Which drew the gods' attention; who admir'd
To see our English stage by you inspir'd:
Whose chiming muses never fail'd to sing
A soul-affecting music, ravishing

Both ear and intellect; while you do each
Contend with other who shall highest reach
In rare invention; conflicts, that beget
New strange delight, to see two fancies met,
That could receive no foil; two wits in growth
So just, as had one soul informed both.
Thence (learned Fletcher) sung the muse alone,
As both had done before, thy Beaumont gone.
In whom, as thou, had he out-liv'd, so he
(Snatch'd first away) survived still in thee.

What though distempers of the present age
Have banish'd your smooth numbers from the stage?
You shall be gainers by't; it shall confer
To th' making the vast world your theatre;
The press shall give to every man his part,

And we will all be actors; learn by heart

Those tragic scenes and comic strains you, writ,
Unimitable both for art and wit;

And, at each exit, as your fancies rise,

Our hands shall clap deserved plaudities.

XII.

JOHN WEBB.30

On the Works of the most excellent Dramatic Poet, Mr. JOHN FLETCHER, never before printed.

HAIL, Fletcher! welcome to the world's great stage;

For our two hours, we have thee here an age

sway

In thy whole works, and may th' impression call
The pretor that presents thy plays to all;
Both to the people, and the lords that
That herd, and ladies whom those lords obey.
And what's the loadstone can such guests invite
But moves on two poles, profit and delight?
Which will be soon, as on the rack, confest,
When every one is tickled with a jest,
And that pure Fletcher's able to subdue
A melancholy more than Burton knew.31
And, though upon the bye to his designs,

The native may learn English from his lines,

30 John Webb.] I find no other traces of a John Webb who was likely to be author of this ingenious copy of verses, but that in 1629, four years after Fletcher's death, one John Webb, M. A. and fellow of Magdalene College in Oxford, was made master of Croydon School. He was probably our Mr. Webb, and much nearer the times of our authors than Mr. Cartwright, and had I discovered this soon enough, he should have took place of him; but his testimony of Beaumont's abilities, as a writer, is a proper antidote against Mr. Cartwright's traditional opinion. SEWARD.

31 And that pure Fletcher, able to subdue

A melancholy more than Burton knew.] Mr. Sympson observed that the comma stood in the place of 's, Fletcher is able. Burton was author of the Anatomy of Melancholy, a SEWARD.

folio.

And

And th' alien, if he can but construe it,
May here be made free denison of wit.
But his main end does drooping Virtue raise,
And crowns her beauty with eternal bays;
In scenes where she inflames the frozen soul,
While Vice (her paint wash'd off) appears so foul,
She must this blessed isle and Europe leave,
And some new quadrant of the globe deceive;
Or hide her blushes on the Afric shore,
Like Marius, but ne'er rise to triumph more;
That honour is resign'd to Fletcher's fame;
Add to his trophies, that a poet's name
(Late grown as odious to our modern states,
As that of King to Rome) he vindicates
From black aspersions, cast upon't by those
Which only are inspir'd to lie in prose.

And, by the court of muses be't decreed,
What graces spring from poesy's richer seed,
When we name Fletcher, shall be so proclaim'd,
As all, that's royal, is when Cæsar's nam'd.

ROBERT STAPYLTON, 32 Knt.

XIII.

To the Memory of my most honoured Kinsman, Mr. FRANCIS BEAUMONT.

I'LL not pronounce how strong and clean thou writ'st,
Nor by what new hard rules thou took'st thy flights,
Nor how much Greek and Latin some refine,
Before they can make up six words of thine:
But this I'll say, thou strik'st our sense so deep,
At once thou mak'st us blush, rejoice and weep.
Great father Jonson bow'd himself, when he
(Thou writ'st so nobly) vow'd, he envied thee.
Were thy Mardonius arm'd, there would be more
Strife for his sword than all Achilles wore ;
Such wise just rage, had he been lately tried,
My life on't he had been o'th' better side;

And, where he found false odds, (through gold or sloth)
There brave Mardonius would have beat them both.
Behold, here's Fletcher too! the world ne'er knew
Two potent wits co-operate, till you;

For still your fancies are so wov'n and knit,

'Twas Francis Fletcher, or John Beaumont writ,
Yet neither borrow'd, nor were so put to't

To call poor gods and goddesses to do't;
Nor made nine girls your muses (you suppose,
Women ne'er write, save love-letters in prose)
But are your own inspirers, and have made

Such powerful scenes, as, when they please, invade.

