matic author like Shirley. These arguments do not amount to a positive proof of Love's Pilgrimage being one of the plays mentioned by Sir Aston Cockayne as the joint productions of Fletcher and Massinger, but, in the absence of perfectly conclusive evidence, they are certainly of considerable weight, and the play is every way worthy of these two eminent poets.

The tragedy of Rollo, or the Bloody Brother, has generally been ascribed to Fletcher alone, on the authority of the title-page of one of the quartos. But internal evidence so strongly points out that he must have had a coadjutor, that we need not hesitate to ascribe the third and fourth acts, which are totally different from the style of Fletcher, and bear almost as little resemblance to that of Beaumont, to one of the second or third rate dramatists of the time. The play was certainly written before 1621, but no evidence can warrant us in fixing the exact date. It was acted by the king's servants, apparently with great applause, and, after the Restoration, enjoyed a share of popularity hardly warranted by its real merit.

It was probably not long after the death of Beaumont that Fletcher joined with Ben Jon

son and Middleton in the composition of The Widow, a comedy, which was not printed till the year 1652. From the mention of the "hateful fashion" of yellow bands, which were the invention of Mrs Turner, and which became odious after her execution for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury in 1615, it is probable that the comedy was produced within a few years of that event, particularly as we have evidence of the fashion having again become as prevalent as ever in the year 1621.4 Middleton, who was, on this occasion, assisted by two of his most illustrious contemporaries, was a dramatic author of long standing, and of no mean powers. Among the second-rate dramatists of the time, he may challenge equality with Heywood, Deckar, Rowley, and some others, and the very circumstance of his writing in combination with Ben Jonson, Fletcher, Massinger, and Ford, proves that he was held in considerable estimation in his day. His plays, which deserve to be collected, not only on account of their intrinsic value, but for the faithful delineations of the manners of the time conveyed in them, are very

↑ See a note on this play, act v. scene i. vol. XIV.

numerous.

He is supposed to have died soon

after the year 1626.

In enumerating the plays which Fletcher brought on the stage after the death of Beaumont, we must principally content ourselves with conjecture, till we reach the year 1621, when the office books of Sir Henry Herbert; the master of the revels, furnish us with more certain evidence to determine their dates. The Queen of Corinth, a tragi-comedy of very considerable merit, but exhibiting strange aberrations of judgment, was probably written soon after 1616, a pamphlet of the famous half-witted Tom Coryate, published in that year, being alluded to in the course of that play.

In 1618, The Loyal Subject' was licensed by Sir George Buck, as we learn from the manuscripts of his successor, Sir Henry Herbert; and, on the same authority, we are informed that at its revival, in 1633, it was highly approved of by King Charles I., perhaps from its containing a striking exemplification of the blind obedience he required from his subjects, and of

6 There is a considerable resemblance between The Loyal Subject and a comedy of Julian de Castro's, a Spanish poet of the seventeenth century, entitled, Mas vale tarde que nunca.

the right of princes de jure divino, then a doctrine very fashionable at court.

In the same, or one of the years immediately preceding, Fletcher produced The Mad Lover, in which Burbadge acted a principal part, probably that of Memnon, which gives title to the play. The extravagance of the plot, and the half-serious, half-humorous character just mentioned, did not prevent the piece from attaining a great share of popularity. Sir Aston Cockayne wrote a long copy of verses in its commendation, which is chiefly valuable because it proves Fletcher to have been the sole author.

Another play, which was produced before the death of Burbadge, and which, from internal evidence, particularly from the versification, which is uniform throughout, and bears every mark of Fletcher's peculiarities, I am inclined to ascribe to that poet, soon after the demise of his friend, is Valentinian, a tragedy of striking merit, but unfortunately defaced by an injudicious extension of the plot after the death of the principal character."

"In the introductory remarks on Valentinian, the editor has noticed the disgust with which the reader is inspired on finding that Maximus had planned the dishonour of his spouse, and the death of his friend, to effectuate his ambitious designs. It

The tragedy of The Double Marriage, a performance exhibiting great power of imagination, but unfortunately somewhat affected by that propensity towards strained and improbable incidents, which was one of the chief failings of Fletcher, seems to have been represented after the death of Burbadge, whose name does not appear in the list of the principal performers. We have no other evidence to ascribe the play to Fletcher alone, but that of the versification, which however is very strong, as it exhibits all his peculiarities. On the same ground, I should be inclined to attribute The Humorous Lieutenant to Fletcher, though the principal character is so much in Ben Jonson's style, that we might be led to ascribe a portion of the play to Beaumont, his imitator, if we did not know, on positive evidence, that Fletcher sometimes left his usual path of delineating natural characters, and followed the artificial style of Jonson. Of this we have already had an undoubted instance in The Mad Lo

has since been suggested by a friend, perhaps justly, that Maximus was not guilty of those crimes, but that he only pretended to have conspired against his wife and Aecius to obtain the hand of Eudoxia. This, however, by no means exculpates Maximus; and, if we adopt this supposition, it only degrades him from detestation to contempt.