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Roger L'Estrange.

COMMENDATORY

On the Dramatick Poems of Mr JOHN FLETCHER.

 
Wonder! who's here? Fletcher, long buried
Reviv'd? Tis he! hee'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 Playes are lawfull? he hath made them Good.
Is any Lover Mad? see here Loves Cure;
Unmarried? to a Wife he may be sure
A rare one, For a Moneth; if she displease,
The Spanish Curate gives a Writ of ease.
Enquire The Custome of the Country, then
Shall the French Lawyer set you free againe.
If the two Faire Maids take it wondrous ill,
(One of the Inne, the other of the Mill,)
That th' Lovers Progresse stopt, and they defam'd;
Here's that makes Women Pleas'd, and Tamer tamd.
But who then playes the Coxcombe, or will trie
His Wit at severall Weapons, or else die?
Nice Valour and he doubts not to engage
The Noble Gentl'man, in Loves Pilgrimage,
To take revenge on the False One, and run
The Honest mans Fortune, to be undone
Like Knight of Malta, or else Captaine be
Or th' Humerous Lieutenant: goe to Sea
(A Voyage for to starve) hee's very loath,
Till we are all at peace, to sweare an Oath,
That then the Loyall Subject may have leave
To lye from Beggers Bush, and undeceive
The Creditor, discharge his debts; Why so,
Since we can't pay to Fletcher what we owe.
Oh could his Prophetesse but tell one Chance,
When that the Pilgrimes shall returne from France.
And once more make this Kingdome, as of late,
The Island Princesse, and we celebrate
A Double Marriage; every one to bring
To Fletchers memory his offering.
That thus at last unsequesters the Stage,
Brings backe the Silver, and the Golden Age.
 

Robert Gardiner.

To the Manes of the celebrated Poets and Fellow-writers, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, upon the Printing of their excellent Dramatick Poems.

 
Disdaine not Gentle Shades, the lowly praise
Which here I tender your immortall Bayes.
Call it not folly, but my zeale, that I
Strive to eternize you that cannot dye.
And though no Language rightly can commend
What you have writ, save what your selves have penn'd;
Yet let me wonder at those curious straines
(The rich Conceptions of your twin-like Braines)
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 Soule-affecting Musicke; ravishing
Both Eare 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 foile: two wits in growth
So just, as had one Soule informed both.
Thence (Learned Fletcher) sung the muse alone,
As both had done before, thy Beaumont gone.
In whom, as thou, had he outlived, 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 Theater.
The Presse shall give to ev'ry man his part,
And we will all be Actors; learne by heart
Those Tragick Scenes and Comicke Straines you writ,
Un-imitable both for Art and Wit;
And at each Exit, as your Fancies rise,
Our hands shall clap deserved Plaudities.
 

John Web.

To the desert of the Author in his most Ingenious Pieces.

 
Thou art above their Censure, whose darke Spirits
Respects but shades of things, and seeming merits;
That have no soule, nor reason to their will,
But rime as ragged, as a Ganders Quill:
Where Pride blowes up the Error, and transfers
Their zeale in Tempests, that so wid'ly errs.
Like heat and Ayre comprest, their blind desires
Mixe with their ends, as raging winds with fires.
Whose Ignorance and Passions, weare an eye
Squint to all parts of true Humanity.
All is Apocripha suits not their vaine:
For wit, oh fye! and Learning too; prophane!
But Fletcher hath done Miracles by wit,
And one Line of his may convert them yet.
Tempt them into the State of knowledge, and
Happinesse to read and understand.
The way is strow'd with Lawrell, and ev'ry Muse
Brings Incense to our Fletcher: whose Scenes infuse
Such noble kindlings from her pregnant fire,
As charmes her Criticke Poets in desire,
And who doth read him, that parts lesse indu'd,
Then with some heat of wit or Gratitude.
Some crowd to touch the Relique of his Bayes,
Some to cry up their owne wit in his praise,
And thinke they engage it by Comparatives,
When from himselfe, himselfe he best derives.
Let Shakespeare, Chapman, and applauded Ben,
Weare the Eternall merit of their Pen,
Here I am love-sicke: and were I to chuse,
A Mistris corrivall 'tis Fletcher's Muse.
 

George Buck.

On Mr BEAUMONT.

(Written thirty years since, presently after his death.)

