Francis Beaumont, 1584–1616. Born, at Grace-Dieu, Leicestershire, 1584. Matriculated at Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College, Oxford), 1597. Left University without degree, April 1598, on death of father. Admitted to Inner Temple, 3 Nov. 1600. First verses published, 1602. Early intimacy with John Fletcher. Wrote dramas with him, 1605–14. Lived in London, with occasional visits to Grace-Dieu. Married Ursula Isley, 1613 (?). Had two daughters. Died, 6 March 1616. Buried in Westminster Abbey. Works: For plays written with John Fletcher, [see Beaumont and Fletcher]. Verse prefixed to Sir John Beaumont’s “Metamorphosis of Tobacco,” 1602; “Salmacis and Hermaphroditus” (anon.; authorship not certain), 1602; “The Masque of the Gentlemen of Grayes Inne and the Inner Temple” (anon.), [1613]; contrib. to “Certain Elegies, done by sundrie excellent Wits,” 1618. Posthumous: “Poems,” 1640.

Personal

  That Francis Beaumont loved too much himself and his own verses.

  Of Beaumont’s character it is for obvious reasons less easy to form a definite conception than of his friend’s. But though a genuine popularity may naturally have attached to a young man of rank and fortune moving on terms of friendly equality among those with whom the pursuit of an art was a question of bread as well as of honour—though a halo of admiring regrets naturally surrounded the memory of one who died young in the midst of his fame—and though, lastly, it is probable that the surviving Fletcher, in especial, assiduously proclaimed his friend’s merits to a willing audience—yet we need not undervalue the agreement among his contemporaries that in him was lost one “in the foremost rank of the rar’st Wits” of his age. Tradition has handed down the “judiciousness” of Beaumont as his most memorable characteristic in his relations to two men, neither of whom he can have equalled in creative power—Ben Jonson and Fletcher. And whatever judgment may be formed concerning his claim to the laurels of which he is popularly allowed an equal share, he must assuredly have deserved the esteem with which he seems to have been regarded by so many of his contemporaries, the friendship with which he was honoured by Ben Jonson, and the fraternal affection inspired by him in Fletcher.

General

  Had, with the advantage of Shakespeare’s wit, which was their precedent, great natural gifts, improved by study; Beaumont especially being so accurate a judge of plays, that Ben Jonson, while he lived, submitted all his writings to his censure, and ’tis thought, used his judgment in correcting, if not contriving, all his plots. What value he had for him, appears by the verses he writ to him; and therefore I need speak no further of it.

  The tradition runs that his chief business was to correct the overflowings of Fletcher’s fancy, and hold its volatile creativeness in check. Everybody of that age commended his judgment, and even Ben Jonson is said to have consulted him in regard to his plots. The plays in which he had a main hand exhibit a firmer hold upon character, a more orderly disposition of the incidents, and greater symmetry in the construction, than the others. His verse is also simpler, sweeter, more voluble, than Fletcher’s, with few of the latter’s double and triple endings and harsh pauses…. After, however, awarding to Beaumont all that he can properly claim, he must still be placed below Fletcher, not merely in fertility, but in force and variety of genius.

  Compare with Beaumont’s admirable farce of Bessus the wretched imitation of it attempted after his death in the “Nice Valour” of Fletcher; whose proper genius was neither for pure tragedy nor broad farce, but for high comedy and heroic romance—a field of his own invention; witness “Monsieur Thomas” and “The Knight of Malta:” while Beaumont has approved himself in tragedy all but the worthiest disciple of Shakespeare, in farce beyond all comparison the aptest pupil of Jonson. He could give us no “Fox” or “Alchemist;” but the inventor of Bessus and Calianax was worthy of the esteem and affection returned to him by the creator of Morise and Rabbi Busy.

  The history of the English drama from 1611 to 1642 may serve, when it is written, to illustrate the statement that, so far as this great national product had any single source, it sprang originally from the spirit of united patriotism; and the claim of Francis Beaumont to consideration in such a history would be partly at least the fact that he was more than any other man the link between the earlier and the later generation.

  Beaumont’s successive “elegies” and minor poems, written at various times, are in aggregate inexplicably poor and unequal. Even with the “sole daughter” of a Sidney to inspire him, his “mourning” verse is mechanical. It is alone as a dramatic poet that he lives.

  There was no lack of difference, especially of a metrical nature, about their styles. As far as we can judge, Beaumont’s was the gift for tragedy; he had less wit and less skill than Fletcher, but he was more genuinely inspired, richer in feeling, and more daring in invention than his brother poet. His noble head is encircled by a halo of sadness, for, like Marlowe and Shelley, two of England’s greatest poets, he died before he had completed his thirtieth year.