Part 36

During the same period he produced his two famous comedies. The earlier, _Le Barbier de Seville_, after a prohibition of two years, was put on the stage in 1775. The first representation was a complete failure. Beaumarchais had overloaded the last scene with allusions to the facts of his own case and the whole action of the piece was laboured and heavy. But he cut down and remodelled the piece in time for the second representation, when it achieved a complete success. The intrigues which were necessary in order to obtain a licence for the second and more famous comedy, _Le Mariage de Figaro_, are highly amusing, and throw much light on the unsettled state of public sentiment at the time. The play was completed in 1778, but the opposition of Louis XVI., who alone saw its dangerous tendencies, was not overcome till 1784. The comedy had an unprecedented success. The principal character in both plays, Figaro, is a completely original conception; in fact Beaumarchais drew a portrait of himself in the resourceful adventurer, who, for mingled wit, shrewdness, gaiety and philosophic reflection, may not unjustly be ranked with Tartuffe. To English readers the Figaro plays are generally known through the adaptations of them in the grand opera of Mozart and Rossini; but in France they long retained popularity as acting pieces. The success of _Le Mariage de Figaro_ was helped on by the methods of self-advertisement so well understood by Beaumarchais. The proceeds of the fiftieth performance were devoted to a charity, the choice of which provoked numerous epigrams. Beaumarchais had the imprudence to retaliate by personalities that were reported by his enemies to be dedicated against the king and queen. Beaumarchais was imprisoned for a short time by royal order in the prison of St Lazare. Brilliant pamphleteer as he was, Beaumarchais was at last to meet more than his match. He undertook to defend the company of the "Eaux de Paris," in which he had a large interest, against Mirabeau, and brought down on himself an invective to which he could offer no reply. His real influence was gone from that date (1785-1786). Shortly afterwards he was violently attacked by Nicolas Bergasse, whom he sued for defamation of character. He gained his case, but his reputation had suffered in the pamphlet war. Beaumarchais's later productions, the bombastic opera _Tarare_ (1787) and the drama _La Mere coupable_ (1792), which was very popular, are in no way worthy of his genius.

By his writings Beaumarchais contributed greatly, though quite unconsciously, to hurry on the events that led to the Revolution. At heart he hardly seems to have been a republican, and the new state of affairs did not benefit him. The astonishing thing is that the society travestied in _Le Mariage de Figaro_ was the most vehement in its applause. The court looked on at a play justly characterized by Napoleon as the "revolution already in action" apparently without a suspicion of its real character. His popularity had been destroyed by the Mirabeau and Bergasse affairs, and his great wealth exposed him to the enmity of the envious. A speculation into which he entered, to supply the Convention with muskets from Holland, proved a ruinous failure. He was accused of concealing arms and corn in his house, but when his house was searched nothing was discovered but some thousands of copies of the edition (1783-1790) of the works of Voltaire which he had had printed at his private press at Kehl, in Baden. He was charged with treason to the republic and was imprisoned in the Abbaye on the 20th of August 1792. A week later he was released at the intercession of Mme Houret de la Mariniere, who had been his mistress. He took refuge in Holland and England. His memoirs entitled, _Mes six epoques_, detailing his sufferings under the republic, are not unworthy of the Goezman period. His courage and happy disposition never deserted him, although he was hunted as an agent of the Convention in Holland and England, while in Paris he was proscribed as an _emigre_. He returned to Paris in 1796, and died there, suddenly, on the 18th of May 1799.

Gudin de la Brenellerie's _Histoire de Beaumarchais_ (1809) was edited by M. Maurice Tourneux in 1888. See also L. de Lomenie, _Beaumarchais et son temps_ (1855), Eng. trans. by H.S. Edwards, (4. vols., 1856); A. Hallay's _Beaumarchais_ (1897); M. de Lescure, _Eloge de Beaumarchais_ (1886); and Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, vol. vi. Beaumarchais's works have been edited by Gudin (7 vols., 1809); by Furne (6 vols., 1827); and by E. Fournier (1876). A variorum edition of his _Theatre complet_ was published by MM. d'Heylli and de Marescot (4 vols., 1869-1875); and a _Bibliographie des oeuvres de Beaumarchais_, by H. Cordier in 1883.

