The public were not satisfied with exposing their want of taste, by condemning this pastoral, but, as if determined not to countenance any performance which did not follow the usual beaten path of dramatic composition, they passed the same sentence soon after on The Knight of the Burning Pestle. The severe treatment of this burlesque comedy, the first of the kind which had appeared on the English stage, and of equal, if not superior, excellence to any si milar productions which have appeared since, was, no doubt, occasioned by the London citizens being liberally ridiculed in the course of the composition, though the principal aim of the satire was levelled at the absurd romances and ranting plays of the time. From the dedication, which the bookseller, Walter Burre, préfixed to the quarto edition, which he published in 1613, it is evident that the play was first represented in the year 1611. year 1611. The publisher asserts, that the appearance of Don Quixote was a full year later than that of the play; but there is little doubt that he alludes to the publication of the English translation in 1612. The original work of Cervantes, which met with such extraordinary success in Spain, was, no doubt, soon imported into England; the connection

between the courts of St James's and Valladolid at the time led to a considerable intercourse between the two countries, and the study of the Spanish language had become very fashionable in England. Fletcher was well read in Spanish authors, from whom he borrowed several of his plots; and the author of The Knight of the Burning Pestle had certainly read Don Quixote in the original language. Whether this drama was composed by our poets conjointly, or by one of them, unassisted by the other, is a question which cannot at present be satisfactorily answered, the authorities being contradictory. *

2

In the same year, our poets, in conjunction, brought out the tragi-comedy, entitled, A King and No King, at the Globe; and, from the number of editions which it underwent before and after the Restoration, it appears to have met with a most favourable reception, and to have maintained a regular and steady popularity. It was, according to the usual practice of the dramatic proprietors of the time, withheld from the press till 1619, and then published, probably from a copy fraudulently obtained, by Thomas Walkley, who exhibits such ignorance in his de

* See the introduction to The Knight of the Burning Pestle in this volume.

3

dication to Sir Henry Nevill, as to speak of the authors' further labours, though Beaumont had been dead for four years at that time. If we can give credit to the assertions of commendatory writers, we may conclude, on the evidence of Robert Herrick, an elegant poet of the period, that the plot of this tragi-comedy was furnished by Fletcher; and, from the versification, which exhibits the strongly marked characteristics of that poet in very few scenes only, it appears that the execution was principally Beaumont's. Bishop Earle asserts the claims of the latter to the character of Bessus in very strong terms.

It was probably in this, or one of the years immediately preceding, that our united poets produced the collection of short dramas, entitled, Four Plays, or Moral Representations, in One. In offering this variegated entertainment to their audiences, they followed 'the example of some of their predecessors, but it does not appear that their work met with any great degree of approbation. From internal evidence, Beaumont appears to have furnished the two first Triumphs, and his associate the two others. It is not unlikely that the three Triumphs of Honour, Love, and Death, were originally outlines for regular plays; and that the poets, per

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 anxi. ous 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.

In the year 1613, our poets brought several pieces on the stage with different degrees of success. The 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.