Francis Beaumont: Dramatist: A Portrait, with Some Account of His Circle, Elizabethan and Jacobean,; And of His Association with John Fletcher — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Francis Beaumont: Dramatist: A Portrait, with Some Account of His Circle, Elizabethan and Jacobean,; And of His Association with John Fletcher
John Stuart Mill · en
The rest of these _Morall Representations_ display neither the verse nor
the rhetoric of Fletcher. On the basis of verse-tests Boyle assigns them
to Beaumont. Macaulay says, "probably,"--and adds the _Induction_. But
Oliphant, taking into consideration also the rhetorical and dramatic
qualities, gives the _Induction_ and _The Triumph of Honour_ to a third
author, Nathaniel Field, and only _The Triumph of Love_ to Beaumont. As
to the _Induction_ and _The Triumph of Honour_ I agree with Oliphant.
They are full of polysyllabic Latinisms such as Field uses in his _Woman
is a Weather-cocke_ (entered for publication November 23, 1611) and
Beaumont never uses: 'to participate affairs,' 'torturous engine,' etc.;
and they are marked by simpler Fieldian expressions 'wale,' 'gyv'd,'
'blown man,' 'miskill,' 'vane,' 'lubbers,' 'urned,' and a score of
others not found anywhere in Beaumont's undoubted writings. A few words,
like 'basilisk' and 'loathed' suggest Beaumont, as does the verse; but
this may be explained by vogue or imitation. Field was two or three
years younger than Beaumont, and had played as a boy actor in one or
more of the early Beaumont and Fletcher productions. His _Woman is a
Weather-cocke_ and his _Amends for Ladies_ indicate the influence of
Beaumont in matters of comic invention, poetic hyperbole, burlesque and
pathos, as well as in metrical style. The _Honour_ is a somewhat
bombastic, puerile, magic-show written in manifest imitation of
Beaumont's verse and rhetoric.
As to _The Triumph of Love_, I go further than Oliphant. I assign at
least half of it, viz., scenes 1, 2, and 6, on the basis of diction, to
Field. In scenes 3, 4, and 5, I find some trace of Beaumont's favourite
expressions, of his thoughts of destiny and death and woman's
tenderness, his poetic spontaneity, his sensational dramatic surprises;
but I think these are an echo. The rural scene lacks his exquisite
simplicity; and some of the words are not of his vocabulary. One is
sorry to strike from the list of Beaumont's creations the pathetic and
almost impressive figure of Violante. If it was originally Beaumont's,
it is of his earlier work revamped by Field; if it is Field's, it is an
echo simulating the voice, but missing the reality, of Beaumont's
Aspatia, Bellario, Urania. This criticism holds true of both the
Triumphs, _Love_ and _Honour_.