Pal. No tumour of an iron vein.

The causes shall not come again.

Cho. But, as of old, all now be gold.

Move, move then to the sounds;

And do not only walk your solemn rounds,
But give those light and airy bounds,
That fit the Genii of these gladder grounds.

[The first Dance.]

Pal. Already do not all things smile?

Ast. But when they have enjoy'd awhile
The Age's quickening power:

Age. That every thought a seed doth bring,
And every look a plant doth spring,
And every breath a flower:

Pal. The earth unplough'd shall yield her crop, Pure honey from the oak shall drop,

The fountain shall run milk:

The thistle shall the lily bear,
And every bramble roses wear,
And every worm make silk.

Cho. The very shrub shall balsam sweet,
And nectar melt the rock with heat,
Till earth have drank her fill:
That she no harmful weed may know,
Nor barren fern, nor mandrake low,
Nor mineral to kill.

[Here the main Dance. After which,] Pal. But here's not all: you must do more, Or else you do but half restore,

The Age's liberty.

Poe. The male and female us'd to join,
And into all delight did coin

That pure simplicity.

Then Feature did to Form advance,
And Youth call'd Beauty forth to dance,

And every Grace was by:

It was a time of no distrust,

So much of love had nought of lust;
None fear'd a jealous eye.

The language melted in the ear,
Yet all without a blush might hear;

They liv'd with open vow.

Cho. Each touch and kiss was so well plac'd,

They were as sweet as they were chaste,
And such must yours be now.

[Here they dance with the ladies.]

Ast. What change is here? I had not more Desire to leave the earth before,

Than I have now to stay;

My silver feet, like roots, are wreath'd
Into the ground, my wings are sheath'd,
And I can not away.

Of all there seems a second birth;
It is become a heaven on earth,

And Jove is present here.
I feel the godhead; nor will doubt
But he can fill the place throughout,
Whose power is everywhere.

This, this, and only such as this,
The bright Astræa's region is,

Where she would pray to live;
And in the midst of so much gold,
Unbought with grace, or fear unsold,
The law to mortals give.

[Here they dance the Galliards and Corantos. Pallas ascending, and
calling the Poets.]

'Tis now enough; behold you here,

What Jove hath built to be your sphere,

You hither must retire.

And as his bounty gives you cause,
Be ready still without your pause,
To show the world your fire.

Like lights about Astræa's throne,
You here must shine, and all be one,
In fervour and in flame;

That by your union she may grow,
And, you sustaining her, may know
The Age still by her name.

Who vows, against or heat or cold,
To spin your garments of her gold,
That want may touch you never;
And making garlands ev'ry hour,

To write your names in some new flower,
That you may live forever.

Cho. To Jove, to Jove, be all the honours given.

That thankful hearts can raise from earth to heaven.

Beaumont and Fletcher, in the order of our dramatic investigations, next require our attention. The literary partnerships of the drama which we have had occasion, in the course of our remarks, to notice, were generally brief and incidental, being confined to a few scenes, or a single play. In Beaumont and Fletcher, however, we have the interesting spectacle of two young men of exalted genius, of good birth and connections, living together for ten years, and writing in union a series of dramas, passionate, romantic, and comic, thus blending together their genius and their fame in indissoluble connection. Shakspeare was, beyond a doubt, the inspirer of these kindred spirits. They appeared when his genius was in its meridian splendor, and they were completely subdued by its overpowering influence. They reflected its leading characteristics, not as slavish

copyists, but as men of high powers and attainments, proud of borrowing inspiration from a source which they could so well appreciate, and which was at once ennobling and inexhaustible.

FRANCIS BEAUMONT was descended from the ancient family of Beaumont of Grace-Dieu, in Leicestershire, and was born in 1586. His grandfather, John Beaumont, was master of the rolls, and his father, Francis, one of the judges of the common pleas. Having completed his collegiate studies at Cambridge, young Beaumont entered the Inner Temple, London, as a student of law; but his passion for the muses prevented him from making any great proficiency in his legal studies. He married the daughter and coheiress of Sir Henry Isley, of Kent, by whom he had two daughters. The tenor of his brief life was even and uninterrupted, and his death occurred on the sixth of March, 1615, before he had attained the thirtieth year of his age. He was buried on the ninth of the same month, at the entrance of St. Benedict's chapel, Westminster Abbey. Thus, in the beautiful language of Hazlitt, was youth, genius, aspiring hope and growing reputation, cut off like a flower in its summer pride, or like the 'lily in its stalk green,' which inclines us to repine at fortune, and almost at nature, that seem to set so little store by their greatest favorites. The life of poets is, or ought to be, if we judge of it from the light it lends to others, a golden drama, full of brightness and sweetness, rapt in Elysium; and it gives one a reluctant pang to see the splendid vision, by which they are attended in their path of glory, fade like a vapor, and their sacred heads laid low in ashes, before the sand of common mortals has half run out.

