Count—­Well, then, so be it.  I agree.  But I don’t understand how your sex can adapt itself to circumstances so quickly and so nicely.  You were certainly much agitated; and for that matter, you are yet.

Countess—­Men aren’t sharp enough to distinguish between honest indignation at unjust suspicion, and the confusion of guilt.

Count—­We men think we know something of politics, but we are only children.  Madame, the King ought to name you his ambassador to London.—­And now pray forget this unfortunate business, so humiliating for me.

Countess—­For us both.

Count—­Won’t you tell me again that you forgive me?

Countess—­Have I said that, Susanna?

Count—­Ah, say it now.

Countess—­Do you deserve it, culprit?

Count—­Yes, honestly, for my repentance.

Countess [giving him her hand]—­How weak I am!  What an example I set you, Susanna!  He’ll never believe in a woman’s anger.

Susanna—­You are prisoner on parole; and you shall see we are honorable.

FRANCIS BEAUMONT and JOHN FLETCHER

(1584-1616) (1579-1625)

“The names of Beaumont and Fletcher,” says Lowell, in his lectures on ‘Old English Dramatists,’ “are as inseparably linked together as those of Castor and Pollux.  They are the double star of our poetical firmament, and their beams are so indissolubly mingled that it is vain to attempt any division of them that shall assign to each his rightful share.”  Theirs was not that dramatic collaboration all too common among the lesser Elizabethan dramatists, at a time when managers, eager to satisfy a restless public incessantly clamoring for novelty, parceled out single acts or even scenes of a play among two or three playwrights, to put together a more or less congruous piece of work.  Beaumont and Fletcher joined partnership, not from any outward necessity, but inspired by a common love of their art and true congeniality of mind.  Unlike many of their brother dramatists, whom the necessities of a lowly origin drove to seek a livelihood in writing for the theatres, Beaumont and Fletcher were of gentle birth, and sprung from families eminent at the bar and in the Church.

[Illustration:  Francis Beaumont]

Beaumont was born at Grace-Dieu in Leicestershire, 1584, the son of a chief justice.  His name is first mentioned as a gentleman commoner at Broadgate Hall, now Pembroke College, Oxford.  At sixteen he was entered a member of the Inner Temple, but the dry facts of the law did not appeal to his romantic imagination.  Nowhere in his work does he draw upon his barrister’s experience to the extent that makes the plays of Middleton, who also knew the Inner Temple at first hand, a storehouse of information in things legal.  His feet soon strayed, therefore, into the more congenial fields of dramatic invention.