[138] "Thou wert not meant, Sure, for a woman, thou art so innocent," philosophizes the Sullen Shepherd concerning Amoret;--and not only wanton nymphs but modest swains are of the same philosophy. [139] Ward, _E. Dr. Lit._, II, 649,--quoting, in the footnote, from _The Nice Valour_, V, 3. [140] Dyce, _B. and F._, I, lxxiii. PART TWO THE COLLABORATION OF BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER CHAPTER XVI STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM; CRITICAL APPARATUS Much of the confusion which existed in the minds of readers and critics during the period following the Restoration concerning the respective productivity of Beaumont and Fletcher is due to accident. The quartos (generally unauthorized) of individual plays in circulation were, as often as not, wrong in their ascriptions of authorship to one, or the other, or both of the dramatists; and the folio of 1647, which, long after both were dead, first presented what purported to be their collected works, lacked title-pages to the individual plays, and, save in one instance, prefixed no name of author to any play. The exception is _The Maske of the Gentlemen of Grayes-Inne and the Inner Temple_ "written by Francis Beaumont, Gentleman," which had been performed, Feb. 20, 1612-13, and had appeared in quarto without date (but probably 1613) as "by Francis Beaumont, Gent." In seven instances, Fletcher is indicated in the 1647 folio by Prologue or Epilogue as author, or author revised, and in general correctly; but otherwise the thirty-four plays included (not counting the _Maske_) are introduced to the public merely by a general title-page as "written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, Gentlemen. Never printed before, And now published by the Authours Originall Copies." That the public should have been deceived into accepting most of them as the joint-product of the authors is not surprising. Though it is not the purpose of this discussion to consider plays in which Beaumont was not concerned, it may be said incidentally that of eleven of these productions Fletcher was sole author; Massinger of perhaps one, and with Fletcher of eight, and with Fletcher and others of five more; that in several plays four or five other authors had a hand, and that in at least five Fletcher had no share.[141] [Illustration: JOHN FLETCHER From the painting in the National Portrait Gallery Painter unknown but contemporary] Sir Aston Cockayne was, therefore, fully justified, when, some time between 1647 and 1658, he thus upbraided the publishers of the folio: