Francis Beaumont: Dramatist

nk and fashion, and to some extent of his character, are vouchsafed us i

and John Fletcher, Gents.," in 1660, are, as I have already said, by other hands than his: some of them by his brother, Sir John, and by Donne, Jonson, Randolph, Shirley, and Waller. Of the juvenile amatory lyrics, addresses, and so-called so

d the common

, which are l

rst, the litt

own so near u

n, by that di

what or unto

d their days With a loud laughte

you: I would

at in eve

ittle tailor,

ove with Que

last, in all

did living

se or

the foolish love songs attributed

izabeth, the poetic and only child of Sir Philip Sidney. The Countess lived but twenty-five miles north-west of Charnwood, and in the same country of Leicestershire. One can see the towers from

nk, my pape

d to your o'er

ught, but what

tuous-minded (

nk you are)

ections into q

ears at them; f

de to have you

dam) I should

it in others. But her husband, Roger, fifth Earl of Rutland, though a lover of plays himself, does not appear to have favoured his Countess's patronage of literary men. He burst in upon her, one day when Ben Jonson was dini

w my off'ring w

'gainst your grea

k, that you sho

the Muses, w

e, or may have

Nature you

te treble to

is good, and

ost: but, Madame

ene, which all th

ost in their

--, evidently sent to her during the absence of her

nning by you

ill, but the s

ollowing vices and false pl

company

those friends, o

you make your bo

hem unto the

nowledge, and t

s inspired, ri

love with her." Beaumont would have known the brilliant and ill-starred Overbury, of Compton Scorpion, who was

d not but have known Sidney's sister, the Countess of Pembroke, as well, the idol of Wil

epherds dedica

ltars offer

e of witt and learning of any lady in her time." And if Beaumont knew the mother, then, also, William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, the son

Earl of Southampton, with whom in earlier days Rutland used to pass away the time "in London merely in going to plaies every day." Southampton had remained a patron of Burbadge, Shakespeare, and the like. And

arning which h

ion, and res

in arts, in v

e, he says "standyth on the very knape of an highe hille, stepe up eche way, partely by nature, partely by working of mennes handes, as it may evidently be perceived. Of the late dayes [1540], the Erle of Rutland hath made it fairer than ever it was. It is straunge sighte to se be how many steppes of stone the way goith up from the village to the castel. In the castel be 2 faire g

le to the Countess of Rutland, we obs

ve thoughts, whi

orious titles

order'd lines,

virtues new,

ll base praise

now what'er

the most servil

th, and make t

ysterious malady. According to a letter of Chamberlain to Sir R. Winwood, "Sir Walter Raleigh is slandered to have given her certaine Pills that despatch'd her." That, Sir Walter, even with the best intent in the world, could not have done in person, for he w

whom he so revered, Beaumont poured o

hat will the

arble is more

ed,-that is to say, the first half of the poem, ere it blazes into scathing indictment of the physicians who helped the Countess to her grave,-I fully agree with Earle. Here is poetry of the heart, pregnant wit

ewest the u

against thou

her wedd

u couldst appr

gh to meet thee

omen, marriag

a sacrament

th

die so soon?

the longest

h modesty was

ghty left to s

facts about her loathsome husband); his admiration of the chivalric great-as of the hero whose life was ventured and generously lost at Zutphen "to save a land," his contempt for pedantic stupidity and professional ineptitude, his faith in the "everlasting" worth of poetic ideals,

the peace whic

onger in her

bitterness and rhetorical conceits, this elegy is as valuable a piece of documentary evidence as exists outside of Beaumont's dramatic productions. It displays not a few of the characteristics which distinguish him as a dramatist from

ke a verse wi

ou art

day thou dieds

back again a

s noble tribute to Sidney's Arcadia is payment of a debt manifest in more than one o

ildren, who fo

v'd of all,-the

w; yet death h

aultless issue

e only living

see, shall nev

one. Alas, wou

ir sexes had,

see this marri

s like itself

As You Like It, and of other Elizabethan plays.[100] Within the twelve months immediately preceding August 1612, it had inspired also, as we have already observed, Beaumont and Fletcher's Cupid's Revenge, the finest scenes in which are Beaumont's dramatic adaptat

Earl of Rutland, and now the wife of George Villiers, Marquis of Buckingham; and the Shepherdess herself "who long had kept her flocks On stony Charnwood's dry and barren rocks," the country dame "For singing crowned, whence grew a world of fame Among the sheep cotes," is Elizabeth Beaumont of Grace-

as a waiting gentlewoman in his household, was his second cousin, Anthony Beaumont of Glenfield in Leicestershire. While Maria was living at the Hall, the old Knight, Sir George Villiers of Brooksby, recently widowed, visited his kinswoman, Eleanor Lewis, Henry's wife, at Coleorton, "found there," writes a contemporary, Arthur Wilson, "this young gentlewoman, allied, and yet a servant of the family," was fascinated by her graces and made her Lady Villiers. This Sir George Villiers was of an old and distinguished family. Leland mentions it first among the ten families of

FIRST DUKE OF BUC

Honthorst in the Nati

of the first marriage: George was her favourite son and she staked everything upon his success. James took to him from the first; the same year he made him cup-bearer; the next, Gentleman of the Bed-chamber, and knighted him and gave him a pension. We may imagine that Francis Beaumont and his brother John watched the promotion of their kinsman with keen interest. But his phenomenal career was only then beginning. In 1616, a few months after Francis had died, Sir George Villiers was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Villiers. By 1617 this devoted "Steenie" of his "dear Dad and Gossop," King James, is Earl of Buckingham, and now,-that Somerset has fallen,-the most potent force in the kingdom; in 1618 he is Marquis, and in 1623, Duke,-and for some years past he has been enjoying an income of ￡15,0

d sole heiress of Francis, Earl of Rutland. It was a love match; and John Beaumon

rthy of his f

ur hopes, and st

Villiers race with n

hioness of Buckingham, those whom the poem describes as living in "our dales,"-and welcoming Elizabeth Beaumont,-are th

ady, in w

ath with boun

with beauty

inging Flora's

ng before the

favour, till m

, and her thr

ia of the Coleorton Beaumonts. To the Marquis of Buckingham, "her thrice-noble sonne," John writes many poetic addresses in later years: of the birth

, have pow'r t

n, drawne from

had won him the reco

rst th' anoint

rall songs, an

uis and Duke, John Beaumont never recalls the kinship; but in writing to the

sisted in its adherence to the Catholic faith and politics. As late as Feb. 26, 1612, "Mrs. Vaux, Lord (Edward) Vaux's mother, is condemned to perpetual imprisonment, for refusing to take the Oath of A

fe of Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield), and his brother, Edward, a captain in the navy, who the year after Beaumont's death made the voyage to Guiana under Sir Walter Raleigh; Huntingdon's cousin, and also Beaumont's kinsman, Sir Henry Hastings, of whom we have already heard as one of Father Gerard's converts (a first cousin of Mrs. Elizabeth Vaux, and husband of an Elizabeth Beaumont of Coleorton); Sir William Cavendish, of the Pierrepoint connection, a pupil of Hobbes, an intimate friend of

the Lady Penelope Clifton," on October 26, 1613, almost as artificial, we learn no more of Beaumont's personality,-but we are led to conjecture some social acquaintance with the distinguished family of her father, Lord Rich, afterwards Earl of Warwick, and of her husband, Sir Gervase Clifton, who had been specially admitted to the Inner Temple in 1607; and the co

ends pass idly

ne, and then we

s and the Sidneys, for Penelope's mother, the Lady Penelope Devereux, daughter of

s family connections, the Bakers, Lennards, and Sackvilles of Kent, but with those to whom Fletcher dedicates, about 1609, the first quarto of his Faithfull Shepheardesse: Sir William Skipwith, for instance, Sir Walter Aston, an

body, and a b

ve, a hand to

ree and open

yes in language s

mat, of the Inner Temple since 1600, had been, since 1603,[105] the patron also of Francis Beaumont's life-long friend, Drayton. And that poet keeps up the intimacy for many years. Writing, after 1627 when Sir Walter, now Baron Aston of Forfar, was sent on embassy to Spain, he says of Lady Aston that "till here again I may her see, It will be winter all the year with me". In 1609 Sir

ffection to them hath made you, by observing, more able to judge of them, than your ability to judge of them hath made you to affect them deservedly, not partially.... Your noble self (has) built him a more honourable monument in that fair opinion you have of him than any inscription subject to the wearing of time can be." To this Charles Cotton, his cousin, Sir Aston Cockayne, writes a letter in verse after the appearance of the first folio of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays, 1647, speaking of Fletcher as "your friend and old companion" and reproaching him for not having taken the pains to set the printe

o him it is, as a critic, and not to his son, who was a poet,

ortment, wit w

flowing, yet

man of men,

publique

ne eyes read'st w

numbers eupho

erse springs hig

, borne of th

ove, what sym

'd have, thou the

Cotton did the same fo

s of nature, and such a civility and delightfulness in conversation, that no man in the Court or out of it appeared a more accomplished person; all these extraordinary qualifications being supported by as extraordinary a clearness of courage, and fearlessness of spirit,

e writes many poems to Ben Jonson. To their other friend, Selden, Fletcher's connection by

n make a poet,

oems out of co

me time that he is writing to Selden, in his verses To t

ories, crown'd w

ivie, two recit

etcher, swans t

y, like syrens i

eir Eva

N S

n the National Port

Faithfull Shepheardesse and three or four plays more; the two in partnership, at least five plays; and Fletcher had meanwhile collaborated with other dramatists in from eight to eleven plays which do not now concern us. As to the remaining dramas as

TNO

erwoods,

Dedication of The L

, Ed. L. T. Sm

oral Drama, and my former pupil, H. W. Hill's

I, 21. See also, bel

in to Carleton, Jan. 4, 1617. The Villiers d

e viscounty at an earlier date. Cal. St. Pa., Dom., Nov. 23, 1606;

e Papers (Domestic), 1

on, Drayt

Aldine edition o

, Aldine edition

p. cit.