own is forever
linked, but at St. Saviour's, Southwark.

"A student of physiognomy," says Swinburne, "will not fail to mark the
points of likeness and of difference between the faces of the two
friends; both models of noble manhood.... Beaumont the statelier and
serener of the two, with clear, thoughtful eyes, full arched brows, and
strong aquiline nose, with a little cleft at the tip; a grave and
beautiful mouth, with full and finely curved lips; the form of face a
very pure oval, and the imperial head, with its 'fair large front' and
clustering hair, set firm and carried high with an aspect of quiet
command and knightly observation. Fletcher with more keen and fervid
face, sharper in outline every way, with an air of bright ardor and
glad, fiery impatience; sanguine and nervous, suiting the complexion and
color of hair; the expression of the eager eyes and lips almost rivaling
that of a noble hound in act to break the leash it strains at;--two
heads as lordly of feature and as expressive of aspect as any gallery of
great men can show."

It may not be altogether fanciful to transfer this description of their
physical bearing to their mental equipment, and draw some conclusions as
to their several endowments and their respective share in the work that
goes under their common name. Of course it is impossible to draw hard
and fast lines of demarkation, and assign to each poet his own words.
They, above all others, would probably have resented so dogmatic a
procedure, and affirmed the dramas to be their joint offspring,--even as
a child partakes of the nature of both its parents.

Their plays are organic structures, with well worked-out plots and for
the most part well-sustained characters. They present a complete fusion
of the different elements contributed by each author; never showing that
agglomeration of incongruous matter so often found among the work of the
lesser playwrights, where each hand can be singled out and held
responsible for its share. Elaborate attempts, based on verse tests,
have been made to disentangle the two threads of their poetic fabric.
These attempts show much patient analysis, and are interesting as
evidences of ingenuity; but they appeal more to the scholar than to the
lover of poetry. Yet a sympathetic reading and a comparison of the plays
professedly written by Fletcher alone, after Beaumont's death, with
those jointly produced by them in the early part of Fletcher's career,
shows the dif