Wife and Have a Wife]. 1
______
The fifty-three plays, which are published as the joint works of Beaumont and Fletcher, do not give them more reputation
as poets, than their steady friendship confers honour upon them as men.2
To the querulous and the vain it must be a subject of astonishment, how two persons
could derive fame so directly from the same source, as writing plays together,
without contending which had the strongest claim to that general admiration, which
their productions excited!—To female authors, of all others, this long mental
union must be matter of amazement! With them, such a conjunction of efforts had been
intolerable as soon as praise became the reward; each would then have demanded the
largest share, prompted by the conscientious scruples of justice.3
There is one failing, notwithstanding their stable friendship, which likens these
poets to the female sex—they did not write perfect grammar.—It was the
fashion of the times to be incorrect; and ease is the parent genius.4 Shakspeare, who wrote at the same
time, might have been restrained in many b
2[Page 4]of his sublimest flights, by the dread of a modern
Review.
These allied dramatists wanted, however, neither learning, nor the most refined
society of the period in which they wrote, to qualify them for the task they
fulfilled. They were both educated at Cambridge; and the father of Beaumont was one of the Judges of the
Court of Common Pleas;5 whilst Fletcher was son
to the Bishop of London. There was
nine years difference in their ages; the birth of the last being in 1576, and of the
first, in 1585.6
The weight of years was on Fletcher's
side, but tradition has given the weight of judgment to Beaumont. It is supposed, that Fletcher wrote, whilst Beaumont planned the fable, and
corrected the dialogue of his more witty and volatile, though elder
associate.7 But all accounts upon this point
are merely conjectural, for the authors behaved too much like men to disclose the
secret means of their labour; and here a curious inquirer after facts might almost
wish they had been women.
Highly gratifying to the reader of wisdom and learning as the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher may be, there is an uncomfortable
antiquity of principle and manners in most of them, which must exclude their
representation in the present age, and raise wonder in the mind of many a critic,
that there was ever a period so tasteless, as to give them preference before the
dramas of Shakspeare.8
"Rule a Wife and have a Wife," as altered by Garrick,9 ranks foremost among the selected plays of these [Page 5]united
authors, that are now performed: and though it has an unpleasing fable, with female
characters perfectly detestable, yet it is constituted with parts so ably written,
so
forcible in sentiment and humour, that actors of a certain class of excellence must
ever give it powerful effect in the exhibition. But to preserve its fame on the
stage, no common performers can be entrusted with the charge.
b 3