How fares your Majesty?

K. John. Poifon'd! ill fare! dead, forfook, caft off:
And none of you will bid the Winter come
To thruft his icy fingers in my maw;

Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their courfe
Thro' my burnt bofom: nor entreat the North
To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips
And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much,
I beg cold comfort.

The first and laft lines are to be ranged among the faults that fo much difgrace Shakespear, which he committed to please the corrupt tafle of the age he lived in: but to which Beaumont and Fletcher's learning and fortune made them fuperior. The intermediate lines are extremely beautiful, and marked as fuch by the late great editor [Mr. Pope] but yet are much improved in two plays of our Authors; the first in Valentinian, where the Emperor, poifoned in the fame manner, dies, with more violence, fury and horror, than King John. But the paffage that I fhall quote is from A Wife for a Month; a play which doth not upon the whole equal the poetic fublimity of Valentinian, though it rather excels it in the poisoning fcene. The Prince Alphonfo, who had been long in a phrenzy of melancholy, is poifon'd with a hot, fiery potion, under the agonies of which he

募

Give me more air, more air, air: blow, blow, blow,

Open, thou eastern gate! and blow upon me:\
Diftil thy cold dews, oh, thou; icy moon,
And rivers run thro' my afflicted spirit.

I am all fire, fire, fire; the raging Dog-ftar

Reigns in my blood; oh! which way fhall I turn me?
Ætna and all her flames burn in my head.

Fling me into the ocean, or I perish.

Dig, dig, dig, dig, until the fprings fly up

The cold, cold fprings, that I may leap into them

And bathe my scorch'd limbs in their purling pleasures &
Or fhoot me into the higher region,

Where treasures of delicious fnow are nourish'd,
And banquets of sweet hail.

Rug.

Oh! how he burns!

Alph.

Hold him faft, friar.

What, will ye facrifice me?,

Upon the altar lay my willing body,

And pile your wood up, fling your holy incenfe:
And as I turn me, you shall fee all flame,

Confuming flame. Stand off me, or you're alhes.

Mart. To bed, good Sir.

Alph.
My bed will burn about me.)
Like Phaeton, in all-confuming flashes o
Am I incios'd let me fly, let me fly, give room
'Twixt the cold Bears, far from the raging Lion,
Lies my fafeway: oh, for a cake of ice now...
To clap into my heart to comfort me. 'e
Decrepit Winter hang upon my fhoulders
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And let me wear thy frozen icicles,

Like jewels round about my head, to cool me.
My eyes burn out, and sink into their fockets,
And my infected brain like brimstone boils.
I live in hell, and several furies vex me.
Oh! carry me where never fun e'er shew'd yet
A face of comfort, where the earth is chryftal
Never to be diffolved, where nought inhabits
But night, and cold, and nipping frofts and winds,
That cut the ftubborn rocks, and make them shiver;
Set me there, friends.

• Every man of tafte will fee how fuperior this is to the quotation from Shakespear. The images are vaftly more numerous, more judicious, more nervous, and the paffions are wrought up to the highest pitch."

The images, indeed, are, as this critic obferves, vaftly more nume rous; and on that very account the whole description becomes, in our eftimation, lefs judicious and less nervous. Fletcher, or whoever was the writer, difcovers an exuberant fertility of invention. But in the prodigality of metaphors, allufions and images, the defcription Jofes much of the beautiful fimplicity of nature, and looks too much like the gaudy picture of art. Ice-water, and cold air, easily fuggeft themselves to a perfon who (to ufe Seward's words) hath been 'poisoned with a hot, fiery potion.' But the Dog-ftar, Mount Etna, and the different regions of the atmosphere; Phaeton, the cold Bears, and the raging Lion (or the conftellations to which aftronomy hath fancifully applied these terms); and above all, a fine, but artificial and highly metaphorical description of a country where fun ne'er fhew'd yet a face of comfort,' is entirely inconfiftent with that intoxication of agony and diftrefs under which Alphonfo is fuppofed to labour at the moment when thefe expreffions are uttered.

