The chief collected editions of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher are:
_Comedies and Tragedies written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
Gentlemen_, printed by Humphrey Moseley in folio in 1647 as containing
plays "never printed before"; _Fifty Comedies and Tragedies written,
etc._ (fol. 1679); _Works_ ... (11 vols. 1843-1846), edited by Alexander
Dyce, which superseded earlier editions by L. Theobald, G. Colman and H.
Weber, and presented a modernized text; a second two-volume edition by
Dyce in 1852; _The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher_ (15
vols. 1905, &c.) edited by Arnold Glover and A.R. Waller in the
"Cambridge English Classics" from the text of the 2nd folio, and giving
variant readings from all separate issues of the plays previous to that
edition; and _Works_ ... (12 vols. 1904, &c.), under the general
editorship of A.H. Bullen, the text of which is founded on Dyce but with
many variant readings, the last volume containing memoirs and excursuses
by the editor.
The foundation of all critical work on Beaumont and Fletcher is to be
found in Dyce. Discrimination between the work of the two dramatists and
their collaborators has been the object of a series of studies for the
establishment of metrical and other tests. Fletcher's verse is
recognizable by the frequency of an extra syllable, often an accented
one, at the end of a line, the use of stopped lines, and the frequency
of trisyllabic feet. He thus obtained an adaptable instrument enabling
him to dispense with prose even in comic scenes. The pioneer work in
these matters was done by F.G. Fleay in a paper read before the New
Shakspere Society in 1874 on "Metrical Tests as applied to Fletcher,
Beaumont and Massinger." His theories were further developed in the
article "Fletcher" in his _Biog. Chron. of the Eng. Drama_. Further
investigations were published by R. Boyle in _Englische Studien_ (vols.
v.-x., Heilbronn, 1882-1887), and in the New Shakspere Society
_Transactions_ (1880-1886), by Benno Leonhardt in _Anglia_ (Halle, vols.
xix. _seq._), and by E.H. Oliphant in _Englische Studien_ (vols. xiv.
_seq._). Mr Oliphant restores to Beaumont much which other critics had
been inclined to deny him. On the sources of the plays see E. Koppel in
_Munchener Beitrage zur roman. u. eng. Phil._ (Erlangen and Leipzig,
1895). Consult further articles by A.H. Bullen and R. Boyle respectively
on Fletcher and Massinger in the _Dict. of Nat. Biog._; G.C. Macaulay,
_Francis Beaumont, a Critical Study_ (1883); and Dr A.W. Ward's chapter
on "Beaumont and Fletcher" in vol. ii. of his _Hist. of Eng. Dram. Lit._
(new ed. 1899).
A list of the plays attributed to Beaumont and Fletcher, with some
details, is added, with the premiss that beyond the main lines of
criticism laid down in Mr Swinburne's article above it is often
difficult to dogmatize on authorship. Even in cases where the play was
produced long after Beaumont had ceased to write for the stage there can
be no certainty that we are not dealing with a piece which is an
adaptation of an earlier play by a later hand.
_The Joint Works of Beaumont and Fletcher.--The Scornful Lady_ (acted
c. 1609, pr. 1616) is a farcical comedy of domestic life, in which
Oliphant finds traces of alteration by a third and perhaps a fourth
hand. _Philaster or Love Lies a-Bleeding_ is assigned by Macaulay to
Beaumont practically in its entirety, while Fleay attributes only
three scenes to Fletcher. It was probably acted c. 1609, and was
printed 1620; it was revised (1695) by Elkanah Settle and (1763) by
the younger Colman, probably owing its long popularity to the touching
character of Bellario. Beaumont's share also predominated in _The
Maid's Tragedy_ (acted c. 1609, pr. 1619), in _A King and No King_
(acted at court December 26, 1611, and perhaps earlier, pr. 1619),
while _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_ (c. 1610, pr. 1613),
burlesquing the heroic and romantic play of which Heywood's _Four
Prentices_ is an example, might perhaps be transferred entire to
Beaumont's account. In _Cupid's Revenge_ (acted at court January 1612,
and perhaps at Whitefriars in 1610, pr. 1615), founded on Sidney's
_Arcadia_, the two dramatists appear to have had a third collaborator
in Massinger and perhaps a fourth in Nathaniel Field.
The _Coxcomb_ (acted c. 1610, and by the Children of the Queen's
Revels in 1612, pr. 1647) seems to have undergone later revision by
Massinger. Fletcher's collaboration with other dramatists had begun
during his connexion with Beaumont, who apparently ceased to write for
the stage two or three years before his death.
