Nice Valour, and some other comedy, which the publisher of the second folio' took for the WomanHater, as his plays, which must be understood indeed as chiefly his, not excluding Fletcher's as

5 The publishers of the second folio added several genuine songs, prologues, epilogues, and some lines in particular plays not contained in any former edition, which, by the account given, they perhaps got from either an old actor, or a playhouse prompter; they say from a gentleman who had been intimate with both the authors; they probably were directed by lights received from him, to place the Woman-Hater directly before The Nice Valour, and to make this the other play which Beaumont claims. The Little French Lawyer, and The Knight of the Burning Pestle, are most certainly two plays which Beaumont had a large share in; for his hand is very visible in the extreme droll character of The French Lawyer, who runs duello-mad; the prologue talks of the authors in the plural number, and the strain of high burlesque appears very similar in the two characters of Lazarillo in The Woman-Hater, and Ralpho in The Burning Pestle. Beaumont's name, too, is put first in the title-page of the first quarto of this last play, published a few years after Fletcher's death.-Seward.

No name is mentioned in the first quartos of either of these plays, which both appeared before the death of either of our poets. The reasons which Seward assigns for attributing Nice Valour and The Woman-Hater to Beaumont, he subjoined to the verses of the latter on The Faithful Shepherdess. As that poem has now been restored to its original situation before that drama, Seward's note, with Mr Nichols's very satisfactory answer, are inserted in this place. It is on this line in the poem referred to:

When Nature and his full thoughts bid him write.

Seward proceeds thus:

Here, says the judicious writer of Beaumont's life in the General Dictionary, Beaumont evidently shews that he was fired with that violent passion for writing which the poets very justly call inspiration, and he makes this one proof of Beaumont's not being a mere corrector of Fletcher's works, but a joint author. As I think I have collected some stronger proofs of this, both external and internal, than have been yet produced, and as I have already built the former part of my preface upon these proofs, I shall place them before the reader in the next note, just as they occurred to me.

sistance. Now these two plays totally differ in their manner from all that Fletcher wrote alone: They consist not of characters from real life, as Fletcher and Shakspeare draw theirs, but of pas

Both to be read, and censured of by those

Whose very reading makes verse senseless prose.

Here we see a consciousness of the poet's own merit, and an indignation at the stupidity of the age he lived in, which seem to have been the characteristics of Beaumont and Jonson. This will appear stronger in the process of this note, in which I shall endeavour to prove what share Beaumont had in the composition of the following plays. I have already mentioned that Mr Earle's testimony, wrote immediately after Beaumont's death, is deci sive as to Beaumont's having the largest share in the composition of The Maid's Tragedy, Philaster, and the King and no King; and that Bessus, in particular, was drawn by him. (See Mr Earle's poem, below.) This was undoubtedly the reason why Beaumont's name is put first in the old quartos of these plays, published by the players after Beaumont's death, but before Fletcher's. For, would the players have complimented the dead at the expence of their living friend, patron, and supporter? After two such proofs as these, general expressions, or even tradi tional opinions of the panegyric writers thirty years after, are lighter than vanity itself. From these plays no distinction of hands between Beaumont and Fletcher was discerned, nor any suspicion of such a distinction occurred till I came to The Woman-Hater, vol. X., which appeared visibly to have more of Jonson's manner than any play I had before met with, which I mentioned at page 64 on that play, when deceived, as Langbaine had been, by the first quarto, (published several years after the death of both the authors) I verily thought that it had been Fletcher's only. I had not then attended to the poem of Beaumont's to Jonson, published at the end of The Nice Valour, and WomanHater, by the second folio. If the reader will consult that poem, he will find that it was sent from the country to Jonson, with two of the precedent comedies, not then finished, but which Beaumont claims as his own!

Ben, when these scenes are perfect, we'll taste wine,
I'll drink thy muse's health, thou shalt quaff mine.

It is plain that they had been his amusement during a summer

sions and humours personized, as cowardice in Lapet, nice honour in Shamont, the madness of different passions in the Madman, the love of nice eating in Lazarillo, the hate of women in Gondarino.

vacation in the country, when he had no companion but his muse to entertain him; for all the former part of the poem is a description of the execrable wine, and the more execrable company, which he was forced to endure. Fletcher therefore could not be with him. So that there are certainly two comedies which properly belong to Beaumont only, which therefore we must endeavour to find out. The verses tell us that he acknowledged all he had to be owing to Jonson; there is no doubt, therefore, of his imitating Jonson's manner in these comedies. Shirley, in the first folio, and the publisher of the second folio, both agree in making The Nice Valour one of these plays: now this play is extremely in Jonson's manner, as is observed in the beginning of the preface, and in a note on the verses to Jonson, (vol. XIV. p. 432.) The prologue of this play has no weight, being wrote several years after it; but the epilogue was evidently wrote in the author's lifetime, probably either by the author himself, or else by his friend Jonson: for it is extremely like Jonson in his prologues and epilogues, who generally lets his audience know that if they did not admire him it was their faults, not his. Se this epilogue makes the author declare

How unlike is this to Fletcher and Shakspeare's manner, who, when they join together in The Two Noble Kinsmen, are even modesty itself? See the prologue and epilogue to that play, vol. XIII. The latter has these lines:

And yet mistake me not, I am not bold,

We've no such cause. If the tale we have told

(For 'tis no other) any way content,

(For to that honest purpose it was meant)
We have our end; and ye shall have ere long,
I dare say, many a better to prolong

Your old loves to us.

