Coleridge said that Shakspere was coarse, but never gross. He had the healthy coarseness of nature herself. But Beaumont and Fletcher's pages are corrupt. Even their chaste women are immodest in language and thought. They use not merely that frankness of speech which was a fashion of the times, but a profusion of obscene imagery which could not proceed from a pure mind. Chastity with them is rather a bodily accident than a virtue of the heart, says Coleridge. Among the best of their light comedies are _The Chances, The Scornful Lady, The Spanish Curate_, and _Rule a Wife and Have a Wife_. But far superior to these are their tragedies and tragi-comedies, _The Maid's Tragedy, Philaster, A King and No King_--all written jointly--and _Valentinian_ and _Thierry and Theodoret_, written by Fletcher alone, but perhaps, in part, sketched out by Beaumont. The tragic masterpiece of Beaumont and Fletcher is _The Maid's Tragedy_, a powerful but repulsive play, which sheds a singular light not only upon its authors' dramatic methods, but also upon the attitude toward royalty favored by the doctrine of the divine right of kings, which grew up under the Stuarts. The heroine, Evadne, has been in secret a mistress of the king, who marries her to Amintor, a gentleman of his court, because, as she explains to her bridegroom, on the wedding night, I must have one To father children, and to bear the name Of husband to me, that my sin may be More honorable. This scene is, perhaps, the most affecting and impressive in the whole range of Beaumont and Fletcher's drama. Yet when Evadne names the king as her paramour, Amintor exclaims: O thou hast named a word that wipes away All thoughts revengeful. In that sacred name "The king" there lies a terror. What frail man Dares lift his hand against it? Let the gods Speak to him when they please; till when, let us Suffer and wait. And the play ends with the words On lustful kings, Unlooked-for sudden deaths from heaven are sent, But cursed is he that is their instrument.