32 Sir Robert Stapylton of Carelton in Yorkshire, a poet of much fame, was at the battle of Edgehill with King Charles the First, and had an honorary degree given him at Oxford for his behaviour on that occasion. He wrote the Slighted Maid, a comedy; The Step-Mother, a tragi-comedy; and Hero and Leander, a tragedy; besides several poems and translations. SEWARD.

Your

Your plot, sense, language, all's so pure and fit,
He's bold, not valiant, dare dispute your

XIV.

wit.

GEORGE LISLE,33 KNIGHT.

On Mr. JOHN FLETCHER'S Works.

So shall we joy, when all whom beasts and worms
Had turn'd to their own substances and forms,
Whom earth to earth, or fire hath chang'd to fire,
We shall behold, more than at first entire,
As now we do, to see all thine, thine own

In this thy muse's resurrection:

Whose scatter'd parts, from thy own race, more wounds
Hath suffer'd, than Acteon from his hounds;

Which first their brains, and then their bellies, fed,
And from their excrements new poets bred.

But now thy muse enraged from her urn,
Like ghosts of murder'd bodies, doth return
To accuse the murderers, to right the stage,
And undeceive the long-abused age;

Which casts thy praise on them, to whom thy wit
Gives not more gold than they give dross to it:
Who, not content like felons to purloin,
Add treason to it, and debase thy coin.

But whither am I stray'd? I need not raise
Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise;
Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built,
Nor needs thy juster title the foul guilt
Of Eastern kings, who, to secure their reign,
Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain.
Then was 34 Wit's empire at the fatal height,
When, labouring and sinking with its weight,
From thence a thousand lesser poets sprung,
Like petty princes from the fall of Rome;
When Jonson, Shakespeare, and thyself did sit,
And sway'd in the triumvirate of Wit.

Yet what from Jonson's oil and sweat did flow,

Or what more easy Nature did bestow

On Shakespeare's gentler muse, in thee full grown
Their graces both appear; yet so, that none

33 George Lisle, Knight.] This I take to be the same with Sir John Lisle one of King Charles's judges; for Wood in his Index to his Athenæ, calls Sir John by the name of George: He might perhaps have had two Christian names. If this was he, he was admitted at Oxford in the year 1622, seven years after Beaumont's death, and as he was a kinsman might be supposed to know more of his compositions than a stranger. His testimony therefore adds strength to what has been before advanced concerning Beaumont, nay it does so whether Sir George Lisle be the regicide or not. If he was, he was an eminent lawyer and speaker in the House of Commons, and made lord commissioner of the privy seal by the parliament. After the Restoration he fled to Losanna in Switzerland, where he was treated as lord chancellor of England, which so irritated some furious Irish loyalists that they shot him dead as he was going to church.

SEWARD.

34 Wit's empire at the fatal height.] i. e. The highest pitch which fate allows it to rise to.-The following account of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Fletcher, though rather too favourable to the last, is as much preferable to all the former poets encomiums as Sir John was preferable to them in abilities as a poet.

SEWARD.

Can

Can say, here Nature ends, and Art begins;
But mixt, like th' elements, and born like twins;
So interweav'd, so like, so much the same,
None this mere Nature, that mere Art can name:
'Twas this the ancients meant; Nature and skill
Are the two tops of their Parnassus hill.

XV.

Upon Mr. JOHN FLETCHER'S Plays.
FLETCHER, to thee, we do not only owe
All these good plays, but those of others too:
Thy wit, repeated, does support the stage,
Credits the last, and entertains this age.

No worthies form'd by any muse, but thine,
Could purchase robes to make themselves so fine:
What brave commander is not proud to see
Thy brave Melantius in his gallantry?
Our greatest ladies love to see their scorn

Out-done by thine, in what themselves have worn:
Th' impatient widow, ere the year be done,
Sees thy Aspatia weeping in her gown.
I never yet the tragic strain assay'd,
Deterr'd by that inimitable Maid;

And when I venture at the comic stile,

Thy Scornful Lady 35 seems to mock my toil:
Thus has thy muse, at once, improv'd and marr'd
Our sport in plays, by rend'ring it too hard.
So when a sort of lusty shepherds throw
The bar by turns, and none the rest outgo
So far, but that the best are measuring casts,
Their emulation and their pastime lasts;
But if some brawny yeoman of the guard
Step in, and toss the axle-tree a yard,
Or more, beyond the furthest mark, the rest
Despairing stand, their sport is at the best.

