On a first rapid inspection I assumed, with most uncritical recklessness, that Chapman was the author.  There are not wanting points of general resemblance between Chapman’s Byron and the imperious, unbending spirit of the great Advocate as he is here represented; but in diction and versification, the present tragedy is wholly different from any work of Chapman’s.  When I came to transcribe the piece, I soon became convinced that it was to a great extent the production of Fletcher.  There can, I think, be no reasonable doubt about the authorship of such lines as the following:—­

“Barnavelt.  My noble Lords, what is’t appeares upon me So ougly strange you start and fly my companie?  What plague sore have ye spide, what taynt in honour, What ill howre in my life so cleere deserving That rancks in this below your fellowships?  For which of all my cares, of all my watches, My services (too many and too mightie To find rewards) am I thus recompenced, Not lookd on, not saluted, left forgotten Like one that came to petition to your honours—­ Over the shoulder slighted?

Bredero.  Mounsieur Barnavelt, I am sorry that a man of your great wisdom And those rare parts that make ye lov’d and honourd, In every Princes Court highly esteemd of, Should loose so much in point of good and vertue Now in the time you ought to fix your faith fast, The credit of your age, carelessly loose it,—­ dare not say ambitiously,—­that your best friends And those that ever thought on your example Dare not with comon safetie now salute ye” (iii. 1).

Such a verse as,—­

    “In every Princes Court highly esteemd of,”

or,—­

    “Now in the time you ought to fix your faith fast,”

can belong only to Fletcher.  The swelling, accumulative character of the eloquence is another proof; for Fletcher’s effects are gained not by a few sharp strokes, but by constant iteration, each succeeding line strengthening the preceding until at last we are fronted by a column of very formidable strength.  Let us take another extract from the same scene:—­

“Barnavelt.  When I am a Sychophant And a base gleaner from an others favour, As all you are that halt upon his crutches,—­ Shame take that smoothness and that sleeke subjection!  I am myself, as great in good as he is, As much a master of my Countries fortunes, And one to whom (since I am forc’d to speak it, Since mine own tongue must be my Advocate) This blinded State that plaies at boa-peep with us, This wanton State that’s weary of hir lovers And cryes out ‘Give me younger still and fresher’!  Is bound and so far bound:  I found hir naked, Floung out a dores and starvd, no friends to pitty hir, The marks of all hir miseries upon hir, An orphan State that no eye smild upon:  And then how carefully I undertooke hir, How tenderly and lovingly I noursd hir!  But now she is fatt and faire againe and I foold, A new love