 
Beaumont lyes here; and where now shall we have
A Muse like his to sigh upon his grave?
Ah! none to weepe this with a worthy teare,
But he that cannot, Beaumont, that lies here.
Who now shall pay thy Tombe with such a Verse
As thou that Ladies didst, faire Rutlands Herse?
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 seiz'd on Wit, good Epitaphs are scant;
We dare not write thy Elegie, whilst each feares
He nere shall match that coppy of thy teares.
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 soone as showne.
Why should weake Nature tire her selfe in vaine
In such a peice, to dash it straight againe?
Why should she take such worke beyond her skill,
Which when she cannot perfect, she must kill?
Alas, what is't to temper slime or mire?
But Nature's puzled when she workes in fire:
Great Braines (like brightest glasse) crack straight, while those
Of Stone or Wood hold out, and feare not blowes.
And wee their Ancient hoary heads can see
Whose Wit was never their mortality:
Beaumont dies young, so Sidney did before,
There was not Poetry he could live to more,
He could not grow up higher, I scarce know
If th' art it selfe unto that pitch could grow,
Were't not in thee that hadst arriv'd the hight
Of all that wit could reach, or Nature might.
O when I read those excellent things of thine,
Such Strength, such sweetnesse coucht in every line,
Such life of Fancy, such high choise of braine,
Nought of the Vulgar wit or borrowed straine,
Such Passion, such expressions meet my eye,
Such Wit untainted with obscenity,
And these so unaffectedly exprest,
All in a language purely flowing drest,
And all so borne within thy selfe, thine owne,
So new, so fresh, so nothing trod upon.
I grieve not now that old Menanders veine
Is ruin'd to survive in thee againe;
Such in his time was he of the same peece,
The smooth, even naturall Wit, and Love of Greece.
Those few sententious fragments shew more worth,
Then all the Poets Athens ere brought forth;
And I am sorry we have lost those houres
On them, whose quicknesse comes far short of ours,
And dwell not more on thee, whose every Page
May be a patterne for their Scene and Stage.
I will not yeeld thy Workes so meane a Prayse;
More pure, more chaste, more sainted then are Playes,
Nor with that dull supinenesse to be read,
To passe a fire, or laugh an houre in bed.
How doe the Muses suffer every where,
Taken in such mouthes censure, in such eares,
That twixt a whiffe, a Line or two rehearse,
And with their Rheume together spaule a Verse?
This all a Poems leisure after Play,
Drinke or Tabacco, it may keep the Day.
Whilst even their very idlenesse they thinke
Is lost in these, that lose their time in drinkt.
Pity then dull we, we that better know,
Will a more serious houre 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 scurrill Wits and Buffons both to Thee;
Yet these our Learned of severest brow
Will deigne to looke on, and to note them too,
That will defie our owne, tis English stuffe,
And th' Author is not rotten long enough.
Alas what flegme are they, compared to thee,
In thy Philaster, and Maids-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 poore,
All in a Circle of a Bawd or Whore;
A cozning dance, take the foole away,
And not a good jest extant in a Play.
Yet these are Wits, because they'r old, and now
Being Greeke and Latine, they are Learning too:
But those their owne Times were content t' allow
A thirsty fame, and thine is lowest now.
But thou shalt live, and when thy Name is growne
Six Ages older, shall be better knowne,
When th' art of Chaucers standing in the Tombe,
Thou shalt not share, but take up all his roome.
 

Joh. Earle.

UPON Mr FLETCHERS Incomparable Playes.

 
The Poet lives; wonder not how or why
Fletcher revives, but that he er'e could dye:
Safe Mirth, full Language, flow in ev'ry Page,
At once he doth both heighten and aswage;
All Innocence and Wit, pleasant and cleare,
Nor Church nor Lawes were ever Libel'd here;
But faire deductions drawn from his great Braine,
Enough to conquer all that's False or Vaine;
He scatters Wit, and Sence so freely flings
That very Citizens speake handsome things,
Teaching their Wives such unaffected grace,
Their Looks are now as handsome as their Face.
Nor is this violent, he steals upon
The yeilding Soule untill the Phrensie's gone;
His very Launcings do the Patient please,
As when good Musicke cures a Mad Disease.
Small Poets rifle Him, yet thinke it faire,
Because they rob a man that well can spare;
They feed upon him, owe him every bit,
Th'are all but Sub-excisemen of his Wit.
 

J. M.

On the Workes of Beaumont and Fletcher, now at length printed.

