. William Shakespere : a biography. was not with Shakspere. At this period Fletcherwould be gathering materials, at any rate, for some of those pictures of mannerswhich reveal to us too much, of the profligacy of the fine people of the beginningof the seventeenth century. The society of the great minds into which hewould be thrown at the Falcon, and the Mermaid, and the Apollo Saloon,would call out and cherish that freshness of his poetical nature which survives,and indeed often rides over, the sapless conventionalities and frigid licentious-ness of his fashionable experience. In the company o
. William Shakespere : a biography. was not with Shakspere. At this period Fletcherwould be gathering materials, at any rate, for some of those pictures of mannerswhich reveal to us too much, of the profligacy of the fine people of the beginningof the seventeenth century. The society of the great minds into which hewould be thrown at the Falcon, and the Mermaid, and the Apollo Saloon,would call out and cherish that freshness of his poetical nature which survives,and indeed often rides over, the sapless conventionalities and frigid licentious-ness of his fashionable experience. In the company of Shakspere, and Jonsoii,and Chapman, and Donne, he would be taught there was something more in thefriendship, and even in the mere intercourse of conviviality, of men of high in-tellect, than the town could give. He would learn from Jonsons Leges Con-vivales, that there was a charm in the social hours of the erudUi, urbani,hj/f/res, lumesti, which was rarely found amidst the courtly hunters after plra- ♦ Fill liars sure ; and that a festival with them was something better than even the excite-ment of wme and music. A few years after this Fletcher ventured out of tlietrack of that species of comedy in which he won his first success, giving a realpoem to the public stage, whicli, with all its faults, was a noble attempt toemulate the lyrical and pastoral genius of Shakspere. To our minds there is asmuch covert advice, if not gentle reproof, to Fletcher, as there is of just andcordial praise, in Jonsons verses upon the condemnation of The FaithfulShepherdess by the audience of 1610 :— The wise, and many-headed beunh, that sitsUpon the life and death of plays and wits,(Composd of gamester, captain, knight, knights , or pucelle, that wears or fan,Velvet, or taffata cap, rankd in the darkWith the .shops foreman, or some such brave sparkThat may judge for his sixpence) had, beforeThey saw it half, damnd tliy whole play, and more :Their motives were, s
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookpublisherlondon, booksubjectshakespearewill