I hope the reader will now see sufficient grounds to believe that

The author.

This is Jonson's manner, to whom, in the letter quoted above, Beaumont indeed acknowledges that he owed it.

The Nice Valour was Beaumont's play: It is not demonstration, but it is a high degree of probability. But still the distinction of manner from Fletcher, in personizing the passions, and not drawing from real life, spoke of above, will not follow if Fletcher wrote The Woman-Hater, as the first edition in quarto of that play asserts; but the second contradicts it, and puts Beaumont's name first in the title-page, and claims its changes from the author's manuscript. The publisher of the second folio follows the second quarto, and makes it one of the plays referred to in Beaumont's verses. The prologue appears to be wrote by the author himself, speaks of himself in the singular number, and shews great confidence in the goodness of the play, and an utter contempt of twopenny gallery judges. Here Beaumont's hand therefore seemed visible. I therefore began to recollect which of the foregoing plays most resembled this, to see what light might be gained from them; the first that occurred was The Knight of the Burning Pestle, which is all burlesque sublime, as Lazarillo's character in The Woman-Hater is throughout. Here all the editions give the Knight to Beaumont and Fletcher; this therefore is clear, and the prologue of that play is in style and sentiments so exactly like that of The Woman-Hater, that the same hand undoubtedly drew both. Believing, therefore, that The Nice Valour was Beaumont's only, and that he had at least the greatest share of The Woman-Hater and The Knight of the Burning Pestle, I proceeded to other plays, and, first, to The Little French Lawyer, where La Writ runs fighting mad, just as Lazarillo had run eating mad, The Knight of the Burning Pestle romance mad, Chamont in The Nice Valour, honour mad, &c. This is what our old English writers often distinguish by the name of humour. The style too of La Writ, like Lazarillo's and the Knight's, is often the burlesque sublime. Here I found the prologue speaking of the authors in the plural number, i. e. Beaumont and Fletcher. There is a good deal of the same humour in The Scornful Lady, wrote by Beaumont and Fletcher, as all the quartos declare. The publishers of the General Dictionary, whose accuracy deserves the highest applause, have helped me to another play, The Martial Maid, in which Beaumont had a share,

2 The prologue which Seward speaks of is taken verbatim from a play of Lilly's, which certainly lessens the confidence we should wish to place in his discernment,

"Fate, once again

Bring me to thee, who canst make smooth and plain
The way of knowledge for me, and then I,
Who have no good but in thy company,
Protest it will my greatest comfort be

To acknowledge all I have to flow from thee.
Ben, when these scenes are perfect we'll taste wine:
I'll drink thy muse's health, thou shalt quaff mine."

Does Jonson (who is said constantly to have consulted Beaumont, and to have paid the greatest de

and Jonson's manner of characterising is very visible; an effeminate youth and a masculine young lady are both reformed by love, like Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, and Every Man out of his Humour. Wit without Money, and The Custom of the Country, which have Beaumont's name first in all the editions, have something of the same hand, particularly in Valentine's extravagant contempt of money, and do great honour to Beaumont, as both are excellent plays, and the first an incomparable one. Shirley supposes The Humorous Lieutenant to be one of the plays referred to by Beaumont's verses to Jonson; and the publisher of Beaumont's Poems, which came out about five years after Shirley's folio of our authors' plays, has wrote under that poem The Maid in the Mill. This, I suppose, was a marginal note of somebody who believed Beaumont to have been a joint author in that play: It seems highly probable that he was so in both these plays, as the Lieutenant and Bustapha are both strong caricatures, and much in Beaumont's manner. The False One mentions the authors in the plural number; and I believe Beaumont chiefly drew the character of Septimius, which gives name to the play; but whatever share he had in that play, it does him great honour. Cupid's Revenge, which all the editions ascribe to Beaumont and Fletcher, is only spoiled from being a very good tragedy by a ridiculous mixture of machinery; this play, The Noble Gentleman, and The Coxcomb, are all that remain which have any sort of external evidence, which I know, of Beaumont's being a joint author, and these I build nothing upon. There are two others that partake of his manner, which, for that reason only, I suspect, The Spanish Curate, and The Laws of Candy; the latter of which extremely resembles the King and no King in its principal characters. But we need not rest upon mere conjectures, since Beaumont's share of The Maid's Tragedy, Philaster, and the King and no King, give him a full right to share equally with Fletcher the fame of a tragic poet; and Wit without