 
Great paire of Authors, whom one equall Starre
Begot so like in Genius, _that you are
In Fame, as well as Writings, both so knit,
That no man knowes where to divide your wit,
Much lesse your praise; you, who had equall 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 dresse,
Or the one disposed what th'other did expresse;
Where e're your parts betweene your selves lay, we,
In all things which you did but one thred see,
So evenly drawne out, so gently spunne,
That Art with Nature nere did smoother run.
Where shall I fixe my praise then? or what part
Of all your numerous Labours hath desert
More to be fam'd then other? shall I say,
I've met a lover so drawne in your Play,
So passionately written, so inflamed,
So jealously inraged, then gently tam'd,
That I in reading have the Person seene.
And your Pen hath part Stage and Actor been?
Or shall I say, that I can scarce forbeare
To clap, when I a Captain do meet there,
So lively in his owne vaine humour drest,
So braggingly, and like himself exprest,
That moderne Cowards, when they saw him plaid,
Saw, blusht, departed guilty, and betraid?
You wrote all parts right; whatsoe're the Stage
Had from you, was seene there as in the age,
And had their equall life: Vices which were
Manners abroad, did grow corrected there:
They who possest a Box, and halfe Crowns spent
To learne Obscenenes, returned innocent,
And thankt you for this coznage, whose chaste Scene
Taught Loves so noble, so reformed, so cleane,
That they who brought foule fires, and thither came
To bargaine, went thence with a holy flame.
Be't to your praise too, that your Stock and Veyne
Held both to Tragick and to Comick straine;
Where e're you listed to be high and grave,
No Buskin shew'd more solem[n]e, no quill gave
Such feeling objects to draw teares from eyes,
Spectators sate part in your Tragedies.
And where you listed to be low, and free,
Mirth turn'd the whole house into Comedy;
So piercing (where you pleas'd) 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 halfes, and make one wit;
But as some things we see, have double cause,
And yet the effect it selfe from both whole drawes;
So though you were thus twisted and combind
As two bodies, to have but one faire minde
Yet if we praise you rightly, we must say
Both joyn'd, and both did wholly make the Play,
For that you could write singly, we may guesse
By the divided peeces which the Presse
Hath severally sent forth; nor were gone so
(Like some our Moderne Authors) made to go
On meerely by the helpe of the other, who
To purchase fame do come forth one of two;
Nor wrote you so, that ones part was to lick
The other into shape, nor did one stick
The others cold inventions with such wit,
As served like spice, to make them quick and fit;
Nor out of mutuall want, or emptinesse,
Did you conspire to go still twins to th' Presse:
But what thus joy tied you wrote, might have come forth
As good from each, and stored with the same worth
That thus united them, you did joyne sense,
In you 'twas League, in others impotence;
And the Presse which both thus amongst us sends,
Sends us one Poet in a faire of friends.
 

Jasper Maine.

Upon the report of the printing of the Dramaticall Poems of Master John Fletcher, 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 dresse, appeared both such,
That 'twas his happy fault to do too much;
Who therefore wisely did submit each birth
To knowing Beaumont e're it did come forth,
Working againe untill 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 halfe the name,
'Tis knowne, that sometimes he did stand alone,
That both the Spunge and Pencill were his owne;
That himselfe judged himselfe, could singly do,
And was at last Beaumont and Fletcher too;
Else we had lost his Shepherdesse, a piece
Even and smooth, spun from a finer fleece,
Where softnesse raignes, where passions passions greet,
Gentle and high, as floods of Balsam meet.
Where dressed in white expressions, sit bright Loves,
Drawne, like their fairest Queen, by milkie Doves;
A piece, which Johnson in a rapture bid
Come up a glorifi'd Worke, and so it did.
Else had his Muse set with his friend; the Stage
Had missed those Poems, which yet take the Age;
The world had lost those rich exemplars, where
Art, Language, Wit, sit ruling in one Spheare,
Where the fresh matters soare above old Theames,
As Prophets Raptures do above our Dreames;
Where in a worthy scorne he dares refuse
All other Gods, and makes the thing his Muse;
Where he calls passions up, and layes them so,
As spirits, aw'd by him to come and go;
Where the free Author did what e're he would,
And nothing will'd, but what a Poet should.
No vast uncivill bulke swells any Scene,
The strength's ingenious, a[n]d the vigour cleane;
None can prevent the Fancy, and see through
At the first opening; all stand wondring how
The thing will be untill it is; which thence
With fresh delight still cheats, still takes the sence;
The whole designe, the shadowes, the lights such
That none can say he shelves or hides too much:
Businesse growes up, ripened by just encrease,
And by as just degrees againe doth cease,
The heats and minutes of affaires are watcht,
And the nice points of time are met, and snatcht:
Nought later then it should, nought comes before,
Chymists, and Calculators doe erre more:
Sex, age, degree, affections, country, place,
The inward substance, and the outward face;
All kept precisely, all exactly fit,
What he would write, he was before he writ.
'Twixt Johnsons grave, and Shakespeares lighter sound
His muse so steer'd that something still was found,
Nor this, nor that, nor both, but so his owne,
That 'twas his marke, and he was by it knowne.
Hence did he take true judgements, hence did strike,
All pallates some way, though not all alike:
The god of numbers might his numbers crowne,
And listning to them wish they were his owne.
Thus welcome forth, what ease, or wine, or wit
Durst yet produce, that is, what Fletcher writ.
 