_Works Assigned to Beaumont's Sole Authorship.--The Woman-Hater_ (pr.
1607, as "lately acted by the children of Paul's") was assigned
formerly to Fletcher. The _Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn_
was presented at Whitehall on the 26th of February 1612, on the
marriage of the Prince and Princess Palatine. Of _Four Plays, or Moral
Representations, in One_ (acted 1608, pr. 1647), the _Induction_, with
_The Triumph of Honour_ and _The Triumph of Love_, both founded on
tales from the _Decameron_, are by Beaumont.
_Works Assigned to Fletcher's Sole Authorship.--The Faithful
Shepherdess_ (pr. c. 1609) was ill received on its original
production, but was revived in 1634. That Fletcher was the sole author
is practically unquestioned, though Ben Jonson in Drummond's
_Conversations_ is made to assert that "Beaumont and Fletcher ten
years since hath written _The Faithful Shepherdess_." It was
translated into Latin verse by Sir R. Fanshawe in 1658, and Milton's
_Comus_ owes not a little to it. In _Four Plays in One_, the two last,
_The Triumph of Death_ and _The Triumph of Time_, are Fletcher's. In
the indifferent comedy of _The Captain_ (acted 1612-1613, revived
1626, pr. 1647) there is no definite evidence of any other hand than
Fletcher's, though the collaboration of Beaumont, Massinger and Rowley
has been advanced. Other Fletcher plays are: _Wit Without Money_
(acted 1614, pr. 1639); the two romantic tragedies of _Bonduca_ (in
which Caradach or Caractacus is the chief figure rather than Bonduca
or Boadicea) and _Valentinian_, both dating from c. 1616 and printed
in the first folio; _The Loyal Subject_ (acted 1618, revived at court
1633, pr. 1647); _The Mad Lover_ (acted before March 1619, pr. 1647),
which borrows something from the story of Mundus and Paulina in
Josephus (bk. xviii.); _The Humorous Lieutenant_ (1619, pr. 1647);
_Woman Pleased_ (c. 1620, pr. 1647); _The Woman's Prize or The Tamer
Tam'd_ (produced probably between 1610 and 1613, acted 1633 at
Blackfriars and at court, pr. 1647), a kind of sequel to _The Taming
of the Shrew_; _The Chances_ (uncertain date, pr. 1647), taken from
_La Sennora Cornelia_ of Cervantes, and repeatedly revived after the
Restoration and in the 18th century; _Monsieur Thomas_ (acted perhaps
as early as 1609, pr. 1639); _The Island Princess_ (c. 1621, pr.
1647); _The Pilgrim_ and _The Wild Goose-Chase_ (pr. 1652), the second
of which was adapted in prose by Farquhar, both acted at court in
1621, and possibly then not new pieces; _A Wife for a Month_ (acted
1624, pr. 1647); _Rule a Wife and Have a Wife_ (lic. 1624, pr. 1640).
_The Pilgrim_ received additions from Dryden, and was adapted by
Vanbrugh.
_Fletcher in Collaboration with other Dramatists._--External evidence
of Fletcher's connexion with Massinger is given by Sir Aston Cokaine,
who in an epitaph on Fletcher and Massinger wrote: "Playes they did
write together, were great friends," and elsewhere claimed for
Massinger a share in the plays printed in the 1647 folio. James
Shirley and William Rowley have their part in the works that used to
be included in the Beaumont and Fletcher canon; and to a letter from
Field, Daborne and Massinger, asking for L5 for their joint
necessities from Henslowe about the end of 1615, there is a postscript
suggesting the deduction of the sum from the "mony remaynes for the
play of Mr Fletcher and ours." The problem is complicated when the
existing versions of the play are posterior to Fletcher's lifetime,
that is, revisions by Massinger or another of pieces which were even
originally of double authorship. In this way Beaumont's work may be
concealed under successive revisions, and it would be rash to assert
that none of the late plays contains anything of his. Mr R. Boyle
joins the name of Cyril Tourneur to those of Fletcher and Massinger in
connexion with _The Honest Man's Fortune_ (acted 1613, pr. 1647),
which Fleay identifies with "the play of Mr Fletcher's and ours." _The
Knight of Malta_ (acted 1618-1619, pr. 1647) is in its existing form a
revision by Fletcher, Massinger, and possibly Field, of an earlier
play which Oliphant thinks was probably written by Beaumont about
1608. The same remarks (with the exclusion of Field's name) apply to
_Thierry and Theodoret_ (acted c. 1617, pr. 1621), perhaps a satire on
contemporary manners at the French court, though Beaumont's share in
either must be regarded as problematical. Fletcher and Massinger's
great tragedy of _Sir John van Olden Barnaveldt_ (acted 1619) was
first printed in Bullen's _Old Plays_ (vol. ii., 1883). They followed
it up with _The Custom of the Country_ (acted 1619, pr. 1647), based
on an English translation (1619) of _Los Trabajos de Persiles y
Sigismunda; The Double Marriage_ (c. 1620, pr. 1647); _The Little
French Lawyer_ (c. 1620, pr. 1647), the plot of which can be traced
indirectly to a _novellino_ by Massuccio Salernitano; _The Laws of
Candy_ (c. 1618, pr. 1647), of disputed authorship; _The False One_
(c. 1620, pr. 1647), dealing with the subject of Caesar and
Cleopatra; _The Spanish Curate_ (acted 1622, pr. 1647), repeatedly
revived after the Restoration, was derived from Leonard Digges's
translation (1622) of a Spanish novel, _Gerardo, the Unfortunate
Spaniard; The Prophetess_ (1622, pr. 1647), afterwards made into an
opera by Betterton to Purcell's music; _The Sea-Voyage_ (1622, pr.
