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, 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 wit.

XIV.

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

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 Beaumont's hand is visible in some high caricatures, but I must own my dissent to its gcalled a first-rate comedy.

SEWARD.

Bright

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,3 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,
And through his gen'ral's wounds his own doom
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 ton
But, ah! when thou thy sorrow didst inspire
With passions black as is her dark attire,
Virgins, as sufferers, have wept to see
So white a soul, so red a cruelty;

That thou hast griev'd, and, with unthought red
Dried their wet eyes who now thy mercy bless;
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
Fans ev'ry brow with gladness, while she sings
Delight to all; and the whole theatre
A festival in Heaven doth appear.

Humoro

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

Little

Custon

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 that Fletcher is the spirit of poetry, that he is the god of it, and has other poems, whether they are to live or die; after this he is like the living only himself signs death to all others. This is very high-strai self-contradictory, for Fletcher's spirit gives commission how far some death to all. A slight change will make somewhat easier and clearer s four last lines thus; Fletcher's poetry is the standard of excellence; by that model must die, therefore I read,

Like destiny, thy poems; i e. Thy poems being the standard destiny, which determines the fate of others, but herself remains still this poem as there are strong marks of genius in it, particularly in sor ragraphs.

That if this reformation, which we

Receiv'd, had not been buried with thee,

The stage, as this work, might have liv'd and lov'd,
Her lines the austere scarlet had approv'd;
And th' actors wisely been from that offence
As clear, as they are now from audience.

Thus with thy genius did the scene expire,
Wanting thy active and enliv'ning fire,
That now (to spread a darkness over all)
Nothing remains but poesy to fall.

And though from these thy embers we receive
Some warmth, so much as may be said, we live;
That we dare praise thee, blushless, in the head
Of the best piece Hermes to Love e'er read;
That we rejoice and glory in thy wit,
And feast each other with rememb'ring it;

That we dare speak thy thought, thy acts recite:
Yet all men henceforth be afraid to write.

XVII.

RICH. LOVELACE.37

Upon the unparalleled Plays written by those renowned Twins of Poetry,
BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.

WHAT'S here? another library of praise,38
Met in a troop t' advance contemned plays,
And bring exploded wit again in fashion?
I can't but wonder at this reformation.

My skipping soul surfeits with so much good,
To see my hopes into fruition bud.

A happy chymistry! blest viper, Joy!

That through thy mother's bowels gnaw'st thy way!

Wits flock in shoals, and club to re-erect,

In spite of ignorance, the architect

Of occidental poesy; and turn

Gods, to recal Wit's ashes from their urn.

Like huge Colosses, they've together knit 4

Their shoulders to support a world of wit.

37 Rich. Lovelace.] This gentleman was eldest son of a good family, extremely accomplished, being very eminent for wit, poetry, and music, but still more so for politeness of manners and beauty of person. He had an ample fortune and every advantage that seemed to promise happiness in life; but his steady attachment to the royal cause, and a liberality that perhaps approached too near profuseness, reduced him to extreme poverty. Something of the gaiety of the soldier appears in the beginning of this poem. His poems were published in 1749.

SEWARD.

38 Another ibrary of praise.] This alludes to the numerous commendatory copies of verses on Tom. Coryate's Cradities, which swelled into an entire volume. This is touched at in the 23d copy of verses, by Richard Brome:

"For the witty copies took,

Of his encomiums made themselves a book." —they've together met

THEOBALD.

Their shoulders to support a world of wit.] I should not find fault with met and wit being made rhimes here, (the poets of those times giving themselves such a licence) but that two persons meeting their shoulders is neither sense nor English! I am therefore persuaded the author wrote knit. So twice in the eighth copy by Jasper Maine,

And again,

VOL. I.

"In fame, as well as writings, both so knit,
That no man knows where to divide your wit."

"Nor where you thus in works and poems knit," &c.
1

THEOBALD.

The