deep-searching analysis of character, nor even in his rich and genial creations of humour; but rather that phase of his dramatic art in which he has ventured into the airy world of graceful and imaginative fiction: not, in short, such characters as Macbeth, Othello, Falstaff, Hamlet, or Shylock, but rather the persons which people the fairy isle of Prospero, or the sunny gardens of Illyria. They are in particular admired for the fresh, and vigorous, and courtly pictures they have given of youthful generosity and friendship, and for the occasionally happy portraits of love and innocent confidence; nor must we forget the many admirable figures of loyal and military devotion to be found in many exquisite characters of war-worn

veterans.

In their plots they are even more careless and irregular than Shakspeare; never scrupling to commit the most outrageous offences against consistency of character and probability of event, and appearing to rely mainly on their skill in presenting striking and picturesque situation, and their mastery over every varied tone of majestic, airy, and animated dialogue.

"There are," says Campbell, speaking of these two dramatists, "such extremes of grossness and magnificence in their dramas, so much sweetness and beauty interspersed with views of nature either falsely romantic or vulgar beyond reality; there is so much to animate and amuse us, and yet so much that we would willingly overlook, that I cannot help comparing the contrasted impressions which they make to those which we receive from visiting some great and ancient city, picturesquely but irregularly built, glittering with spires and surrounded by gardens, but exhibiting in many quarters the lanes and hovels of wretchedness. They have scenes of wealthy and high life, which remind us of courts and palaces frequented by elegant females and high-spirited gallants, whilst their noble old martial characters, with Caractacus in the midst of them, may inspire us with the same sort of regard which we pay to the rough-hewn magnificence of an ancient fortress."

The prevailing vices of these great but unequal writers are, first, the shocking occasional indelicacy and coarseness of their language, and, secondly, the frequent inconsistency of their

H

eharacters. With respect to the former, it is no excuse to say that it is partly to be attributed to the custom of the female parts being at this period universally represented by boys; nor is it much palliation to consider this licentiousness of speech as the vice of the times. It is true that the charge of indecency may be safely maintained against nearly all the writers of this wonderful period, and we know that the stage has a peculiar tendency to fall into this error; but Shakspeare has shown us that it is very possible to avoid this species of pruriency, and to portray the female character not in its warmth only and its tenderness, but also in its purity. The most singular thing is, that many of the more indelicate scenes, and much of the coarsest language in Beaumont and Fletcher, will be found to have been composed with the express purpose of exhibiting the virtue and purity of their heroines. It cannot however be denied that it is but an inartificial and dangerous mode of exalting the triumph of virtue, to represent it as in immediate contact with the coarsest and most debasing vice. Nor is that Juvenalian manner of satire either to be imitated or approved which consists in elaborate description of immorality, however strong may be the tone of its invective, and however elevated the height from which its thunders may be hurled. The precepts of good sense will coincide with the Duke's answer to Jaques in As You Like It:'

“Jaq.

Give me leave

To speak my mind, and I will through and through

Cleanse the foul body of the infected world,

If they will patiently receive my medicine.

Duke. Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do,—
Most mischievous foul sin in chiding sin;

For thou thyself hast been a libertine ;

And all the embossed sores and headed evils,
That thou with licence of free foot hast caught,
Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world."

The other main vice of Beaumont and Fletcher is the extraordinary and monstrous inconsistency of the characters. Nothing is more common in their plays than to see a valiant and modest youth become, in the course of a few scenes, and without any cause or reason, a coward and a braggart; and

the devoted and loyal subject of the first act metamorphosed into the traitor and assassin of the third; the pure and highborn princess transformed into the coarse and profligate virago. In order to exalt some particular virtue in their heroes, these writers sometimes represent them as enduring indignities and undergoing trials to which no human being would submit, or the very submission to which would render impossible the existence of the virtue in question.

In spite of the general truth of the foregoing remarks, our readers must not be surprised to learn that the plays of these dramatists abound in many exquisite portraits of female heroism and magnanimity. Indeed, the principal defect of their female characters (at least of those which are really striking and attractive) is that they seem to be conceived in a spirit too romantic and ideal, and are, as Campbell well expresses it," rather fine idols of the imagination than probable types of nature:" but it would be unjust to forget that the polluted stream of such base and monstrous conceptions as 'The Island Princess,' and 'Cupid's Revenge,' flows from the same source as the pure and sparkling fountain of 'Philaster,' of The Double Marriage,' of 'The Maid's Tragedy,' and of Bonduca.' We do not mean that even these latter works are free from objectionable passages; but what is revolting might easily be cleared away, and would leave much to elevate the fancy and to purify the heart. Beaumont and Fletcher have been justly praised by all the critics, from Dryden downwards, for their beautiful delineations of youthful friendship, and for the ease, grace, and vivacity which distinguish their dialogue, particularly such dialogue as takes place between high-spirited and gallant young men. In this they probably drew from themselves.

