays, individually considered.
1.--Of the _Foure Playes, or Morall Representations, in One_ (first
published as by Beaumont and Fletcher in the folio of 1647, but without
indication of first performance or of acting company), the last two,
_The Triumph of Death_ and _The Triumph of Time_, are, according to the
verse tests, undoubtedly Fletcher's and have been assigned to him by all
critics. _The Triumph of Death_ is studded with alliterations and with
repetitions of the effective word:
Oh I could curse
And crucify myself for childish doting
Upon a face that feeds not with fresh figures
Every fresh hour;
and with triplets:
What new body
And new face must I make me, with new manners;
and with the resonant "all":
Make her all thy heaven,
And all thy joy, for she is all thy happiness;
and with Fletcher's favourite words and his nouns in apposition,
rhetorical questions, afterthoughts, verbal enumerations, and turgid
exposition. The same may be said of _The Triumph of Time_. As there is
less of the redundant epithet than in _The Faithfull Shepheardesse_
(1609), but more than in _Philaster_ (before July 12, 1610), I am of the
opinion that Fletcher's contribution to the _Triumphs_ falls
chronologically between those plays. As Fletcher matures he prunes his
adjectives.
The rest of these _Morall Representations_ display neither the verse nor
the rhetoric of Fletcher. On the basis of verse-tests Boyle assigns them
to Beaumont. Macaulay says, "probably,"--and adds the _Induction_. But
Oliphant, taking into consideration also the rhetorical and dramatic
qualities, gives the _Induction_ and _The Triumph of Honour_ to a third
author, Nathaniel Field, and only _The Triumph of Love_ to Beaumont. As
to the _Induction_ and _The Triumph of Honour_ I agree with Oliphant.
They are full of polysyllabic Latinisms such as Field uses in his _Woman
is a Weather-cocke_ (entered for publication November 23, 1611) and
Beaumont never uses: 'to participate affairs,' 'torturous engine,' etc.;
and they are marked by simpler Fieldian expressions 'wale,' 'gyv'd,'
'blown man,' 'miskill,' 'vane,' 'lubbers,' 'urned,' and a score of
others not found anywhere in Beaumont's undoubted writings. A few words,
like 'basilisk' and 'loathed' suggest Beaumont, as does the verse; but
this may be explained by vogue or imitation. Field was two or three
years younger than Beaumont, and had played as a boy actor in one or
more of the early Beaumont and Fletcher productions. His _Woman is a
Weather-cocke_ and his _Amends for Ladies_ indicate the influence of
Beaumont in matters of comic invention, poetic hyperbole, burlesque and
pathos, as well as in metrical style. The _Honour_ is a somewhat
bombastic, puerile, magic-show written in manifest imitation of
Beaumont's verse and rhetoric.
As to _The Triumph of Love_, I go further than Oliphant. I assign at
least half of it, viz., scenes 1, 2, and 6, on the basis of diction, to
Field. In scenes 3, 4, and 5, I find some trace of Beaumont's favourite
expressions, of his thoughts of destiny and death and woman's
tenderness, his poetic spontaneity, his sensational dramatic surprises;
but I think these are an echo. The rural scene lacks his exquisite
simplicity; and some of the words are not of his vocabulary. One is
sorry to strike from the list of Beaumont's creations the pathetic and
almost impressive figure of Violante. If it was originally Beaumont's,
it is of his earlier work revamped by Field; if it is Field's, it is an
echo simulating the voice, but missing the reality, of Beaumont's
Aspatia, Bellario, Urania. This criticism holds true of both the
Triumphs, _Love_ and _Honour_.
The commonly accepted date, 1608, for the composition of the _Foure
Playes in One_ is derived from Fleay, who mistakenly quotes a reference
in the 1619 quarto of _The Yorkshire Tragedy_ to the _Foure Playes_ as
if it were of the 1608 quarto where the reference does not appear.[181]
While Fletcher may have written the first draft of his contribution
before the middle of 1610, it is evident from Field's Address _To the
Reader_ in the first quarto of the _Woman is a Weather-cocke_ (entered
S. R., November 23, 1611), that Field's contribution was made after
November 23, 1611. In that Address he makes it plain that this is his
first dramatic effort: "I have been vexed with vile plays myself a great
while, hearing many; now I thought to be even with some, and they should
hear mine too." We have already noticed[182] that Field had not written
even his _Weather-cocke_, still less anything in collaboration with
Fletcher, at the time of the publication of _The Faithfull
Shepheardesse_ (between January and July, 1609); for in his
complimentary poem for the quarto of that "Pastorall," Field
acknowledges his unknown name and his Muse in swaddling clouts, and
timidly confesses his ambition to write something like _The
Shepheardesse_, "including a Morallitie, Sweete and profitable." That
Field's contribution to the _Foure Playes_ was not made before the date
of the first performance of _The Weather-cocke_ by the Revels' Children
at Whitefriars, _i. e._, January 4, 1610 to Christmas 1610-11 (when its
presentation before the King at Whitehall probably took place), further
appears from his dedication _To Any Woman that hath been no
Weather-cocke_ (quarto, 1611) in which he alludes not to _The Triumph of
Honour_, or of _Love_, but to _Amends for Ladies_, as his "next play,"
then on the stocks, and, he thought, soon to be printed.[183] The
evidence, external and internal, amply presented by Oliphant, Thorndike,
and others, but with a view to conclusions different from mine as to
date and authorship, confirms me in the belief that Fletcher's _Time_
and _Death_, though written at least two years earlier, were not
gathered up with Field's _Induction_, _Honour_, and _Love_, into the
_Foure Playes in One_ until about 1612; and that the series was
performed at Whitefriars by Field's company of the Queen's Revels'
Children, shortly after they had first acted _Cupid's Revenge_ at the
same theatre.