BEAUMARIS, a market town and municipal borough, and the county town of Anglesey, N. Wales, situated on the Bay of Beaumaris, not far from Penmon, the northern entrance of the Menai Strait. Pop. (1901) 2326. It has but one considerable street. The large castle chapel, dedicated to the Virgin, has some fine monuments. David Hughes, of Jesus College, Oxford, founded the free grammar school in 1603. Buildings include town-hall and county-hall, with St Mary's church of the 13th century, with chancel of the 16th. Practically without trade and with no manufactures, Beaumaris is principally noted as a bathing-place. Its earliest charter dates from 1283 and was revised under Elizabeth. The town was formerly called Barnover and, still earlier, Rhosfair, and bears its present name of French origin since Edward I. built its castle in 1293. This extensive building was erected on low ground, so that the fosse might communicate with the sea, and vessels might unload under its walls. The castle capitulated, after siege, to General Mytton (1646).

BEAUMONT, BELMONT, or BELLOMONT, the name of a Norman and English family, taken from Beaumont-le-Roger in Normandy. Early in the 11th century Roger de Beaumont, a kinsman of the dukes of Normandy, married a daughter of Waleran, count of Meulan, and their son, ROBERT DE BEAUMONT (d. 1118), became count of Meulan or Mellent about 1080. Before this date, however, he had fought at Hastings, and had added large estates in Warwickshire to the Norman fiefs of Beaumont and Pont Audemer, which he received when his father entered the abbey of St Peter at Preaux. It was during the reigns of William II. and Henry I. that the count rose to eminence, and under the latter monarch he became "the first among the counsellors of the king." A "strenuous and sagacious man" he rendered valuable service to both kings in their Norman wars, and Henry I. was largely indebted to him for the English crown. He obtained lands in Leicestershire, and it has been said he was created earl of Leicester; this statement, however, is an error, although he exercised some of the privileges of an earl. His abilities as a counsellor, statesman and diplomatist gained him the admiration of his contemporaries, and Henry of Huntingdon describes him as "the wisest man between this and Jerusalem." He seems to have been a man of independent character, for he assisted Anselm against William Rufus, although he supported Henry I. in his quarrel with Pope Paschal II. When Robert died on the 5th of June 1118 his lands appear to have been divided between his twin sons, Robert and Waleran, while a third son, Hugh, became earl of Bedford in 1138.

ROBERT DE BEAUMONT (1104-1168), justiciar of England, married a granddaughter of Ralph Guader, earl of Norfolk, and receiving his father's English fiefs in 1118 became earl of Leicester. He and his brother, Waleran, were the chief advisers of Stephen, and helped this king to seize the bishops of Salisbury and Lincoln in 1139; later, however, Robert made his peace with Henry II., and became chief justiciar of England. First among the lay nobles he signed the Constitutions of Clarendon, he sought to reconcile Henry and Archbishop Becket, and was twice in charge of the kingdom during the king's absences in France. The earl founded the abbey of St Mary de Pre at Leicester and other religious houses, and by a charter confirmed the burgesses of Leicester in the possession of their merchant-gild and customs. His son, Robert, succeeded to the earldom of Leicester, and with other English barons assisted prince Henry in his revolt against his father the king in 1173. For this participation, and also on a later occasion, he was imprisoned; but he enjoyed the favour of Richard I., and died in Greece when returning from a pilgrimage in 1190. His son and heir, Robert, died childless in 1204.

