When Massinger died tradition says that he was thrust into the same grave which had been opened shortly before for John Fletcher; if not joined there, these two had certainly been fellows in literary work; and there are those who think that the name of Massinger should have recognition in that great dramatic copartnery under style of Beaumont and Fletcher.[29] Certain it is that other writers had share in the work; among them--in at least one instance (that of “Two Noble Kinsmen”)--the fine hand of Shakespeare. But whatever helping touches or of outside journey-work may have been contributed to that mass of plays which bears name of Beaumont and Fletcher, it is certain that they hold of right that brilliant reputation for deft and lively and winning dramatic work which put their popularity before Jonson’s, if not before Shakespeare’s. The coupling together of this pair of authors at their work has the air of romance; both were well born; Fletcher, son of a bishop; Beaumont, son of Sir Francis Beaumont, of Grace-Dieu (not far away from Ashby-de-la-Zouch); both were university men, and though differing in age by eight or nine years, yet coming--very likely through the good offices of Ben Jonson--to that sharing of home and work and wardrobe which the old gossip Aubrey[30] has delighted in picturing. They wrought charmingly together, and with such a nice welding of jointures, that literary craftsmen, of whatever astuteness, are puzzled to say where the joinings lie. In agreement, however, with opinions of best critics, it may be said that Beaumont (the younger, who died nine years before his mate) was possessed of the deeper poetic fervors, while Fletcher was wider in fertilities and larger in affluence of diction. The dramatic horrors of Ford and Webster are softened in the lines of these later playwrights. These are debonair; they are lively; they are jocund; they tell stories that have a beginning and an end; they pique attention; there are delicacies, too, and--it must be said--a good many indelicacies; there are light-virtued women, and marital infelicities get an easy ripening toward the over-ripeness and rottenness that is to come in Restoration times. These twain were handsome fellows, by Aubrey’s and all other accounts; Beaumont most noticeably so; and Fletcher--brightly swarthy, red-haired, full-blooded--dying a bachelor and of the plague, down in the time of Charles I., and thrust hastily into the grave at St. Saviours, where Massinger presently followed him. I must give at least one taste of the dramatic manner for which both of these men were sponsors. It is from the well-known play of “Philaster” that I quote, where Euphrasia tells of the tender discovery of what stirred her heart:--