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The Máid's TRAGED Y.
PHILASTER; or, Love lies a Bleeding.

A KING and no KIN G.

AND

The SCORNFUL L A D Y.
Printed under the Inspection of Mr. THEOBALD.

L O N D ON:
Printed for J. and R. Tonson and S. DR A PER

P R E F A CE,

By T. SEW A R D.

HE Public at length receives a new Edition of the two great Poets, who, with a Fate in each

cafe alike unjust, were extolld for near a Century after their Deaths, us Equc!, Rivals, nay,

Superiors to the iiņıncrcăl Shakespear; but in the present Age have beerí depress'd beneath the smooth-polished eneryatę Teae of the Modern Drama. And as their Faine has been so different with respect to other Poets, so has it varied also between Themselves. Fletcher was a while supposed unable to rise to any Height of Eminence, had not Beaumont's stronger Arm bore him upwards. Yet no sooner had he lost that Aid, and demonstrated that it was Delight and Love, not Neceffity, which made him foar abreast with his amiable Friend but the still injurious World began to strip the Plumes from Beaumont, and to dress Fletcher in the whole Fame, leaving to the former nothing but the mere Pruning of Fletcher's luxuriant Wit, the Lima Labor, Vol. I.

the

à 3

the Plummet and the Rule, but neither the Plan,

Materials, Compoßtion, or Ofnaments. This is di-

rectly asserted in Mr. Cartwright's Commendatory

Poem on Fletcher.

Who therefore wisely did submit each Birth

To knowing Beaumont e'er it did come forth,

Working again until he said, 'twas fit,

And made him the Sobriety of his Wit.

Tho' thus he call'd bis Judge into his Fame,
And for that did allow'd him half the Name, &c.

See Cartwright's Poem below.

Mr. Harris, in his Commendatory Poem, makes

Beaumont a mere dead Weight hanging on the Boughs

of Fletcher's Palm.

When thou didst fit

But as ajaint Donationen in Wit;
Wben ii båd. Plupimets being on to suppress
Its too luxuijait. grövring Mightiness.
Till as that. Tredigelach:fcorns to be kept down,

Thou grew/t to govern the whole Stage alone.
I believe this extremely injurious to Beaumont; but
as the Opinion, or something like it, has lived for
Ages, and is frequent at this Day, it is time at
length to restore Beaumont to the full Rank of Fel-
lowship which he possess'd when living, and to fix
the Standard of their refpective Merits, before we
Mew the Degree in which their united Fame ought
to be placed on the British Theatre.

Mr.Cartwright and Mr. Harris wrote thirty Years

after Beaumont's Death, and twenty after Fletcher's ;

and