WALERAN DE BEAUMONT (1104-1166) obtained his father's French fiefs and the title of count of Meulan in 1118. After being imprisoned for five years by Henry I. he spent some time in England, and during the civil war between Stephen and the empress Matilda he fought for the former until about 1150, when he deserted the king and assisted the empress. His later history appears to have been uneventful. The county of Meulan remained in possession of the Beaumont family until 1204, when it was united with the royal domain.

Another member of the Beaumont family, possibly a relative of the earlier Beaumonts, was LOUIS DE BEAUMONT (d. 1333), bishop of Durham from 1317 until his death. This prelate was related to the English king, Edward II., and after a life spent in strife and ostentation, he died on the 24th of September 1333. JOHN BEAUMONT, master of the rolls under Edward VI., was probably a member of the same family. A dishonest and corrupt judge, he was deprived of his office and imprisoned in 1552.

The barony of Beaumont dates from 1309, when HENRY BEAUMONT (d. 1340), who was constable of England in 1322, was summoned to parliament under this title. It was retained by his descendants until the death of William, the 7th baron and the 2nd viscount,[1] in 1507, when it fell into abeyance. In 1840 the barony was revived in favour of Miles Thomas Stapleton (1805-1854), a descendant of Joan, Baroness Lovel, a daughter of the 6th baron, and it has since been retained by his descendants.

In 1906 WENTWORTH BLACKETT BEAUMONT (1829-1907), the head of a family well known in the north of England, was created Baron Allendale.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] His father John (d. 1460), the 6th baron, great chamberlain and constable of England, was the first person advanced to the dignity of a viscount in England.

BEAUMONT, CHRISTOPHE DE (1703-1781), French ecclesiastic and archbishop of Paris, was a cadet of the Les Adrets and Saint-Quentin branch of the illustrious Dauphine family of Beaumont. He became bishop of Bayonne in 1741, then archbishop of Vienne in 1743, and in 1746, at the age of forty-three, archbishop of Paris. Beaumont is noted for his struggle with the Jansenists. To force them to accept the bull _Unigenitus_ which condemned their doctrines, he ordered the priests of his diocese to refuse absolution to those who would not recognize the bull, and to deny funeral rites to those who had confessed to a Jansenist priest. While other bishops sent Beaumont their adhesion to his crusade, the parlement of Paris threatened to confiscate his temporalities. The king forbade the parlement to interfere in these spiritual questions, and upon its proving obdurate it was exiled (September 18, 1753). The "royal chamber," which was substituted, having failed to carry on the administration of justice properly, the king was obliged to recall the parlement, and the archbishop was sent into honourable exile (August 1754). An effort was made to induce him to resign the active duties of his see to a coadjutor, but in spite of the most tempting offers--including a cardinal's hat--he refused. On the contrary, to his polemic against the Jansenists he added an attack on the _philosophes_, and issued a formal mandatory letter condemning Rousseau's _Emile_. Rousseau replied in his masterly _Lettre a M. de Beaumont_ (1762), in which he insists that freedom of discussion in religious matters is essentially more religious than the attempt to impose belief by force.

De Beaumont's _Mandements, lettres et instructions pastorales_ were published in two volumes in 1780, the year before his death.

