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* acknowledge all I have to flow from thee. Ben, when these scenes are perfect we'll taste wine: I'll drink thy muses health, thou shalt quaff mine." Does Jonson (who is said constantly to have consulted Beaumont, andto have paid the greatest deference to his judgment) does he, I say,, treathim in his answer as a mere critic, and judge of others works only? No:but as an eminent poet, whom he loved with a zeal enough to kindle a loveto his memory, as long as poetry delights the understanding, or friendshipwarms the heart. ** How I do love thee, Beaumont, and thy muse.That unto me dost such religion use !How I do fear myself, that am not worthThe least indulgent thought thy pen drop forth T' See the remainder of this poem iii. of the Commendatory Verses; secalso the first of these poems by Beaumont himself, the close of which willsufficiently confirm both his vigour of imagination and sprightliness ofhumour^ Having thus, we hope, dispersed the cloud that for a^es hasdarkened Beaumont's fame, let it again shine in full lustre BritanntOi ddmalterum et decus gemellum. And let us now examine the order and magni-tude of this poetic constellation, and view the joint characters of Beau-mont and Fletcher. These authors are in a direct mean between Shakespeare and Jonson,they do not reach the amazing rapidity and immortal Jtights of the former,but they soar with more ease and to nobler heights than the latter; theyhave less of the os magna sonans, the vivida vis animi, the noble enthusiasm,the muse ofjire, the terrible graces of Shakespeare, but they have muchmore of all these than Jonson. On the other hand, in literature theymuch excel the former, and are excelled by the latter; and therefore theyare more regular in their plots and more correct in their sentiments and dictionthan Shakespeare, but less so than Jonson. Thus far Beaumont and Flet-cher are one, but as hinted above, in this they differ; Beaumont studiedand followed Jonson's manner, per^oTi^'ze^/ the passions, SLud drew nature inher extremes; Fletcher followed Shakespeare and nature in her usual dress(this distinction only holds with regard to their comic works, for in tragediesthey all chiefly paint from real life.) Which of these manners is mostexcellent may be difficult to say; the former seems most striking, the lattermore pleasing i the former shews vice and folly in the most ridiculous lights, the MR. SEWARD'S PREFACE.^ niH tutttUter more folly shews each man himself^ and unlocks the utmostleoetses of the heart. Great are the names of the various masters who followed the one andthe other manner. Jonson, Beaumont, and Moliere list on one side; Te-rence, Shakespeare, and Fletcher on the other. But to return to our duumviratCf between whom two other small dif-fieiences are observable. Beaumont, as appears by various testimonies andchiefly by his own letter prefixed to the old folio edition of Cliaucerj wasa hard student ; and for one whom the world lost before he was thirty^ hada surprising compass of literature: Fletcher was a polite rather than adeep scholar^ and conversed with men at least as much as with books.Hence the gay sprigktliness and natural ease of his young gentleman areallowed to be inimitable; in these be has been preferred by judges of can-dour even to Shakespeare himself. If Beaumont does not equal him inthis, yet being by bis fortvaii conversant also in hieh life (tne son of ajudge, as the other of a bishop) he is in this too alter ab illo^ a goodsecond, and almost a second self, as Philaster, Amintor, Bacurius in thethree first plays. Count Valore, Oriana, Clerimont, Valentine, and othersevidently shew. This small difference observed, another appears by no means similar toit: Beaumont, we said, chiefly studied books and Jonson; Fletcher Natureand Shakespeare, yet so far was the Jirst from following his friend andmaster in his frequent close and almost servile imitations of the ancientclassics, that he seems to have had a much greater confidence in the jTer*tility and richness of his own imagination than even Fletcher himself: thelatter in his masterpiece, The Faithful Shepherdess, frequently imitatesTheocritus and Virgil; in RoUo has taken whole scenes from Seneca, andalmost whole acts from Lucan in The False One. I do not blame him fortiiis, his imitations have not the stiffness, which sometimes appears (thoughnot often) in Jonson, but breathe the free and full air of originals; andaccordingly Rollo* and The False One are two of Fletcher's first*rate plays.But Beaumont, I believe, never condescended to translate and rarely toimitate \ however largely he was supplied with classic streams, from hisown urn all flows pure and untinctured. Here the two friends changeplaces : Beaumont rises in merit towards Shakespeare, and Fletcher de*tcends towards Jonson. Having thus seen the features of these twins of poetry greatly resem"bUng yet still distinct from each other, let us conclude that all reportswhich separate and lessen the fame of either of them are ill-groundea andfrke; that they were, as Sir John Berkenhead calls them, two full congenialsouls, or, as either Fletcher himself, or his still greater colleague Shake-speare expresses it in their Two Noble Kinsmen* Vol. x. p. 38. '' They were an endless mine to one another;They were each others wife, ever begettingNew births of wit," * Rdio is in the first edition in quarto ascribed to Fletcher alone. The False One is one ofthose plays that is more dubious as to its authors. The prologue speaks of them in the pluralnumber, and *tis probable that Beaumont assisted in the latter part of it, but I believe notnnich in the the two first acts, as these are so veiy much taken from Lucao, and the observa-tkm of Beaumont's not indulging himself in such liberties holds good in all the plays in whichIke k known to hare had the largest share.
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