ON THE DRAMATIC POEMS OF MR. JOHN FLETCHER.
Wonder! who's here? Fletcher, long buried,
Revived? 'Tis he! he's risen from the dead;
His winding-sheet put off, walks above ground,
Shakes off his fetters, and is better bound.
And may he not, if rightly understood,
Prove plays are lawful? he hath made them good.
Is any Lover Mad? See, here's Love's Cure;
Unmarried? to a Wife he may be sure,
A rare one, for a Month; if she displease,
The Spanish Curate gives a writ of ease.
Enquire the Custom of the Country, then
Shall the French Lawyer set you free again.
If the two Fair Maids take it wondrous ill,
(One of the Inn, the other of the Mill)
That th' Lovers' Progress stopt, and they defamed,
Here's that makes Women Pleased, and Tamer Tamed.
But who then plays the Coxcomb? or will try
His Wit at several Weapons, or else die?
Nice Valour, and he doubts not to engage
The Noble Gentleman in Lore's Pilgrimage,
To take revenge on the False One, and run
The Honest Man's Fortune, to be undone
Like Knight of Malta, or else Captain be,
Or th' Humorous Lieutenant; go to Sea
(A Voyage for to starve) he's very loth,
Till we are all at peace, to swear an oath,
That then the Loyal Subject may have leave
To lie from Beggar's Bush, and undeceive
The creditor, discharge his debts; why so,
Since we can't pay to Fletcher what we owe?
Oh, could his Prophetess but tell one Chance,
When that the Pilgrims shall return from France,
And once more make this kingdom as of late,
The Island Princess, and we celebrate
A Double Marriage; every one to bring
To Fletcher's memory his offering,
That thus at last unsequesters the stage,
Brings back the silver and the golden age!
TO THE MANES OF THE CELEBRATED POETS AND FELLOW-WRITERS, FRANCIS LEAUMON AND JOHN FLETCHER,
UPON THE PRINTING OF THEIR EXCELLENT DRAMATIC POEMS.
Disdain not, gentle shades, the lowly praise
Which here I tender your immortal bays:
Call it not folly, but my zeal, that I
Strive to eternize you, that cannot die.
And though no language rightly can commend
What you have writ, save what yourselves have penn'd,
Yet let me wonder at those curious strains
"The rich conceptions of your twin-like brains)
Which drew the gods' attention; who admired
To see our English stage by you inspired:
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-lived, 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.
Written thirty years since, presently after his death.)
Beaumont lies here; and where now shall we have
A muse like his to sigh upon his grave!
Ah! none to weep this with a worthy tear,
But he that cannot, Beaumont that lies here.
Who now shall pay thy tomb with such a verse
As thou that lady's didst, fair Rutland's hearse ?
A monument that will then lasting be,
When all her marble is more dust than she.
In thee all's lost: A sudden dearth and want
Hath seized on Wit, good epitaphs are scant;
We dare not write thy elegy, whilst each fears
He ne'er shall match that copy of thy tears.
Scarce in an age a poet, and yet he
Scarce lives the third part of his age to see;
But quickly taken off, and only known,
Is in a minute shut as soon as shewn.
Why should weak Nature tire herself in vain
In such a piece, to dash it straight again?
Why should she take such work beyond her skill,
Which, when she cannot perfect, she must kill?
Alas, what is't to temper slime or mire ?
But Nature's puzzled, when she works in fire:
Great brains, like brightest glass, crack straight, while those
Of stone or wood hold out, and fear not blows :
And we their ancient hoary heads can see,
Whose wit was never their mortality:
Beaumont dies young, so Sidney died before,
There was not poetry he could live to more;
He could not grow up higher; I scarce know
If th' art itself unto that pitch could grow,
Were't not in thee, that hadst arrived the height
Of all that Wit could reach, or Nature might.
Oh, when I read those excellent things of thine,
Such strength, such sweetness, couch'd in every line,
Such life of fancy, such high choice of brain,
Nought of the vulgar wit or borrow'd strain,
Such passion, such expressions meet my eye,
Such wit untainted with obscenity,
And these so unaffectedly express'd,
All in a language purely-flowing drest;
And all so born within thyself, thine own,
So new, so fresh, so nothing trod upon,
I grieve not now, that old Menander's vein
Is ruin'd, to survive in thee again;
Such in his time was he, of the same piece,
The smooth, even, natural wit, and love of Greece.
Those few sententious fragments shew more worth,
Than all the poets Athens e'er brought forth;
And I am sorry we have lost those hours
On them, whose quickness comes far short of ours,
And dwell not more on thee, whose every page
May be a pattern for their scene and stage.
I will not yield thy works so mean a praise;
More pure, more chaste, more sainted than are plays,
Nor with that dull supineness to be read,
To pass a fire, or laugh an hour in bed.
How do the muses suffer every where,
Taken in such mouths' censure, in such ears,
That, 'twixt a whiff, a line or two rehearse,
And with their rheum together spawl a verse!
This all a poem's leisure, after play,
Drink, or tobacco, it may keep the day.
Whilst even their very idleness, they think,
Is lost in these, that lose their time in drink.
Pity their dulness; we that better know,
Will a more serious hour on thee bestow.
Why should not Beaumont in the morning please,
As well as Plautus, Aristophanes ?
Who, if my pen may as my thoughts be free,
Were scurril wits and buffoons both to thee;
Yet these our learned of severest brow
Will deign to look on, and to note them too,
That will defy our own; 'tis English stuff,
And th' author is not rotten long enough.