BEAUMONT, SIR JOHN (1583-1627), English poet, second son of the judge, Sir Francis Beaumont, was born at Grace-Dieu in Leicestershire in 1583. The deaths of his father (in 1598) and of his elder brother, Sir Henry Beaumont (in 1605), made the poet early the head of this brilliant family; the dramatist, Francis Beaumont, being a younger brother. John went to Oxford in February 1597, and entered as a gentleman commoner in Broadgates Hall, the present Pembroke College. He was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1600, but on the death of Henry he no doubt went down to Grace-Dieu to manage the family estates. He began to write verse early, and in 1602, at the age of nineteen, he published anonymously his _Metamorphosis of Tabacco_, written in very smooth couplets, in which he addressed Drayton as his "loving friend." He lived in Leicestershire for many years as a bachelor, being one "who never felt Love's dreadful arrow." But in process of time he became a tardy victim, and married a lady of the Fortescue family, who bore him four stout sons, the eldest of whom, another John, was accounted one of the most athletic men of his time. "He could leap 16 ft. at one leap, and would commonly, at a stand-leap, jump over a high long table in the hall, light on a settle beyond the table, and raise himself straight up." This magnificent young man was not without literary taste; he edited his father's posthumous poems, and wrote an enthusiastic elegy on him; he was killed in 1644 at the siege of Gloucester. Another of Sir John Beaumont's sons, Gervaise, died in childhood, and the incidents of his death are recorded in one of his father's most touching poems. Sir John Beaumont concentrated his powers on a poem in eight books, entitled _The Crown of Thorns_, which was greatly admired in MS. by the earl of Southampton and others, but which is lost. After long retirement, Beaumont was persuaded by the duke of Buckingham to move in larger circles; he attended court and in 1626 was made a baronet. This honour he did not long survive, for he died on the 19th of April 1627, and was buried in Westminster Abbey ten days later. The new Sir John, the strong man, published in 1629 a volume entitled _Bosworth Field; with a taste of the variety of other Poems left by Sir John Beaumont_. No more "tastes" were ever vouchsafed, so that it is by this volume and by the juvenile _Metamorphosis of Tobacco_ that Beaumont's reputation has to stand. Of late years, the peculiarities of John Beaumont's prosody have drawn attention to his work. He wrote the heroic couplet, which was his favourite measure, with almost unprecedented evenness. Bosworth Field, the scene of the battle of which Beaumont's principal poem gives a vaguely epical narrative, lay close to the poet's house of Grace-Dieu. He writes on all occasions with a smoothness which was very remarkable in the first quarter of the 17th century, and which marks him, with Edmund Waller and George Sandys, as one of the pioneers of the classic reformation of English verse.

The poems of Sir John Beaumont were included in A. Chalmers's _English Poets_, vol. vi. (1810). An edition, with "memorial introduction" and notes, was included (1869) in Dr A.B. Grosart's _Fuller Worthies' Library_; and the _Metamorphosis of Tobacco_ was included in J.P. Collier's _Illustrations of Early English Popular Literature_, vol. i. (1863). (E. G.)

BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, English dramatists[1] The names of FRANCIS BEAUMONT (1584-1616) and JOHN FLETCHER (1579-1625) are inseparably connected in the history of the English drama. John Fletcher was born in December 1579 at Rye in Sussex, and baptized on the 20th of the same month. Richard Fletcher, his father, afterwards queen's chaplain, dean of Peterborough, and bishop successively of Bristol, Worcester and London, was then minister of the parish in which the son was born who was to make their name immortal. That son was just turned of seven when the dean distinguished and disgraced himself as the spiritual tormentor of the last moments on earth of Mary Stuart. When not quite twelve he was admitted pensioner of Bene't College, Cambridge, and two years later was made one of the Bible-clerks: of this college Bishop Fletcher had been president twenty years earlier, and six months before his son's admission had received from its authorities a first letter of thanks for various benefactions, to be followed next year by a second. Four years later than this, when John Fletcher wanted five or six months of his seventeenth year, the bishop died suddenly of over much tobacco and the displeasure of Queen Elizabeth at his second marriage--this time, it appears, with a lady of such character as figures something too frequently on the stage of his illustrious son. He left eight children by his first marriage in such distress that their uncle, Dr Giles Fletcher, author of a treatise on the Russian commonwealth which is still held in some repute, was obliged to draw up a petition to the queen on their behalf, which was supported by the intercession of Essex, but with what result is uncertain.

