fact, that the unsuccessful conspiracy of Catiline forms the substance of the whole representation. Otherwise the choice of the subject, the conception of the tragic, composition, delineation of character and language are essentially the same as in 'Sejanus.' However, we are willing to admit that both tragedies are especially distinguished by that gravity and height of elocution, fulness and frequency of sentence,' of which Ben Jonson boasts; it also cannot be denied that there is a 'dignity of persons,' but only in the sense in which Ben Jonson uses the words. Yet 'Catiline' is specially interesting, only, because Ben Jonson has here actually made the attempt of reintroducing the chorus of ancient tragedy, which seems to have disappeared from the English stage since those first attempts of the antique tendency in the domain of tragedy. Every act, with the exception of the fifth, closes with a speech from the 'chorus,' in rhymed strophes of a lyrical character, with general observations, opinions and wishes. Nothing, however, shows more plainly than these inappropriate choral chants, which are mere external appendages and disturb the whole illusion, how little. Jonson comprehended ancient tragedy, and how far the latter, in its inmost spirit and nature, is removed from his tragedies.*

* Mézières (l.c.), as a Frenchman, and in the interest and out of sympathy with the so-called classic French drama, regards Ben Jonson and his style from the most favourable point of view; but in all essential points he nevertheless so fully agrees with the characterisation and judgment I gave-not only of Ben Jonson, but of all the other predecessors and contemporaries of Shakspeare-in the second edition of this work, and which I have here repeated with but some improvements of expression, that my æsthetico-critical principles have only been confirmed.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BEN-JONSON SCHOOL-continued.

Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Ford and Field.

BEN JONSON'S opinion as to the nature of dramatic poetry, his conception of tragedy, his idea of comedy, his whole view of life with its rational realism, we again meet with in Beaumont, Fletcher, Massinger, Ford, Field, and all the younger dramatists from 1605 to 1642. I do not mean to say that these poets acknowledged Ben Jonson, the poet, as their lord and master, or that they exclusively took him as their model, imitated his style, or adopted his peculiarities (it is only Beaumont's 'Woman Hater' and 'The Nice Valour or the Passionate Madman' that are decided imitations of Ben Jonson). On the contrary, the most distinguished of them, Beaumont, Fletcher and Massinger, in poetical talent, far surpassed Ben Jonson's more critical than poetical mind. And even though Beaumont, in his eminent acuteness of intellect, and his prevailing vindication of criticism and reflection, closely resembled his friend Ben Jonson, still Fletcher's poetical talent stood nearer Shakspeare than Ben Jonson, and Massinger stood at least as near the one as the other. My reason for having classed these dramatists under the collective name of the BenJonson School is, on the one hand, because Ben Jonson was the first to introduce the new conception and mode of treating the drama, the first, intentionally to exclude the still remaining elements of the medieval formation of art, and thus, the first to break the threads of the hitherto ever progressive development of the drama; the first to raise the fundamental features of the new view of art and lifecalled the Renaissance'-to constitutive elements of dramatic poetry; the first to make the drama the mere image of reality, in short, the first to introduce the

complete transformation of the drama, both as regards subject and form; on the other hand, because, in England, it was chiefly the above mentioned poets, who, by their great talent for the new view of art and life, first, if we may so speak, acquired the franchise in the domain of poetry. For, in reality, what was wanting in Beaumont, Fletcher, and Massinger, was only the inner centre and the point of gravitation of all art, that fine and infallible sense of beauty which, in all cases, knows how to hit the right medium, to place all the individual qualities that constitute the poet, as well as all the elements of poetry itself, in harmony among one another, to balance them with one another, and to put them in the right relation with their common object. The several gifts-acuteness of judgment, readiness and fulness of wit, boldness of invention, animated delineation of character, susceptibility of feeling, pathos of emotion and of passion, purity and power of expression in all the tones of language, from Fletcher's elegance and fluency of conversation, through Beaumont's dialectic acuteness of reflection, up to Massinger's overpowering rhetoric of the tragic pathos-all these several gifts they possessed in a more or less high degree, so that in one or other respect, they can be placed by the side of Shakspeare. But these talents were, so to speak, scattered, that is, had no solidity or connection, and those who possessed them were unable to make the right use of them; partly because none of them possessed all in an equal degree, partly because in creative power of imagination, in greatness of mind, in power and fulness of poetical ideas, they stood as far below Shakspeare, as their general conception of art and life was more one-sided, more superficial, and more unpoetic than Shakspeare's profound view, which embraced both medieval and modern times.

