Chapter 3

Fletcher _(whose Fame no Age can ever wast; Envy of Ours, and glory of the last) Is now alive againe; and with his Name His sacred Ashes wak'd into a Flame; Such as before did by a secret charme The wildest Heart subdue, the coldest warme, And lend the Lady's eyes a power more bright, Dispensing thus to either, Heat and Light. He to a Sympathie those soules betrai'd Whom Love or Beauty never could perswade; And in each mov'd spectatour could beget A reall passion by a Counterfeit: When first_ Bellario _bled, what Lady there Did not for every drop let fall a teare? And when_ Aspasia _wept, not any eye But seem'd to weare the same sad livery; By him inspired the feigned_ Lucina _drew More streams of melting sorrow then the true; But then the_ Scornfull Lady _did beguile Their easie griefs, and teach them all to smile. Thus he Affections could, or raise or lay; Love, Griefe and Mirth thus did his Charmes obey: He Nature taught her passions to out-doe, How to refine the old, and create new; Which such a happy likenesse seem'd to beare, As if that Nature Art, Art Nature were. Yet All had Nothing bin, obscurely kept In the same Urne wherein his Dust hath slept, Nor had he ris' the Delphick wreath to claime, Had not the dying sceane expired his Name; Dispaire our joy hath doubled, he is come, Thrice welcome by this_ Post-liminium. _His losse preserved him; They that silenc'd Wit, Are now the Authours to Eternize it; Thus Poets are in spight of Fate revived, And Playes by Intermission longer liv'd_.

THO. STANLEY.

On the Edition of Mr _Francis Beaumonts_, and Mr _John Fletchers_ PLAYES never printed before.

I Am _amaz'd_; and this same _Extacye_ Is both my _Glory_ and _Apology_. _Sober Joyes are dull Passions_; they must beare Proportion to the _Subject_: if _so_; where _Beaumont_ and _Fletcher_ shall vouchsafe to be _That Subject_; _That Joy_ must be _Extacye_. _Fury_ is the _Complexion_ of _great Wits_; The _Fooles Distemper_: Hee, thats _mad_ by _fits_, Is _wise so_ too. It is the _Poets Muse_; The _Prophets God_: the _Fooles_, and _my excuse_. For (in _Me_) nothing lesse then _Fletchers Name_ Could have _begot_, or _justify'd_ this _flame_. _Beaumont_ } _Fletcher_ } _Return'd?_ methinks it should not be. _No_, not in's _Works_: _Playes_ are as _dead_ as _He_. The _Palate_ of _this age gusts_ nothing _High_; That has not _Custard_ in't or _Bawdery_. _Folly_ and _Madnesse_ fill the _Stage_: The _Scæne_ Is _Athens_; _where_, the _Guilty_, and the _Meane_, The _Foole 'scapes_ well enough; _Learned_ and _Great_, Suffer an _Ostracisme_; stand _Exulate_.

_Mankinde_ is _fall'n againe_, _shrunke_ a _degree_, A _step_ below his very _Apostacye_. _Nature_ her _Selfe_ is out of _Tune_; and _Sicke_ Of _Tumult_ and _Disorder_, _Lunatique_. Yet _what World_ would not cheerfully _endure_ The _Torture_, or _Disease_, t' _enjoy_ the _Cure?_

_This Booke's_ the _Balsame_, and the _Hellebore_, Must _preserve bleeding Nature_, and _restore_ Our _Crazy Stupor_ to a _just quick Sence_ Both of _Ingratitude_, and _Providence_. That teaches us (at _Once_) to _feele_, and _know_, _Two deep Points_: what we _want_, and what we _owe_. Yet _Great Goods have their Ills_: Should we _transmit_ To _Future Times_, the _Pow'r_ of _Love_ and _Wit_, In _this Example_: would they not _combine_ To make _Our Imperfections Their Designe?_ They'd _study_ our _Corruptions_; and take more _Care_ to be _Ill_, then to be _Good_, _before_. For _nothing but so great Infirmity, Could make Them worthy of such Remedy.

Have you not scene the Suns almighty Ray Rescue th' affrighted World_, and _redeeme Day_ From _blacke despaire_: how his _victorious Beame_ _Scatters_ the _Storme_, and _drownes_ the _petty flame_ Of _Lightning_, in the _glory_ of his _eye_: How _full_ of _pow'r_, how _full_ of _Majesty?_ When to _us Mortals, nothing_ else was _knowne_, But the _sad doubt_, whether to _burne_, or _drowne_.

_Choler_, and _Phlegme, Heat_, and _dull Ignorance,_ Have cast _the people_ into _such_ a _Trance_, That _feares_ and _danger_ seeme _Great equally_, And no _dispute_ left now, but _how_ to _dye_. Just in _this nicke, Fletcher sets the world cleare_ Of all disorder and reformes us here.

The _formall Youth_, that knew _no_ other _Grace_, Or _Value_, but his _Title_, and his _Lace_, _Glasses himselfe_: and in _this faithfull Mirrour_, _Views, disaproves, reformes, repents_ his _Errour_.

The _Credulous, bright Girle_, that _beleeves all_ _Language_, (in _Othes_) if _Good, Canonicall_, Is _fortifi'd_, and _taught, here_, to _beware_ Of _ev'ry_ specious _bayte_, of _ev'ry snare_ Save _one_: and _that_ same _Caution_ takes her _more_, Then _all_ the _flattery_ she _felt before_. She finds her _Boxes_, and her _Thoughts betray'd_ By the _Corruption_ of the _Chambermaide_: _Then throwes_ her _Washes_ and _dissemblings_ By; And _Vowes_ nothing but _Ingenuity_.

The _severe States-man quits_ his _sullen forme_ Of _Gravity_ and _bus'nesse_; The _Luke-warme_ _Religious_ his _Neutrality_; The _hot_ _Braine-sicke Illuminate_ his _zeale; The Sot_ _Stupidity_; The _Souldier_ his _Arreares_; The _Court_ its _Confidence_; The _Plebs_ their _feares_; _Gallants_ their _Apishnesse_ and _Perjurie_, _Women_ their _Pleasure_ and _Inconstancie_; _Poets_ their _Wine_; the _Usurer_ his _Pelfe_; The _World_ its _Vanity_; and _I_ my _Selfe_.

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.