In the tragedy of Philafter there is a beautiful description of rural melancholy:

-I have a boy,

Sent by the Gods I hope to this intent,

Not yet seen in the court. Hunting the back,
I found him fitting by a fountain fide,

Of which he borrow'd fome to quench his thirst.
And paid the nymph again as much in tears,
A garland lay by him, made by himself
Of many feveral flowers, bred in the bay,
Stuck in that myftic order that the rarénefs
Delighted me: but ever when he turn'd -
His tender eyes upon them, he would weep
As if he meant to make them grow again.
Seeing fuch pretty, helplefs innocence
Dwell in his face, I ask'd him all his story;
He told me that his parents gentle died,
Leaving him to the mercy of the fields

Which gave him roots, and of the chryftal springs
Which did not stop their courfes; and the fun

Which ftill, he thank'd him, yielded him his light:
Then up
he took his garland, and did shew....
What every flower, as country people hold,

Did fignify: and how all order'd thus

Expreft his grief: and to my thoughts did read
The prettiest lecture of his country art

That could be wifh'd, fo that methought

I could have studied it.'

This paffage is compared with that well known defcription which is given in Shakespear of the melancholy Jacques,

as he lay along

Under an oak,' &c. &c. and moralized in a train of the most exquifite fenfibility on the fate of the hunted deer. Seward, indeed, gives the preference to Shakefpear in this inftance, just as he would give it to a Raphael when compared to a Guido.' A man pitying and lamenting over the misfortunes of a timorous and forlorn brute, fhews a degree of tenderness and fenfibility of fpirit vaftly fuperior to that of a human creature melted only by the feelings of his own diftreffes. It touches the heart, and interefts every gentle paffion in a very high degree. The reflections which the pentive moralift makes, when he sees the poor animal 'left and abandon'd of his velvet friends,' are beautiful and affecting. 'Tis right, quoth he; thus mifery doth part

The flux of company! Anon, a careless herd,
Fall of the pafture, jumps along by him,

And never lays to greet him, Ay, quoth Jacques,
Sweep on, ye fat and greaty citizens,

'Tis just the fashion!'.

This is a natural, rural scene. That of Fletcher's is a scene of the fame rural character: but it is a scene more artificially laid out: it is a scene in a picture heightened by a better difpofition and arrangement of the objects; but leffened by a weaker and lefs interefting representation of the original.

It would extend this article beyond its proper length, if we entered into a particular examination of the most diflinguished characters in thefe plays. But we cannot avoid remarking, that in the King and no King,' two characters are introduced (viz. Arbaces and Beffus), which have been by fome critics exalted into a rival hip, at least, with the Hotspur and Falstaff of Shakespear. We think that this drama is a most excellent one, and that the poets difcovered great ingenuity in those two characters in particular. But Arbaces is not equal to Hotspur; nor can Beffus rival Falstaff with any fuccefs. In the former character we perceive the fame fault that generally marks the language of thefe plays. Beauties are heaped on beauties with a prodigality that (as one of his encomials fays, by way of compliment as he imagined) furfeits with good things.' Arbaces, instead cf being a fiery and impatient hero, is a petulant, and on the whole rather a puerile than manly character. Hotfpur, the Achilles of the English flage, is fierce and violent-impatient of control or contradiction-impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer. But he is not ridiculously whirled about by every blast of paffion. In short, by making Arbaces too violent and headstrong, the poets have divefted him of all dignity, and destroyed those parts of Shakespear's character that make Hotspur refpectable. The fame fault is committed in Beffus. Falstaff is always laughable: but feldom defpicable. He fets him

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felf in the true point of ridicule; and being the first to raise a laugh at his own expence, we are ready to forgive him the occafion of it. Beffus is a greater coward than Falstaff, and he is not poffeffed of fuch truly laughable qualities as are fufficient to compenfate for his want of courage, and the abfurdities and irregularities of his conduct. Theobald, who confidered the character of Beffus as a fine copy from Shakespear's inimitable Falstaff,' very juftly obferves, that as to his wit and humour, the precedence 'mutt certainly be adjudged to Falftaff, the great original.'

The prefent edition is introduced by the original dedication of the players to the folio of 1647. That is fucceeded by Shirley's preface to the fame edition: and that by the ftationer's addrefs. Next follows the addrefs of the bookfellers who published another folio edition in 1679. The preface to the octavo edition 1711 is here reprinted, in which we have a fhort account of the Authors and their writings. Though Beaumont was the fon of a judge, and Fletcher of a bishop, and both authors of distinguished fame, yet all we know of them is fo very inconfiderable, that scarce any memorials are left of them, except in their writings. Mr. Seward's preface to the edition in octavo 1750 is in part reprinted. A long and impertinent criticism on fome fcriptural topics is very properly omitted: fome mistakes are rectified by the prefent Editor; and a few of his obfervations confirmed and illuftrated. The commendatory poems, with notes and illustrations, follow Seward's preface; to which are added, fome verfes by Fletcher upon an honeft man's fortune,' and a poetical letter from Beaumont to Ben Jonfon. After a general table of contents, we are presented with a new preface, and a curious extract from Mr. Capell's notes on Anthony and Cleopatra, relating to fome theatrical customs in Shakespear's age.