Alas! what phlegm are they, compared to thee,
In thy Philaster, and Maid's Tragedy?
Where's such an humour as thy Bessus, pray?
Let them put all their Thrasoes in one play,
He shall out-bid them; their conceit was poor,
All in a circle of a bawd or whore,
A coz'ning Davus, take the fool away,
And not a good jest extant in a play.
Yet these are wits, because they're old, and now,
Being Greek and Latin, they are learning too :
But those their own times were content to allow
A thriftier fame, and thine is lowest now.
But thou shalt live, and, when thy name is grown
Six ages older, shalt be better known ;
When thou'rt of Chaucer's standing in the tomb,
Thou shalt not share, but take up all his room.
ON THE WORKS OF BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER,
Now at length printed.
Great pair of authors, whom one equal star
Begot so like in genius, that you are
In fame, as well as writings, both so knit,
That no man knows where to divide your wit,
Much less your praise: You, who had equal fire,
And did each other mutually inspire;
Whether one did contrive, the other write,
Or one framed the plot, the other did indite;
Whether one found the matter, th' other dress,
Or th' one disposed what th' other did express :
Where'er your parts between yourselves lay, we,
In all things which you did, but one thread see;
So evenly drawn out, so gently spun,
That art with nature ne'er did smoother run.
Where shall I fix my praise then? or what part
Of all your numerous labours hath desert,
More to be famed than other? Shall I say
I've met a lover so drawn in your play,
So passionately written, so inflamed,
So jealously enraged, then gently tamed,
That I, in reading, have the person seen,
And your pen hath part stage and actor been?
Or shall I say that I can scarce forbear
To clap, when I a captain do meet there;
So lively in his own vain humour drest,
So braggingly, and like himself exprest,
That modern cowards, when they saw him play'd,
Saw, blush'd, departed, guilty and betray'd?
You wrote all parts right; whatsoe'er the stage
Had from you, was seen there as in the age,
And had their equal life: Vices which were
Manners abroad, did grow corrected there:
They who possest a box, and half-crown spent
To learn obsceneness, return'd innocent,
And thank'd you for this coz'nage, whose chaste scene
Taught loves so noble, so reform'd, so clean,
That they, who brought foul fires, and thither came
To bargain, went thence with a holy flame.
Be't to your praise too, that your stock and vein
Held both to tragic and to comic strain;
Where'er you listed to be high and grave,
No buskin shew'd more solemn ; no quill gave
Such feeling objects to draw tears from eyes,
Spectators sate parts in your tragedies.
And where you listed to be low and free,
Mirth turn'd the whole house into comedy;
So piercing (where you pleased) hitting a fault,
That humours from your pen issued all salt.
Nor were you thus in works and poems knit,
As to be but two halfs, and make one wit;
But as some things, we see, have double cause,
And yet the effect itself from both whole draws;
So, though you were thus twisted and combined,
As [in] two bodies to have but one fair mind,
Yet, if we praise you rightly, we must say,
Both join'd, and both did wholly make the play.
For that you could write singly, we may guess
By the divided pieces which the press
Hath severally sent forth; nor were join'd so,
Like some our modern authors made to go
One merely by the help of th' other, who
To purchase fame do come forth one of two;
Nor wrote you so, that one's part was to lick
The other into shape; nor did one stick
The other's cold inventions with such wit,
As served, like spice, to make them quick and fit ;
Nor, out of mutual want, or emptiness,
Did you conspire to go still twins to th' press;
But what, thus join'd, you wrote, might have come forth
As good from each, and stored with the same worth
That thus united them; You did join sense;
In you 'twas league, in others impotence;
And the press, which both thus amongst us sends,
Sends us one poet in a pair of friends.
UPON THE REPORT OF THE PRINTING OF THE DRAMATICAL POEMS OP MASTER JOHN FLETCHER,
Never collected before, and now set forth in one Volume.
Though when all Fletcher writ, and the entire
Man was indulged unto that sacred fire,
His thoughts, and his thoughts' dress, appear'd both such
That 'twas his happy fault to do too much :
Who therefore wisely did submit each birth
To knowing Beaumont, ere it did come forth,
Working again until he said, 'twas fit,
And made him the sobriety of his wit.
Though thus he call'd his judge into his fame,
And for that aid allow'd him half the name,
'Tis known, that sometimes he did stand alone,
That both the spunge and pencil were his own;
That himself judged himself, could singly do,
And was at last Beaumont and Fletcher too :
Else we had lost his Shepherdess, a piece
Even and smooth, spun from a finer fleece;
Where softness reigns, where passions passions greet,
Gentle and high, as floods of balsam meet.
Where, dress'd in white expressions, sit bright loves,
Drawn, like their fairest queen, by milky doves;
A piece which Jonson in a rapture bid
Come up a glorified work; and so it did.
Else had his muse set with his friend, the stage
Had miss'd those poems, which yet take the age;
The world had lost those rich exemplars, where
Art, language, wit, sit ruling in one sphere;
Where the fresh matters soar above old themes,
As prophets' raptures do above our dreams;
Where, in a worthy scorn, he dares refuse
All other gods, and makes the thing his muse;
Where he calls passions up, and lays them so,
As spirits, awed by him to come and go;
Where the free author did whate'er he would,
And nothing will'd but what a poet should.
No vast uncivil bulk swells any scene,
The strength's ingenious, and the vigour clean;
None can prevent the fancy, and see through
At the first opening; all stand wond'ring how
The thing will be, until it is; which thence,
With fresh delight still cheats, still takes the sense :
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