1647); _The Elder Brother_ (perhaps originally written by Fletcher
c. 1614; revised and acted 1635, pr. 1647); _Beggar's Bush_ (acted
at court 1622, probably then not new, pr. 1647); and _The Noble
Gentleman_ (1625-1626, pr. 1647). Fletcher only had a small share in
_Wit at Several Weapons_--"if he but writ an act or two," says an
epilogue on its revival (1623 or 1626),--and the play is probably a
revision by Rowley and Middleton of an early Beaumont and Fletcher
play. _A Very Woman_ (1634, pr. 1655) is a revision by Massinger of
_The Woman's Plot_ ascribed to Fletcher and acted at court in 1621.
Field worked with Fletcher and Massinger on the lost play of the
_Jeweller of Amsterdam_ (1619), as on the _Faithful Friends_
(1613-1614) and _The Queen of Corinth_ (c. 1618, pr. 1647). _The
Lover's Progress_ (acted 1634, pr. 1647) is probably a revision by
Massinger of the Fletcher play licensed in 1623 as _The Wandering
Lovers_, and is perhaps identical with _Cleander_, licensed in 1634.
_Love's Cure or The Martial Maid_ (1623 or 1625) is thought by Mr
Fleay to be a revision by Massinger of a Beaumont and Fletcher play
produced as early as 1607-1608. W. Rowley joined Fletcher in _The Maid
in the Mill_ (1623, pr. 1647), and had a share with Massinger in the
revision of _The Fair Maid of the Inn_ (licensed 1626, pr. 1647),
based on _La illustre Fregona_ of Cervantes. _Nice Valour_ (acted
1625-1626, pr. 1647) seems to have been altered by Middleton from an
earlier play; _The Widow_, printed in 1652 as by Jonson, Fletcher and
Middleton, must be ascribed almost exclusively to Middleton. _The
Night Walker_ (1633) is a revision by Shirley of a Fletcher play.
_Fletcher and Jonson in Collaboration._--The history of _The Bloody
Brother or Rollo, Duke of Normandy_, printed in 1637 as by "B.J.F.,"
is matter of varied speculation. Mr Oliphant thinks the basis of the
play to be an early work (c. 1604) of Beaumont, on which is
superimposed a revision (1616) by Fletcher, Jonson and Middleton, and
a subsequent revision (1636-1637) by Massinger. The general view is
that the main portion of the play is referable to Jonson and Fletcher.
Jonson apparently had a share in Fletcher's _Love's Pilgrimage_ (pr.
1647), which seems to have been revised by Massinger in 1635.
_Fletcher and Shakespeare._--_The Two Noble Kinsmen_ was printed in
1634 as by Mr John Fletcher and Mr William Shakespeare. If its first
representation was in 1625 it was in the year of Fletcher's death. It
was included in the second folio of Beaumont and Fletcher's comedies
and tragedies. If Shakespeare and Fletcher worked in concert it was
probably in 1612-1613, and the existing play probably represents a
revision by Massinger in 1625. _Henry VIII._ (played at the Globe in
1613) is usually ascribed mainly to Fletcher and Massinger, and the
conditions of its production were probably similar. Fletcher and
Shakespeare are together credited at Stationers' Hall with the lost
play of _Cardenio_, destroyed by Warburton's cook. (M. Br.)