* When Mézières (Contemporains et successeurs de Sh. pp. 25 ff., 307 ff.) classes Beaumont and Fletcher with Shakspeare instead of with Ben Jonson, and calls them Shakspeare's successors, he has overlooked, or not sufficiently estimated the fact that in spite of the external similarities of style, all the essential elements of dramatic poetry, their idea of tragedy and comedy, their mode of characterisation, their choice of subject, motive and object of their representation-in short, that the spirit and character of their compositions differ as widely from Shakspeare as they resemble Ben Jonson,

It would lead me too far, were I to characterise these poets more in detail. I must content myself with-as far as necessary-establishing my judgment by some general remarks in regard to the best of their works, and with pointing out the affinity of their idea of art and dramatic style with Ben Jonson's. Francis Beaumont (born 1586, d. 1615), and John Fletcher (born 1576, d. 1625), belonged to the higher ranks of English society, the former to the old family of Beaumont of Gracedieu in Leicestershire; the latter was a son of Dr. Richard Fletcher, bishop of Bristol, subsequently of Worcester, and after 1593 of London, and both had studied at the University of Cambridge.* Their more refined social culture was not without its influence upon their poetical works, which, as is well known, they for the most part composed conjointly. Their dramas not only give the tone of conversation of the higher ranks in a more natural and correct manner than those of Shakspeare and his associates, but are also not so full of low obscenities of the coarsest description, such as are exhibited undisguisedly and barefacedly in the later pieces of W. Rowley, Middleton, and most of the younger poets, and compared with which Shakspeare's Muse-which is frequently accused of the same offence-appears chaste and pure. And yet they show that same characteristic tendency which we meet with in Ben Jonson, Chapman, Dekker, Marston and Webster's works, of making low vices and crimes the main subjects of their pieces. Thus the action in The Maid's Tragedy' turns upon the adulterous relation between the King and Evadne whom he has seduced, and upon Amintor's infidelity towards Aspatia; in 'The Double Marriage' upon the non-compliance of the marriage duty on the part of the twice loved and married Virolet, about which his second consort, the otherwise noble character of Martia, breaks out into such a state of hatred and rage, that she throws herself into the arms of the Tyrant Ferrand, and becomes his mistress; in 'The False One' the action turns upon the weak-minded Ptolemy's base betrayal of his friend and patron Pompey, and upon Cæsar's carnal love for the

* See preface to the edition of 1711 in the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. With notes, etc., by Theobald, Seward, and Sympson. Vol. i., London, 1750.

beautiful Cleopatra; in The Bloody Brother,' upon adultery and fratricide; in Philaster, or Love lies a Bleeding,' upon the immoral relation between the Princess Arethusa and her page, of which she is accused by Megra, who is herself caught in the bedroom of Prince Pharamon; in the 'King and no King,' upon the passionate love between two who are supposed to be brother and sister, and which at every moment threatens to become incest; in 'The Knight of Malta,' upon Mountferrat's attempt to seduce the nobleminded Oriana by cunning and force, etc.

These pieces are justly regarded as the best of those tragedies which the two poets composed conjointly. The three last-named plays, among which we may also class another of Fletcher's works, ' The Two Noble Kinsmen' (in which, as already remarked, Shakspeare is said to have had a hand), are indeed, in reality neither tragic nor comic, but belong to the great class of dramas which were at that time called tragi-comedies; they are not tragedies, for they want the tragic catastrophe, and they cannot be regarded as comedies, because they not only lack the comic substance, but also the form and style of comedy. On the other hand, however, they seem closely to resemble the four first-mentioned plays, which are expressly called tragedies, in so far as in the latter the tragic element consists only in the fact that moral worthlessness or low crime, which triumph over virtue and magnanimity, in the end find their bloody punishment.

6

This is the general idea of tragedy, invariably met with in Beaumont and Fletcher, with various modifications. Some of their pieces, for instance the two most excellent of the above four, and in my opinion the best of all their tragedies, The Tragedy of Valentinian,' and 'The Maid's Tragedy,' are only apparently an exception to this. For if, in the first case Maximus, and in the second, Evadne or Amintor, could be regarded as the bearers of the tragic pathos, then, in both pieces, the idea of the tragic would certainly rise to about the same level as Shakspeare's idea. But Amintor and Maximus are treated precisely as mere secondary figures, and Evadne - who, moreover, with Melantius, the actual centre of the tragic pathos, also disappears into the background-seems at first so impudent