y upon its authors'
dramatic methods, but also upon the attitude toward royalty favored by
the doctrine of the divine right of kings, which grew up under the
Stuarts. The heroine, Evadne, has been in secret a mistress of the king,
who marries her to Amintor, a gentleman of his court, because, as she
explains to her bridegroom, on the wedding night,

I must have one
To father children, and to bear the name
Of husband to me, that my sin may be
More honorable.

This scene is, perhaps, the most affecting and impressive in the whole
range of Beaumont and Fletcher's drama. Yet when Evadne names the king
as her paramour, Amintor exclaims:

O thou hast named a word that wipes away
All thoughts revengeful. In that sacred name
"The king" there lies a terror. What frail man
Dares lift his hand against it? Let the gods
Speak to him when they please; till when, let us
Suffer and wait.

And the play ends with the words

On lustful kings,
Unlooked-for sudden deaths from heaven are sent,
But cursed is he that is their instrument.

Aspatia, in this tragedy, is a good instance of Beaumont and Fletcher's
pathetic characters. She is troth-plight wife to Amintor, and after he,
by the king's command, has forsaken her for Evadne, she disguises
herself as a man, provokes her unfaithful lover to a duel, and dies
under his sword, blessing the hand that killed her. This is a common
type in Beaumont and Fletcher, and was drawn originally from Shakspere's
Ophelia. All their good women have the instinctive fidelity of a dog,
and a superhuman patience and devotion, a "gentle forlornness" under
wrongs, which is painted with an almost feminine tenderness. In
_Philaster, or Love Lies Bleeding_, Euphrasia, conceiving a hopeless
passion for Philaster--who is in love with Arethusa--puts on the dress
of a page and enters his service. He employs her to carry messages to
his lady-love, just as Viola, in _Twelfth Night_, is sent by the duke to
Olivia. Philaster is persuaded by slanderers that his page and his lady
have been unfaithful to him, and in his jealous fury he wounds Euphrasia
with his sword. Afterward, convinced of the boy's fidelity, he asks
forgiveness, whereto Euphrasia replies,

Alas, my lord, my life is not a thing
Worthy your noble thoughts. 'Tis not a life,
'Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away.

Beaumont and Fletcher's love-lorn maids wear the willow very sweetly,