Two of their greatest plays, _Philaster_ and _The Maid's Tragedy_, are probably their joint production. _The Faithful Shepherdess_ and _Bonduca_ are among the best of about eighteen plays supposed to have been written by Fletcher alone. After Beaumont's death, Fletcher sometimes collaborated with other dramatists. [Illustration: FRANCIS BEAUMONT.] Almost all the so-called Beaumont and Fletcher plays are well constructed. These dramatists also have, in common with the majority of their associates, the ability to produce occasional passages of exquisite poetry. A character in _Philaster_ speaks of death in lines that suggest _Hamlet_:-- "'Tis less than to be born; a lasting sleep, A quiet resting from all jealousy; A thing we all pursue; I know besides It is but giving over of a game That must be lost." Beaumont and Fletcher's work is noteworthy for its pictures of contemporary life and manners, for wealth of incident, rapidity of movement, and variety of characters. Not long after the beginning of the seventeenth century there was a change in the taste of the patrons of the theater. Shakespeare declined in popularity. The playwrights tried to solve the problem of interesting audiences that wished only to be entertained. This attempt led to a change in dramatic methods. Changed Moral Ideals.--Under Elizabeth's successors the Puritan spirit increased and the most religious part of the community seldom attended the theater. The later dramatists pay little attention to the moral development of character and its self-revelation through action. They often merely describe character and paint it from the outside. We have seen that Shakespeare's great plays are almost a demonstration in moral geometry, but Beaumont and Fletcher are not much concerned over the moral consequences of an action. The gravest charge against them is that they "unknit the sequence of moral cause and effect." After reading such plays, we do not rise with the feeling that there is a divinity that shapes our ends. [Illustration: JOHN FLETCHER.] Coleridge says, "Shakespeare never renders that amiable which religion and reason alike teach us to detest, or clothes impurity in the garb of virtue, like Beaumont and Fletcher." Much of the work of their contemporary dramatists is marred by such blemishes. Unpleasant as are numbers of these plays, they are less insidious than many which have appeared on the stage in modern times.