Their comic characters, though generally very unnatural, and devoid of that rich internal humour-that luce di dentro, as the Italian artists phrase it—which makes Shakspeare's so admirable, are written with a droll extravagance and fearless verve which seldom fails to excite a laugh. The Lieutenant, who has drunk a love-potion, and is so absurdly enamoured of the old king; Piniero, Cacafogo, La Writ, the hungry priest and his clerk, and a multitude of others, though fan

tastic and grotesque caricatures, are yet caricatures executed with much freedom and spirit.

According to the ancient tradition, Beaumont is said to have possessed more judgment and elevation, Fletcher more invention and vivacity. How far this can be proved by comparing those works written conjointly by the two illustrious fellow-labourers, with those composed after Beaumont's death by his surviving friend, it is difficult to determine. We think it may be safely concluded that Beaumont possessed more markedly the tragic spirit, Fletcher the vis comicaof the best of the comic pieces being Fletcher's 'Rule a Wife and have a Wife.'

one

We must now pass rapidly over a number of mighty yet less illustrious names, which in any other age, and in any other country, would have been secure of immortality. The works of these dramatists, so admired in their own day, and possessing all the qualities likely to render them permanently popular, have been long condemned (that is, during the whole period intervening between the civil wars and the beginning of the present century) to an obscurity and neglect incredible to those who are acquainted with their various and striking merits, and inexplicable to all who are ignorant of the capricious tyranny of popular taste..

Disinterred from the dust and cobwebs of two hundred years, and brought to light by commentators and philologists eager to explain the works of the greatest among their glorious army, these authors have gradually attracted the attention of the general reader in England, and may now be considered as finally and solidly established in popular and national admiration. Strange! that the very genius which eclipsed them all, and threw them as if for ever into the abyss of neglect and "the portion of weeds and out-worn faces," should have been, in an after age, the indirect means of restoring to them that heritage of glory which they appeared to have irredeemably forfeited!

The next name to which we shall invite the reader's attention is that of Philip Massinger, a man who passed his life in struggling with poverty and distress. He has left us a considerable number of dramas, the

Massinger.

greatest part of them in that mixed manner so general at this time, in which the passions exhibited are of a grave and elevated character, the language rich and ornamented, and yet the persons and events hardly to be called heroic. Of these works the finest are 'The City Madam,' 'The Great Duke of Florence,' 'The Bondman,' 'The Virgin Martyr,' and A New Way to Pay Old Debts.' In the first and last mentioned of these plays the author has given a most striking and powerful picture of oppression, and the triumphant self-glorifying of ill-got wealth. The character of Sir Giles Overreach in the one, and that of Luke in the other, are masterpieces. In expressing the dignity of virtue, and in showing greatness of soul rising superior to circumstance and fate, Massinger exhibits so peculiar a vigour and felicity, that it is impossible not to conceive such delineations (in which the poet delighted) to be a reflection of his own proud and patient soul, and perhaps, too, but too true a memorial of "the rich man's scorn, the proud man's contumely,” which he had himself undergone. In the tender and pathetic Massinger had no mastery; in the moral gloom of guilt, in the crowded agony of remorse, in painting the storm and tempest of the moral atmosphere, he is undoubtedly a great and mighty artist; and in expressing the sentiments of dignity and virtue, cast down but not humbled by undeserved misfortune, he is almost unequalled. His versification, though never flowingly harmonious, is skilful and learned, an appropriate vehicle for the elevation of the sentiments; and in the description of rich and splendid scenes he is peculiarly powerful and impressive. The soliloquy of Luke in his brother's countinghouse, when the long-despised "poor relation" suddenly finds himself the possessor of enormous wealth, and the gorgeous description in which he enumerates the gold and jewels and "skins of parchment" in which his newly-acquired power is condensed, and his long-desired vengeance on his oppressors-all this is conceived in a dramatic spirit of the highest order. Massinger was born about 1584, and died in great poverty in March, 1640.

In reviewing the long succession of squalid lives and early and obscure deaths which composes the biography Chapman. of the dramatic school of Elizabeth, it is very