tic pieces, some of them rising to the highest degree of excellence, and none sinking beneath mediocrity. In the space of ten years, intervening between the death of Beaumont and his own, he furnished for the stage above thirty plays, some of them in conjunction with other dramatic poets of the time, but the greater part proceeding from his unassisted muse. In the following verses of Sir Aston Cockayne, the great friend and patron of the dramatic poets of his age, addressed to Humphrey Moseley the bookseller, who, in 1647, published a collection of those plays of our poets, which, till then, had remained unedited, he not only asserts that Fletcher was the sole author of the greater number, but informs us who was his associate in the composition of others :

"In the large book of plays you late did print
In Beaumont and in Fletcher's name, why in't
Did you not justice give to each his due ?
For Beaumont of those many writ but few:
And Massinger in other few; the main
Being sweet issues of sweet Fletcher's brain.
But how came I, you ask, so much to know?
Fletcher's chief bosom-friend informed me so."

Sir Aston asserts Massinger's share in some of these plays in another place of his collection of

doggrel rhymes, which are more valuable on account of the persons to whom they are addressed, and the literary information they convey, than for any passages of poetical merit, which would be searched for in vain. The following is "an epitaph on Mr John Fletcher and Mr Philip Massinger, who lie both buried in one grave in St Mary Overy's church, in Southwark :"

"In the same grave was Fletcher buried, here
Lies the stage-poet, Philip Massinger;
Plays they did write together, were great friends,
And now one grave includes them in their ends.
To whom on earth nothing could part, beneath
Here in their fame they lie, in spite of death."

The utter carelessness for literary history, which prevailed at the time, can alone excuse the publisher of the first folio collection for not pointing out the plays which Fletcher wrote without the assistance of Beaumont.* That he could have done so appears evident from his preface, where he informs us that it was his

* Sir Aston Cockayne is very severe upon this negligence, in his verses addressed to Mr Charles Cotton :

"What a foul

And inexcusable fault it is, (that whole
Volume of plays being almost every one
After the death of Beaumont writ,) that none
Would certify them so much!"

first intention to have printed the plays of Fletcher by themselves," because single and alone he would make a just volume." We have, however, equal reason to complain of Sir Aston Cockayne for not having supplied the informa tion which he accuses the publisher of having failed to impart to the reader.

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It is probable, as Mr Gifford observes, that the plays, in which Fletcher had recourse to the assistance of Massinger, were produced at an early period of the dramatic career of the latter, and, therefore, soon after the death of Beaumont. Massinger's fame is sufficiently established by the plays which are known to have been his productions, but it is to be lamented that he should be deprived of the reputation he would derive from posterity by his share in the dramas which he wrote in partnership with Fletcher being ascertained. But here we are entirely in the dark; and even conjecture can only point out two plays which, from correlative cir. cumstances, appear to have been of the number of those which are alluded to by Sir Aston Cockayne. The tragedy of The False One is ascribed in the prologue and epilogue to more than one author, and, from the absence of the

great tragedian Burbadge's name in the list of the principal actors, we may, with some probability, conclude, that it was brought on the stage after his death, which took place in March, 1618-9.3 From these circumstances, combined with the evidence of the versification and the strength of plot peculiar to Massinger, it does not appear rash to suppose that he was concerned with Fletcher in the composition of that tragedy. The second play which the editor is inclined to ascribe to these two illustrious poets is Love's Pilgrimage, which, in the prologue, is directly attributed to more than one author, and there is no circumstance from which we might infer that the assistant of Fletcher was Beaumont, whose style of versification is not to be traced in this drama; and the same objection cannot be started against Massinger's having had a share in the composition, as the general cast of his metre resembles Fletcher's much more than that of Beaumont does. Besides, the plot being founded on one of the Exemplary

• From the list of the actors who performed the characters in Webster's Duchess of Malfy, it appears that Taylor took the parts of Burbadge after the death of the latter, as Robinson took those of Cundale, and Benfield those of Ostler.

Novels of Cervantes, which were first published in 1613, seems to strengthen the supposition that Love's Pilgrimage was written after the death of Beaumont, as the space of two years is almost too short for the circulation of a Spanish work in London at that period. It has been generally supposed that this play was left imperfect by Fletcher at his death, and finished by Shirley, on the evidence of the following entry in Sir Henry Herbert's manuscript: "Recei ved of Blagrove, from the King's company, for the renewing of Love's Pilgrimage, the 16th of September, 1635, £1:0:0." Shirley's name is not mentioned in this memorandum, and the only alteration of the play consisted, to all appearance, in the insertion of a scene from Ben Jonson's unsuccessful comedy of The New Inn, which was licensed for the stage on the 19th of January, 1628-9, several years after the death of Fletcher. Such an insertion, which undoubtedly was executed, as indeed is intimated by Sir. Henry, for a renewal, or revival, of a comedy which had been represented on the stage many years before, could easily have been performed by the players, without the expence of having recourse to the assistance of a professional dra