BEAl7MONT AND FLETCHER.*
A GOOD deal of interest attaches to the history of the miscellaneous collection of old plays commonly known as the works of Beaumont and Fletcher. They include, it may be reasonably supposed, all the dramatic work of Francis Beaumont and the great bulk of that of John Fletcher, also some possibly by William Shakespeare, one play certainly by James Shirley, it may be half the extant work of Philip Massinger, and a good deal probably by Nathan Field, Robert Daborne, and perhaps other authors. Some of this work must date from at least as early as 1607; some is possibly as late as 1637. The first play to issue from the press—and it was probably also the earliest written—was the Woman Hater, printed and probably acted "by the Children of Paules" in 1607. This appeared anonymously, and was probably the work of Beaumont alone. The next play printed, the Faithful Shepherdess, of which an undated quarto was published, probably in 1609, was the unaided work of Fletcher. The great partnership had not yet been formed. That may possibly have begun with the Four Plays in One, two of which were clearly written by each author. They collaborated for some five years, after which Beaumont married and retired. In later years Fletcher wrote in conjunction with several other authors, notably Massinger. By the time of Beaumont's death in 1616 four plays had been printed, by that of Fletcher's in 1625 nine, by the closing of the theatres in 1642 seventeen, all of course in quarto. The breaking up of the theatrical com- panies brought numerous manuscript plays to press, as may be seen from the entries in the Stationers' Register from 1646 to 1660. In 1647 the enterprising Humphrey Moseley, dis- pensing apparently with the formality of a license, published a volume of collected plays by our authors. It was intended to contain all the hitherto unprinted pieces, with the exception of the Wild-Goose-Chase, which was thought to be irretrievably lost, and contained in all thirty-four plays and a masque. The sources from which the copy was drawn varied ; some plays were evidently printed from playhouse manuscripts, others no doubt from transcripts in private hands. Some years later the Wild-Goose-Chase turned up, and was printed in folio in 1652 as a supplement to the 1647 volume. All the plays commonly known as Beaumont and Fletcher's were now in type. A few others still remained in manuscript. In 1653 Gardenia by Fletcher and Shakespeare, was entered for publication, and the follow- ing year the Jeweller of Amsterdam, by Fletcher, Field, and Massinger. Neither was printed, and both are now lost. One other play, Sir John of Olden Barnaveldt, was identified among the Additional Manuscripts at the British Museum (1) The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. Variorum Edition Edited by A. H. Billion. Vols. L-U. London G. Boll and Sons. LlOs. 6d net each.]—(2) The Text Edited by Arnold Glover. Vol. L Cambridge :at the University Press. [Ss. 6d. net.]
and printed by Mr. A. H. Bullen in 1883. After the Restora- tion a syndicate of booksellers was formed to collect all the known plays into one volume. They procured a copy of the 1647 folio, in which a nameless "ingenious and worthy Gentle- man" had made a number of more or less arbitrary alterations, together with such quartos as happened to lie handy, no matter how corrupt, and reprinted them in 1679 in a large folio, to which they prefixed a scandalously dishonest advertisement.
The folio of 1679 Closes the early history of the plays. With the eighteenth century came the fashion of editions in many volumes, and gradually the pretence at least of critical editing. The edition of 1711 was little more than a book- sellers' reprint; that of 1750 was prepared by no less a scholar than Theobald, undoubtedly the ablest editor of these plays before Dyce, in collaboration with Seward and Sympson, who completed it after his death ; that of 1778, said to have been edited by George Colman, has little critical value. A more serious attempt was made in 1812 by Weber, but the editor was not gifted with any conspicuous talent. At last between 1843 and 1846 appeared the admirable edition in eleven volumes by Alexander Dyce, which has now remained the standard for over half-a-century. The editorial methods adopted by Dyce are not altogether such as commend them- selves to scholars to-day, but those who have studied our authors most carefully will be the first to recognise the valuable, and often brilliant, work done by that indefatigable editor. In width of knowledge, keenness of critical insight, and sanity of judgment he has had few equals.
It is now a good many years since Mr. Bull= announced a new edition which was to include all that was of importance in the work of previous editors, together with such further critical matter as the investigations of the past half-century supplied, and also a fuller record of the variant readings of the early texts. The work, complete in twelve volumes, was to be carried out by a number of editors under general super- vision. The first volume at last appeared in 1904, and the second has just been issued. It follows in the main the lines laid down by Dyce, and offers an excellent reading text, while much learning is accumulated in the notes ; textually, however, it is hardly what the modern philological scholar will regard as altogether satisfactory.
We should welcome the appearance of a second large edition at the same time as a sign of the interest taken in the English drama, were we convinced that there was an adequate demand for both. The Cambridge edition, which is to fill ten volumes, is purely textual, consisting of an exact reprint of the folio of 1679, with variant readings from all earlier editions. The work has been executed with scrupulous care, but the result is far from satisfactory. The text of 1679 has no attraction for the ordinary reader, being more or less antiquated in spelling, and often very corrupt. In some cases whole plays which should be in verse are printed as prose. Nor, in spite of the lists of variants, will it be of much service to students. There is one, and only one, rule recognised by modern scholarship in textual matters, and that is that an edition should be based upon the earliest authoritative text. In the present instance the interests of scholarship and the comfort of the reader have been alike sacrificed. We would suggest that a University Press, which stands in some respects in a privileged position, should be at more pains to discover what are the requirements of students before engaging in such enterprises as the present.
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