XVI.

To FLETCHER Revived.

How have I been religious? What strange good
Has 'scap'd me, that I never understood?

Have I hell-guarded heresy o'erthrown?

J. DENHAM.

EDW. WALLER.

Heal'd wounded states? made kings and kingdoms one?
That Fate should be so merciful to me,

To let me live t' have said, I have read thee.

Fair star, ascend! the joy, the life, the light

Of this tempestuous age, this dark world's sight!
Oh, from thy crown of glory dart one flame
May strike a sacred reverence, whilst thy name
(Like holy flamens to their god of day)

We, bowing, sing; and whilst we praise, we pray.

35 Thy Scornful Lady] Many great men, as well as Mr. Waller, have celebrated this play. Beaumont's hand is visible in some high caricatures, but I must own my dissent to its being called a first-rate comedy.

SEWARD.

Bright spirit! whose eternal motion
Of wit, like time, still in itself did run;
Binding all others in it, and did give
Commission, how far this, or that, shall live:
Like Destiny,36 thy poems; who, as she
Signs death to all, herself can never die.
And now thy purple-robed tragedy,
In her embroider'd buskins, calls mine eye,
Where brave Aëtius we see betray'd,

Tobey his death, whom thousand lives obey'd;
Whilst that the mighty fool his scepter breaks,

Valentinian.

And through his gen'ral's wounds his own doom speaks;
Weaving thus richly Valentinian,

The costliest monarch with the cheapest man.

Soldiers may here to their old glories add,
The Lover love, and be with reason Mad:
Not as of old Alcides furious,

Who, wilder than his bull, did tear the house;
(Hurling his language with the canvas stone)
'Twas thought the monster roar'd the sob'rer tone.
But, ah! when thou thy sorrow didst inspire
With passions black as is her dark attire,

Mad Lover.

Virgins, as sufferers, have wept to see

So white a soul, so red a cruelty;

Dried their wet eyes who now thy mercy bless;

That thou hast griev'd, and, with unthought redress,

Yet, loth to lose thy watry jewel, when

Joy wip'd it off, laughter straight sprung't agen.
Now ruddy-cheeked Mirth with rosy wings

Arcas.

Bellario.

Comedies.

Fans ev'ry brow with gladness, while she sings Spanish Curate.
Delight to all; and the whole theatre

A festival in Heaven doth appear.

Humorous Lieutenant.

Nothing but pleasure, love; and (like the morn) Tamer Tam'd.
Each face a general smiling doth adorn.

Little French Lawyer.

Custom of the Country.

Here, ye foul speakers, that pronounce the air
Of stews and sewers, I will inform you where,
And how, to clothe aright your wanton wit,
Without her nasty bawd attending it.
View here a loose thought said with such a grace,
Minerva might have spoke in Venus' face;
So well disguis'd, that 'twas conceiv'd by none,
But Cupid had Diana's linen on;

And all his naked parts so veil'd, they express
The shape with clouding the uncomeliness;

36 Like destiny of poems, who, as she

Sings death to all, herself can never die.] This is extremely obscure: He says first, that Fletcher is the spirit of poetry, that he is the god of it, and has decreed the fate of all other poems, whether they are to live or die; after this he is like the destiny of poems, and living only himself signs death to all others. This is very high-strained indeed, and rather self-contradictory, for Fletcher's spirit gives commission how far some shall live and yet signs death to all. A slight change will make somewhat casier and clearer sense. I understand the four last lines thus; Fletcher's poetry is the standard of excellence; whatever is not formed by that model must die, therefore I read,

Like destiny, thy poems; i. e. Thy poems being the standard of excellence, are like destiny, which determines the fate of others, but herself remains still the same. I republish this poem as there are strong marks of genius in it, particularly in some of the following paragraphs. SEWARD.

That