Another.

 
Fletcher, though some call it thy fault, that wit
So overflow'd thy scenes, that ere 'twas fit
To come upon the Stage, Beaumont was faine
To bid thee be more dull, that's write againe,
And bate some of thy fire, which from thee came
In a cleare, bright, full, but too large a flame;
And after all (finding thy Genius such)
That blunted, and allayed, 'twas yet too much;
Added his sober spunge, and did contract
Thy plenty to lesse wit to make't exact:
Yet we through his corrections could see
Much treasure in thy superfluity,
Which was so fil'd away, as when we doe
Cut Jewels, that that's lost is jewell too:
Or as men use to wash Gold, which we know
By losing makes the streame thence wealthy grow.
They who doe on thy worker severely sit,
And call thy store the over-births of wit,
Say thy miscarriages were rare, and when
Thou wert superfluous, that thy fruitfull Pen
Had no fault but abundance, which did lay
Out in one Scene what might well serve a Play;
And hence doe grant, that what they call excesse
Was to be reckon'd as thy happinesse,
From whom wit issued in a full spring-tide;
Much did inrich the Stage, much flow'd beside.
For that thou couldst thine owne free fancy binde
In stricter numbers, and run so confin'd
As to observe the rules of Art, which sway
In the contrivance of a true borne Play:
These workes proclaime which thou didst write retired
From Beaumont, by none but thy selfe inspired;
Where we see 'twas not chance that made them hit,
Nor were thy Playes the Lotteries of wit,
But like to Durers Pencill, which first knew
The lawes of faces, and then faces drew:
Thou knowst the aire, the colour, and the place,
The simetry, which gives a Poem grace:
Parts are so fitted unto parts, as doe
Shew thou hadst wit, and Mathematicks too:
Knewst where by line to spare, where to dispence,
And didst beget just Comedies from thence:
Things unto which thou didst such life bequeath,
That they (their owne Black-Friers) unacted breath.
Johnson hath writ things lasting, and divine,
Yet his Love-Scenes, Fletcher, compar'd to thine,
Are cold and frosty, and exprest love so,
As heat with Ice, or warme fires mixt with Snow;
Thou, as if struck with the same generous darts,
Which burne, and raigne in noble Lovers hearts,
Hast cloath'd affections in such native tires,
And so describ'd them in their owne true fires;
Such moving sighes, suc[h] undissembled teares,
Such charmes of language, such hopes mixt with feares,
Such grants after denialls, such pursuits
After despaire, such amorous recruits,
That some who sate spectators have confest
Themselves transformed to what they saw exprest,
And felt such shafts steale through their captiv'd sence,
As made them rise Parts, and goe Lovers thence.
Nor was thy stile wholly compos'd of Groves,
Or the soft straines of Shepheards and their Loves;
When thou wouldst Comick be, each smiling birth
In that kinde, came into the world all mirth,
All point, all edge, all sharpnesse; we did sit
Sometimes five Acts out in pure sprightfull wit,
Which flowed in such true salt, that we did doubt
In which Scene we laught most two shillings out.
Shakespeare to thee was dull, whose best jest lyes
I'th Ladies questions, and the Fooles replyes;
Old fashioned wit, which walkt from town to town
In turn'd Hose, which our fathers call'd the Clown;
Whose wit our nice times would obsceannesse call,
And which made Bawdry passe for Comicall:
Nature was all his Art, thy veine was free
As his, but without his scurility;
From whom mirth came unforced, no jest perplext,
But without labour cleane, chast, and unvext.