says, it is "coarse both in design and texture, and seems hardly entitled to rank high among English comedies." It undoubtedly suggested ideas for Massinger's tragicomedy, _A Very Woman_, licensed 1634, but in which Fletcher may have had a share; and for Sir Aston Cockayne's _The Obstinate Lady_ of 1657.[253] FOOTNOTES: [245] Murray, _Eng. Dram. Comp._, I, 153; Warwick Bond, _Variorum Ed. of B. and F._, I, 359. [246] _Chr. Eng. Dr._, I, 181. [247] See Bond, _Variorum, B. and F._, I, 417; and references as given there, and by Dyce, to _The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt, The Captain_, and other plays. [248] See S. R. Gardiner, _History of England_, Vol. II (1607-1616), pp. 165, 218, 225, 247, 255, 316, 321, 324, 327, 368, for this and the following concerning Sarmiento. [249] Gardiner, _Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage_, pp. 6, 7, 69. [250] All critics agree in assigning I, 1, to Beaumont. They differ concerning the rest of I and II. [251] So, also, Fleay, G. C. Macaulay, and Oliphant; Boyle, _N. S. S. Trans._, XXVI (1886), and Bond, _u. s._, p. 360. [252] _Variorum_, I, 360. [253] The best editions of _The Scornful Ladie_ since Dyce's time are that of R. Warwick Bond, in the _Variorum_, and of Glover and Waller in the _Camb. Engl. Classics_. CHAPTER XXVII THE DRAMATIC ART, PRINCIPALLY OF BEAUMONT Of the eleven plays, then, from which one may try to draw conclusions concerning the respective dramatic qualities of Beaumont and Fletcher during the period of their collaboration, we have found that two, _Loves Cure_ and _The Captaine_, do not definitely show the hand of Beaumont, and one, _The Foure Playes_, but the suspicion of a finger. Two, _The Woman-Hater_ and _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, are wholly or essentially of his unaided authorship. The remaining six, _The Coxcombe_, _Philaster_, _The Maides Tragedy_, _Cupids Revenge_, _A King and No King_, _The Scornful Ladie_, are the Beaumont-Fletcher plays. Others in which some critics think that they have found traces of Beaumont, assuming that in their present form they are revisions of earlier work, are _Thierry and Theodoret_, _The Faithful Friends_, _Wit at Severall Weapons_, _Beggers Bush_, _Loves Pilgrimage_, _The Knight of Malta_, _The Lawes of Candy_, _The Honest Man's Fortune_, _Bonduca_, _Nice Valour_, _The Noble Gentleman_, _The Faire Maide of the Inne_. These I have carefully examined, and can conscientiously state that in no instance is there for me satisfactory evidence of the qualities which mark his verse and style. When in any of the suspected passages the verse recalls Beaumont, the style is not his: I find none of his favourite words, phrases, figures, ideas. When in any such passage a Beaumontesque hyperbole appears, or an occasional word from his vocabulary, or a line of haunting beauty such as he might have written, his metre or rhythm is absent. On the other hand, such passages display