JOHN FLETCHER was of equally distinguished parentage with Beaumont, being the son of Dr. Richard Fletcher, bishop of Bristol, and afterward of Worcester. He was born in Northamptonshire, in 1576, and educated at Bennet College, Cambridge. Though he was ten years older than Beaumont, yet comparatively nothing is known of him from the time at which he left the university, until the thirtieth year of his age, when he seems to have commenced his career of dramatic authorship, conjointly with his youthful and gifted associate. His life was as quiet and as unmarked by striking incidents, as was that of his partner in his early literary labors; and he died of the great plague in 1625, in the fiftieth year of his age. For some reason, not now known, his remains were not honored with a resting-place in Westminster Abbey, but were buried in St. Mary Overy's church, Southwark.

The dramas of Beaumont and Fletcher were fifty-two in number; but as the greater part of them were not published till 1647, it is impossible to ascertain the dates at which they were respectively produced. Dryden remarks that Philaster was the first play that brought them into esteem with the public, though they had previously written two or three others. It is improbable in plot, but highly interesting in character and situations. The

jealousy of Philaster is forced and unnatural; the character of Euphrasia, disguised as Bellario, the page, is a copy from Viola, yet there is something peculiarly delicate in the following account of her hopeless attachment to Philaster:

My father oft would speak

Your worth and virtue; and, as I did grow
More and more apprehensive, I did thirst
To see the man so prais'd, but yet all this
Was but a maiden longing, to be lost
As soon as found; till, sitting in my window,
Printing my thoughts in lawn, I saw a god,
I thought (but it was you) enter our gates.
My blood flew out, and back again as fast
As I had puff'd it forth and suck'd it in
Like breath. Then was I called away in haste
To entertain you. Never was a man
Heav'd from a sheep-cote to a sceptre raised
So high in thoughts as I: you left a kiss
Upon these lips then, which I mean to keep
From you forever. I did hear you talk,
Far above singing! After you were gone
I grew acquainted with my heart, and search'd
What stirr'd it so. Alas! I found it love;

Yet far from lust;

for could I but have lived
In presence of you, I had had my end.
For this I did delude my noble father
With a feigned pilgrimage, and dress'd myself
In habit of a boy; and for I knew

My birth no match for you, I was past hope
Of having you. And, understanding well
That when I made discovery of my sex,
I could not stay with you, I made a vow,

By all the most religious things a maid
Could call together, never to be known,

Whilst there was hope to hide me from men's eyes,

For other than I seem'd, that I might ever

Abide with you: Then sat I by the fount

Where first you took me up.

Philaster had previously described the circumstances under which he found the disguised maiden by the fount, and the description is highly poetical and picturesque :

Hunting the buck,

I found him sitting by a fountain-side,

Of which he borrow'd some to quench his thirst,

And paid the nymph again as much in tears.

A garland lay him by, made by himself,
Of many several flowers, bred in the bay,
Stuck in that mystic order, that the rareness
Delighted me: But ever when he turn'd
His tender eyes upon them he would weep,
As if he meant to make them grow again.
Seeing such pretty helpless innocence

Dwell in his face, I ask'd him all his story.
He told me that his parents gentle died,
Leaving him to the mercy of the fields,
Which gave him roots; and of the crystal springs,
Which did not stop their courses; and the sun,
Which still, he thank'd him, yielded him his light.
Then took he up his garland, and did show
What every flower, as country people hold, '
Did signify; and how all, order'd thus,

Express'd his grief: and to my thoughts did read

The prettiest lecture of his country art

That could be wish'd; so that methought I could
Have studied it. I gladly entertain'd him

Who was as glad to follow.

The Maid's Tragedy, supposed to have been written soon after 'Philaster' was produced, is a powerful, but unpleasing drama. The purity of female virtue in Amintor and Aspatia, is well contrasted with the guilty boldness of Evadne; and the rough soldier-like bearing and manly feeling of Melantius, render the selfish sensuality of the king, more hateful and disgusting. Unfortunately, there is much licentiousness in this fine play-whole scenes and dialogues are disfigured by this master vice of these authors. Their dramas are 'a rank unweeded garden,' which grew only the more disorderly and vicious as it advanced to maturity.

Besides the plays already mentioned, these writers had produced before Beaumont's death, three tragedies, King and no King, Bonduca, and The Laws of Candy; also five comedies, The Woman Hater, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, The Honest Man's Fortune, The Coxcomb, and The Captain. Fletcher afterwards wrote three tragic dramas and nine comedies, the best of which are The Chances, The Spanish Curate, The Beggar's Bush, and Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife. He also wrote an exquisite pastoral drama, The Faithful Shepherdess, which Milton followed pretty closely in the design, and partly in the language and imagery, in his Comus. In The Two Noble Kinsmen, another dramatic production of these joint authors, they are represented to have had the aid of Shakspeare; but as the play is not superior to many other of their performances, the statement is, certainly, not sustained by internal evidence.

To the dramas which Beaumont and Fletcher wrote conjointly, it is impossible to determine what share each took in contriving the plots, and filling up the scenes; but the general impression is, that Beaumont had the greater judgment and the severer taste, and was chiefly employed in retrenching and correcting the luxuriances of Fletcher's wit and fancy. The genius of the former is also said to have leaned more to tragedy than that of the latter. The later works of Fletcher are chiefly of a comic character; and in these the plots are often inartificial and loosely connected, though he is always lively and entertaining. The incidents rapidly succeed each other, and the dialogue is witty, elegant, and amusing. Dryden considered that Fletcher understood and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better