2.--Of the remaining ten plays in which, according to the historical
evidence adduced by various critics, Beaumont could have collaborated,
at least two furnish no material that can be of service for the
estimation of his qualities. If _Love's Cure_ was written as early as
the date of certain references in the story, viz., 1605-1609, it is so
overlaid by later alteration that whether, as the textual experts guess,
it be Beaumont's revised by Massinger, or Fletcher's revised by
Massinger and others, or Massinger and Middleton's, or Beaumont's with
the assistance of Fletcher and revised by Massinger, Beaumont for us is
indeterminate. Fleay, Oliphant, and others trace him in a few prose
scenes, and in two or three of verse.[184] But where the rhetorical and
dramatic manner occasionally suggest him, or the metre has somewhat of
his stamp, words abound that I find in no work of his undisputed
composition. The servant, Lazarillo, like him of Beaumont's
_Woman-Hater_, is a glutton, but he does not speak Beaumont's language.
The scenes ascribed to Beaumont reek with an excremental and sexual
vulgarity to which Beaumont never condescended, unless for brief space,
and when absolutely necessary for characterization. And there is
little, indeed, that bespeaks Fletcher. _Love's Cure_ was first
attributed to Beaumont and Fletcher at a "reviving of the play" after
they were both dead; and it was not printed till 1647. It is not
unlikely, as G. C. Macaulay holds, that the play was written by
Massinger, in or after 1622.
3.--As to that comedy of prostitution, with occasional essays on the
special charms of cuckoldry, _The Captaine_ (acted in 1613, maybe as
early as 1611, and by the King's Company) there is no convincing
external proof of Beaumont's authorship. It is, on the contrary,
assigned to Fletcher by one of his younger contemporaries, Hills, whose
attributions of such authorship are frequently correct; and its accent
throughout is more clearly that of Fletcher than of any other dramatist.
The critics are agreed that it is not wholly his, however; and G. C.
Macaulay in especial conjectures the presence of Massinger. The verse
and prose of a few scenes[185] do not preclude the possibility of
Beaumont's cooperation; but I find in them no vestige of his faith in
sweet innocence; and in only one,--the awful episode (IV, 5), in which
the Father seeks his wanton daughter in a house of shame and would kill
her,--his imaginative elevation or his dramatic creativity.
FOOTNOTES:
[180] To employ in this process of separation the characteristics of
Fletcher's later dramatic technique as a criterion does not appear to
me permissible. For these, however, the reader may consult Miss
Hatcher's _John Fletcher, A Study on Dramatic Method_, and sections 15
and 16 of my essay on _The Fellows and Followers of Shakespeare_, Part
Two, _Rep. Eng. Com._, Vol. III, now in press. The technique is more
likely to change than the versification, the style, the mental habit.
Its later characteristics may, some of them, have been derived from
the association with Beaumont; or they may be of Fletcher's maturer
development under different influences and conditions. It is fair to
cite them as corroborative evidence in the process of separation, only
when they are in continuance of Fletcher's earlier idiosyncrasy. I
have, also, refrained from complicating the present discussion by
analysis of the style of Massinger, for which see Fleay, _N. S. S.
Trans._, 1874, _Shakesp. Manual_, 1876, _Engl. Studien_, 1885-1886,
and _Chron. Eng. Dram._, 1891; Boyle, _Engl. Studien_, 1881-1887, and
_N. S. S. Trans._, 1886; Macaulay, _Francis Beaumont_, 1883; Oliphant,
_Engl. Studien_, 1890-1892; Thorndike, _Infl. of B. and F._, 1901; and
section 16 of my essay mentioned above. There is no proof of
Massinger's dramatic activity before July 1613, nor of his cooperation
with Fletcher until after that date, _i. e._, after Beaumont's virtual
cessation. He may have revised some of Beaumont's lines and scenes;
but Beaumont's style is too well defined to be confused with that of
Massinger or of any other reviser; or of an imitator, such as Field.
[181] See Thorndike, _Infl. of B. and F._, p. 85, for discussion and
authorities.
[182] Chapter VI.
[183] It was not printed till 1618; but had been acted long before.
[184] II, 1, 2; III, 1, 3, 5; V, 3.
[185] IV, 5; V, 2, 4, 5.