haps, not finding sufficient incidents in the plots to extend them to five acts, resolved to combine these outlines into one, by means of the fictitious audience before whom they are represented. At the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth to the Count Palatine, the inns of court were anxious to express their loyalty and good wishes, by offering magnificent entertainments to the court. Chapman was employed by the society of Lincoln's Inn to furnish a masque for the occasion; and that of the Inner-Temple applied to their fellow and associate, Beaumont, to write another for them and Gray's Inn, which was performed on Valentine's day 1612-3, with great magnifi cence. cess. In the year 1613, our poets brought several pieces on the stage with different degrees of sucThe Honest Man's Fortune was licensed by Sir George Buck, the master of the revels, and acted at the Globe. That theatre being consumed by fire in the same year, the licensed copy of this play, together with that of Shakspeare's Winter's Tale, and no doubt many others, was destroyed; and, in 1624, the players were obliged to have recourse to Sir Henry Herbert, the successor of Sir George Buck, for a new license. We have no account of the success of this piece at its original representation, but, from its being revived, we may infer that it was favourable. It is probable that Beaumont contributed the greater share of this tragi-comedy,3 which does not hold the meanest rank among the dramatic works of our poets. In the same year, the tragedy of Cupid's Revenge was first acted, and seems, notwithstanding the utter absurdity of the plot, to have met with a most favourable reception, and to have maintained its popularity during the greater part of the seventeenth century. So capricious was the taste of the public, that The Coxcomb, which was performed at court by the children of the queen's revels in the same year, met with very different success. From the prologue, written for a revival at a subsequent period, we learn, that, though it "was well received and favoured" by "men of worth," it was condemned by the multitude for its length. The expeditious manner of cutting down a play for the second night, which is so often practised in our own days, does not seem to have been known to the managers of that period. Besides the share which Fletcher had in the 3 See the introduction to the play, vol. XI. p. 127. composition of these three plays, he produced, in the same year, the comedy entitled The Captain, in which, on the very strong testimony of the prologue, he appears not to have had recourse to the assistance of Beaumont. Indeed the irregularities of the plot are such, that his not recurring to his judicious associate for aid was very unfortunate. The comedy, which was acted by the king's company, May 20, 1613, appears to have been favourably received. In the same year, The History of Cardenio was performed at court; and, on its being entered in the Stationers' Books, September 9, 1653, it was ascribed to Fletcher and Shakspeare conjointly. The play was never printed, but the title-page points out the source to have been the novel of Cardenio in Don Quixote, and, from this circumstance, it has been supposed that it was the same afterwards brought on the stage by Theobald, and printed in the year 1727, under the title of The Double Falsehood. Theobald attributed the performance to Shakspeare, but, for a long time, it was considered as a play of his own. Dr Farmer, however, was of opinion, that Theobald was not capable of writing it, and • Vol. IX. p. 131, 133. that it was the work of Shirley, or, at least, not earlier than his time; while Mr Malone is inclined to attribute the performance to Massinger. The former grounds his opinion on the probability of Shirley's initials having been mistaken for those of Shakspeare, and on the word aspect being accented on the first syllable, and not, according to the practice of Shakspeare and his contemporaries, on the second. Theobald, who, no doubt, tampered with the text, may, however, have modernised the pronunciation of the word; and that Shirley could not have been the author of Cardenio is proved by the play having been performed when he was but nineteen years of age, and many years before he commenced writing for the stage. The same objection may be raised against Massinger being concerned in any dramatic work at so early a period; and the testimony of the Stationers' Books does not appear questionable with regard to Fletcher, particularly as he had such frequent recourse to the novels of Cervantes for the plots of his plays. That Shakspeare should have had any concern in the performance is more doubtful; but, if we admit that he assisted Fletcher in The Two Noble Kinsmen, the matter will not be altogether improbable. We have no data whatever to determine the year in which the last-mentioned drama was produced. In the title-page of the first edition, which did not appear till 1634, it was ascribed to "the memorable worthies of their time, Mr John Fletcher and Mr William Shakspeare;" but the authenticity of this assertion has been disputed by some critics of eminence, amongst whom Mr Steevens deserves to be mentioned with distinction. Other judges of acknowledged discernment, and particularly Dr Farmer, have not hesitated to declare their belief in the cooperation of Shakspeare with Fletcher, and the reasons which have inclined the editor to assent to the latter opinion will be found at the conclusion of that tragedy." We have already seen that Fletcher, though united in such strict bonds of amity with Beaumont, and though associated with him in his principal dramatic compositions, not only brought several pieces on the stage before the death of Beaumont, without having recourse to his assistance, but that he engaged with other poets of the time in the dramatic partnerships then so common. Mr Malone has printed a curious document from the Henslowe papers preserved in 5 Vol. XIII. p 151, et seq. |