They worked out the plots together; and one night, as they sat in a tavern, concocting a play, Fletcher undertook “To kill the King.” He was overheard by a waiter, who gave information of their traitorous designs; instantly the two young men were apprehended, and all the terrors of the law were before them--until they succeeded in justifying themselves, when the affair ended in mirth.
Beaumont, meantime, was gaining the confidence even of the formidable Ben Jonson, who submitted some of his works to his criticism before publication. The young lawyer had that skill in forming plots which seems like a natural gift, and which even good writers are unable to acquire; and he is said to have concocted some of those on which Jonson’s plays are founded.
Meantime, he wrote a little drama called “A Mask of Gray’s Inn Gentleman,” and a poem entitled “The Inner Temple.” Jonson, grateful for his aid, and admiring his talents, poured forth his delight in these lines:--
“How I do love thee, Beaumont, and thy muse, That unto me do’st such religion use How I do fear myself that am not worth The least indulgent thought thy pen drops forth; At once thou mak’st me happy, and unmak’st; And giving largely to me more than tak’st. What fate is mine that so itself bereaves? What fate is thine, that so thy friend deceives? When, even there when most thou praisest me, For writing better I must envy thee.”
But, unhappily, Beaumont’s career was ended before he had attained the age of thirty. He was buried in St. Benedict’s within St. Peter’s, Westminster. No inscription on his tomb recalls the merits so soon closed in death; but Bishop Corbet, the author of the “Grave Poem,” and Sir John Beaumont, commemorated them in epitaphs which are to be found in their works. Frances Beaumont, the poet’s only daughter, survived him many years; but lost some of her father’s manuscript poems as she went to Ireland by sea. Beaumont died in 1615, just at the crisis of Villiers’ early career, when he became first the subject of King James’s notice. Notwithstanding his premature death, his plays attained an almost unrivalled popularity. Dryden tells us that they were the most popular entertainments of the time--two of them being acted through the year for one of Shakspeare’s or Jonson’s; there being, he adds, a certain gaiety in the comedies of Beaumont and Fletcher, and a pathos in their serious plays, which accorded with the taste or humour of all men. Posterity, however, does not admit of the comparison; but it is impossible to say whether, if the lives of these two dramatists had been spared, their powers might not have enabled them far to exceed even the fanciful and poetical works which they found time to accomplish.