and _The Maid's Tragedy_, are
probably their joint production. _The Faithful Shepherdess_ and
_Bonduca_ are among the best of about eighteen plays supposed to have
been written by Fletcher alone. After Beaumont's death, Fletcher
sometimes collaborated with other dramatists.

[Illustration: FRANCIS BEAUMONT.]

Almost all the so-called Beaumont and Fletcher plays are well
constructed. These dramatists also have, in common with the majority
of their associates, the ability to produce occasional passages of
exquisite poetry. A character in _Philaster_ speaks of death in lines
that suggest _Hamlet_:--

"'Tis less than to be born; a lasting sleep,
A quiet resting from all jealousy;
A thing we all pursue; I know besides
It is but giving over of a game
That must be lost."

Beaumont and Fletcher's work is noteworthy for its pictures of
contemporary life and manners, for wealth of incident, rapidity of
movement, and variety of characters.

Not long after the beginning of the seventeenth century there was a
change in the taste of the patrons of the theater. Shakespeare
declined in popularity. The playwrights tried to solve the problem of
interesting audiences that wished only to be entertained. This attempt
led to a change in dramatic methods.

Changed Moral Ideals.--Under Elizabeth's successors the Puritan
spirit increased and the most religious part of the community seldom
attended the theater. The later dramatists pay little attention to the
moral development of character and its self-revelation through action.
They often merely describe character and paint it from the outside. We
have seen that Shakespeare's great plays are almost a demonstration in
moral geometry, but Beaumont and Fletcher are not much concerned over
the moral consequences of an action. The gravest charge against them
is that they "unknit the sequence of moral cause and effect." After
reading such plays, we do not rise with the feeling that there is a
divinity that shapes our ends.

[Illustration: JOHN FLETCHER.]

Coleridge says, "Shakespeare never renders that amiable which religion
and reason alike teach us to detest, or clothes impurity in the garb
of virtue, like Beaumont and Fletcher." Much of the work of their
contemporary dramatists is marred by such blemishes. Unpleasant as are
numbers of these plays, they are less insidious than many which have
appeared on the stage in modern times.

Love of Surprises.--The dramatists racked