From this date we know nothing of the fortunes of John Fletcher, till the needy orphan boy of seventeen reappears as the brilliant and triumphant poet whose name is linked for all time with the yet more glorious name of Francis Beaumont, third and youngest son of Sir Francis Beaumont of Grace-Dieu, one of the justices of the common pleas--born, according to general report, in 1586, but, according to more than one apparently irrefragable document, actually born two years earlier. The first record of his existence is the entry of his name, together with those of his elder brothers Henry and John, as a gentleman-commoner of Broadgates Hall, Oxford, now supplanted by Pembroke College. But most lovers of his fame will care rather to remember the admirable lines of Wordsworth on the "eager child" who played among the rocks and woodlands of Grace-Dieu; though it may be doubted whether even the boy's first verses were of the peaceful and pastoral character attributed to them by the great laureate of the lakes. That passionate and fiery genius which was so soon and for so short a time to "shake the buskined stage" with heroic and tragic notes of passion and of sorrow, of scorn and rage, and slighted love and jealousy, must surely have sought vent from the first in fancies of a more ardent and ambitious kind; and it would be a likelier conjecture that when Frank Beaumont (as we know on more authorities than one that he was always called by his contemporaries, even in the full flush of his adult fame--"never more than Frank," says Heywood) went to college at the ripe age of twelve, he had already committed a tragedy or two in emulation of _Tamburlaine_, _Andronicus_ or _Jeronymo_. The date of his admission was the 4th of February 1597; on the 22nd of April of the following year his father died; and on the 3rd of November 1600, having left Oxford without taking his degree, the boy of fifteen was entered a member of the Inner Temple, his two brothers standing sponsors on the grave occasion. But the son of Judge Beaumont was no fitter for success at the bar than the son of Bishop Fletcher for distinction in the church: it is equally difficult to imagine either poet invested with either gown. Two years later appeared the poem of _Salmacis and Hermaphroditus_, generally attributed to Beaumont, a voluptuous and voluminous expansion of the Ovidian legend, not on the whole discreditable to a lad of eighteen, fresh from the popular love-poems of Marlowe and Shakespeare, which it naturally exceeds in long-winded and fantastic diffusion of episodes and conceits. At twenty-three Beaumont prefixed to the magnificent masterpiece of Ben Jonson some noticeable verses in honour of his "dear friend" the author; and in the same year (1607) appeared the anonymous comedy of _The Woman Hater_, usually assigned to Fletcher alone; but being as it is in the main a crude and puerile imitation of Jonson's manner, and certainly more like a man's work at twenty-two than at twenty-eight, internal evidence would seem to justify, or at least to excuse those critics who in the teeth of high authority and tradition would transfer from Fletcher to Beaumont the principal responsibility for this first play that can be traced to the hand of either. As Fletcher also prefixed to the first edition of _Volpone_ a copy of commendatory verses, we may presume that their common admiration for a common friend was among the earliest and strongest influences which drew together the two great poets whose names were thenceforward to be for ever indivisible. During the dim eleven years between the death of his father and the dawn of his fame, we cannot but imagine that the career of Fletcher had been unprosperous as well as obscure. From seventeen to twenty-eight his youth may presumably have been spent in such painful struggles for success, if not for sustenance, as were never known to his younger colleague, who, as we have seen, was entered at Oxford a few months after Fletcher must in all likelihood have left Cambridge to try his luck in London: a venture most probably resolved on as soon as the youth had found his family reduced by the father's death to such ruinous straits that any smoother course can hardly have been open to him. Entering college at the same age as Fletcher had entered six years earlier, Beaumont had before him a brighter and briefer line of life than his elder. But whatever may have been their respective situations when, either by happy chance or, as Dyce suggests, by the good offices of Jonson, they were first brought together, their intimacy soon became so much closer than that of ordinary brothers that the household which they shared as bachelors was conducted on such thoroughly communistic principles as might have satisfied the most trenchant theorist who ever proclaimed as the cardinal point of his doctrine, a complete and absolute community of bed and board, with all goods thereto appertaining. But in the year following that in which the two younger poets had united in homage to Jonson, they had entered into a partnership of more importance than this in "the same clothes and cloak, etc.," with other necessaries of life specified by Aubrey.