The new preface to this edition is evidently the production of a very ingenious writer, and bears fome ftriking marks of Mr. Colman's pen. We fhall, we are perfuaded, gratify our Readers, by prefenting them with one or two extracts from it.

To the popularity of a dramatic writer, nothing more immediately contributes than the frequency of theatrical reprefentation. Common readers, like barren fpectators, know little more of an author, than what the actor, not always his happiest commentator, prefents to them. Mutilations of Shakefpear have been recited and even quoted as his genuine text; and many of his dramas, not in the courfe of exhibition, are by the multitude not honoured with a perufal. On the flage, indeed, our Authors formerly took the lead, Dryden having informed us, that in his day two of their plays were performed to one of Shakespear. The ftage, however, owes its attraction to the actor as well as author; and if the able performer will not contribute to give a polish and brilliancy to the work, it will lie like the rough diamond, obfcured and difregarded. The artists of former days worked the rich mine of Beaumont and Fletcher; and Betterton, the Rofcius of his age, enriched his catalogue of characters from their dramas as well as thofe of Shakespear. Unfortunately for our Authors, the Rofcius of our day confined his round of characters in old plays too closely to Shakespear. We may almost say of him indeed in this refpect, as Dryden says of Shakespear's scenes of magic, • Within

"Within that circle none durft walk but he."

But furely we must lament, that thofe extraordinary powers which have been fo fuccefsfully exerted in the illuftration of Shakespear, and fometimes proftituted to the fupport of the meaneft writers, fhould not more frequently have been employed to throw a light on Beaumont and Fletcher.-Thefe illuftrious followers of the glorious father of our drama, ought not furely to be caft fo far behind him, as to fall into a contemptuous neglect, whilft the most careless works of Shakespear are ftudiously brought forward. The Maid's Tragedy, King and no King, Love's Pilgrimage, Monfieur Thomas, &c. &c, &c. would hardly difgrace that ftage which hath exhibited The two Gentlemen of Verona.'

With respect to the various editions of Beaumont and Fletcher, Our ingenious Prefacer observes, that the old copies of their dramatic works have come down to us exactly in the same state with the old quarto's of Shakespear. The printers of those times not only copied, but mutilated the errors of tranfcribers. An editor, nay even a corrector of the prefs, feems to have been a character of which they had not the fmalleft conception. Even the title-pages appear to exhibit the very names of the authors at random: fometimes announcing the play as the work of one poet, fometimes of another, and fometimes as the joint production of both. A bookfeller is fomewhere introduced as reprehending the faving ways of an Ode Writer, who, he fuppofed, merely to lengthen his work, would often put no more than three or four words into a line. The old printers feem to have conceived the fame idea of the parfimony of poets, and therefore often without fcruple run verfe into profe, not adverting to meafure or harmony, but folely governed by the dimenfions of the page, whether divided into columns or carried all across from one fcanty margin to another. Their orthography is fo generally vicious and unfettled, and their punctuation fo totally defective, that the regulation of either rarely merits the triumphs that have been fo often derived from it. On the whole, however, these old copies of our Poets may by an intelligent Reader, be perufed with fatisfaction. The typographical errors are indeed grofs and numerous; but their very number and groffnefs keeps the Reader awake to the genuine text, and commonly renders fuch palpable inaccura cies not prejudicial. The genuine work of the Author is there extant, though the lines are often, like a confufed multitude, huddled on one another, and not marshalled and arrayed by the discipline of a modern editor.

The first folio, containing thirty-four of our Authors pieces, never till then collected or printed, was published by the players, obviously transcribed from the prompter's books, commonly the moft inaccurate and barbarous of all manufcripts, or made out piecemeal from the detached parts copied for the ufe of the performers. Hence it happens, that the ftage direction has fometimes crept into the text, and the name of the actor is now and then fubftituted for that of the character. The tranfcribers, knowing perhaps no language perfectly, corrupted all languages, and vitiated the dialogue with falfe Latin, falfe French, falfe Italian, and false Spanish; nay,

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as