[Illustration: THE GLOBE THEATRE, WITH ST. PAUL'S IN THE BACKGROUND From Vischer's long view of London, 1616] With _Philaster_ Beaumont and Fletcher leaped into the foremost rank as dramatists. I have so much to say of this tragicomedy in my discussion of the authorship of its successive scenes, that but a word may here be said concerning the reasons for its success. Hitherto, practically Shakespeare alone had written for the King's Servants romantic comedies of a serious cast; and they were generally based upon some well-known story. Here was a comedy of serious kind with a romantic and original plot, by authors comparatively new to the general public, written in a style refreshingly unhackneyed, and played in the best theatres and by the best company that London possessed. The Hamlet-like hero seeking his kingdom and his princess--the daughter of the usurper--and, through misunderstandings and misadventures, tragic apprehensions, swiftly succeeding crises, bloodshed, riot, and surprising reversals of fortune, attaining both birth-right and love; the pathetic innocence and nobly futile devotion of his girl-page; the triangular affair of the affections; the humour of the secondary characters; the allurements of spectacle and masque; the atmosphere of the palace, heroic,--of the country, idyllic,--of Mile-end and its roarers of the borough, somewhat burlesque,--the diapason of the poetry from bourdon to flute,--all combined to win immediate and long continuing favour, both of the City and the Court. Beaumont had, here, become to some extent "the sobriety of Fletcher's wit"; he had restrained "his quick free will,"--not, however, so much by pruning what Fletcher wrote as by admitting him to but one-quarter of the composition. Something of the intrigue, the bustle, the spectacle, the easy conversation are Fletcher's; and his, such sexual vulgarity--very little--as stamps a scene or two. The rest is Beaumont's. As in the two great romantic dramas which followed, and in Beaumont's subplot of _The Coxcombe_, the story is of the authors' own invention. It is not necessary to trace the girl-page and her devotion to the Diana of Montemayor, or to Bandello, or even to Sidney's _Arcadia_. The girl-page was a commonplace of fiction at the time; and the differences in the conduct of this part of the story are greater than the resemblances to any one of those sources. Much more evidently is the devoted Euphrasia-Bellario a younger sister of Shakespeare's Viola. But, in general, external influences bear upon details of character, situation, and device, not upon the construction of the play as a whole.