Do burn quite out, or wear away

And, wing’d with passion, through his known purlieu, Their snuffs upon the edge of day?

Swift as an arrow from a bow, he flew, Whether the sea increase, or waste,

Nor stopp'd until his fire had him convey'd And, if it do, how long 'twill last ?

Where many an assignation he 'ad enjoy'd; Or, if the Sun approaches near

Where finding, what he sought, a mutual flame, The Earth, how soon it will be there?

That long had stay'd and call'd before he caine, These were their learned speculations,

Impatient of delay, without one word, And all their constant occupations,

To lose no further time, he fell aboard, To measure wind, and weigh the air,

But grip'd so hard, he wounded what he lor'd, And turn a circle to a square;

While she, in anger, thus his heat reprovd. To make a powder of the Sun,

C. Forbear, foul ravisher, this rude address; By which all doctors should b' undoné;

Canst thou, at once, both injure and caress? To find the north-west passage out,

P. Thou hast bewitch'd me with thy powerful Although the furthest way about;

charms, If chymists from a rose's ashes

And I, by drawing blood, would cure my harms. Can raise the rose itself in glasses ?

C. He that does love would set his heart a-tilt, Whether the line of incidence

Ere one drop of his lady's should be spilt. Rise from the object or the sense ;

P. Your wounds are but without, and mine To stew th' elixir in a bath

within; Of hope, credulity, and faith;

You wound my heart, and I but prick your skin; To explicate, by subtle hints,

And, while your eyes pierce deeper than my claws, The grain of diamonds and fints,

You blame th' effect, of which you are the cause. And in the braying of an ass

C. How could my guiltless eyes your heart invade, Find out the treble and the bass;

Had it not first been by your own betray'd ? If mares neigh alto, and a cow

Hence 'tis my greatest crime has only been A double diapason lowe

(Not in mine eyes, but your's) in being seen.

P. I hurt to love, but do not love to hurt.
C. That's worse than making cruelty a sport,

P. Pain is the foil of pleasure and delight,

That sets it off to a more noble height. REPARTEES' BETWEEN CAT AND PUSS

C. He buys his pleasure at a rate too vain, AT A CATERWAULING.

That takes it up beforehand of his pain.

P. Pain is more dear than pleasure when 'tis past. IN THE MODERN HEROIC WAY.

C. But grows intolerable if it last. It was about the middle age of night,

P. Love is too full of honour to regard When half the Earth stood in the other's light, What it enjoys, but suffers as reward. And Sleep, Death's brother, yet a friend to life, What knight durst ever own a lover's name, Gave weary'd Nature a restorative;

That had not been half murder'd by his flame, When puss, wrapt warm in his own native furs, Or lady, that had nerer lain at stake, Dreamt soundly of as soft and warm amours; To death, or force of rivals, for his sake? Of making gallantry in gutter-tiles,

C. When love does meet with injury and pain, And sporting on delightful fagyot-piles;

Disdain 's the only med'cine for disdain. Of bolting out of bushes in the dark,

P. At once I'm happy and unhappy too, As la lies use at midnight in the Park;

Ia being pleas'd, and in displeasing you. Or seeking in tall garrets an alcove,

C. Preposterous way of pleasure and of love, For assignations in th' affairs of love.

That contrary to its own end would more! At once his passion was both false and true, "Tis rather hate, that covets to destroy; And the more false, the more in carnest grew. Lore's business is to love, and to enjoy. He fancy'd that he heard those amorous charms 'P. Enjoving and destroying are all one, That us’d to summon him to soft alarms,

As flames destroy that which they feed upon. To which he always brought an equal flame,

C. He never lovd at any generous rate, To fight a rival, or to court a dame;

That in th' enjoyment found his fame abate, And, as in dreams love's raptures are more taking As wine (the friend of love) is wont to make Than' all their actual enjoyments waking,

The thirst more violent it pretends to slake, His amorous passion grew to that extreme,

So should fruition do the lover's fire, His dream itself awak d him from his dream. Instead of lessening, inflame desire. Thought he, “What place is this? or whither art P. What greater proof that passion does transport, Thou vanish'd from me, mistress of my heart? When what I would die for I'm forc'd to hurt? But now I had her in this very place,

-C. Death among lovers is a thing despisd, Ilere, fast imprison d in my glad embrace,

And far below a sullen humour priz'd, And, while my joys beyond themselves were rapt, That is more scorn'd and rail'd at than the gods, I know not bow, nor whither, thou 'rt escap'd : When they are cross'd in love, or fall at odds : Stay, and I'll follow thee"—With that he leapt But since you understand not what you do, Up from the lazy conch on which he slept, I am the judge of what I feel, not you,

* This poem is a satirical banter upon those ject, are carried on exactly in this strain, as any heroic plays which were so much in vogue at the one may perceive that will consult the dramatis time our author lived; the dialogues of which, pieces of Dryden, Settle, and others, having what they called heroic love for their sub

TO THE

UPON HIS INCOMPARABLE POEM OF THE

BRITISH PRINCES.

TO THE

TO THE HONOURABLE EDWARD HOWARD, ESQ.

197 P. Passion begins indifferent to prove,

But is all instant, your eternal Muse When love considers any thing but love.

All ages can to any one reduce.
C. The darts of love, like lightning, wound within, Then why should you, whose miracle of art
And, though they pierce it, never hurt the skin; Can life at pleasure to the dead impart,
They leave no marks behind them where they fly, Trouble in vain your better-busied head
Though through the tenderest part of all, the eye; T'observe what time they liv'd in, or were dead?
Bat your sharp claws have left enough to shew For, since you have such arbitrary power,
How tender I have been, how cruel you.

It were defect in judgment to go lower,
P. Pleasure is pain ; for when it is enjoy'd, Or stoop to things so pitifully lewd,
All it could wish for was but to b' allay'd.

As use to take the vulgar latitude.
C. Force is a rugged way of making love. There's no man fit to read what you have writ,
P. What you like best, you always disapprove.

That holds not some proportion with your wit ;
C. He that will wrong his love, will not be nice, As light can no way but by light appear,
To excuse the wrong he does, to wrong her twice. He must bring sense that understands it here.

P. Nothing is wrong but that which is ill meant.
C. Wounds are ill cur'd with a good intent.

P. When you mistake that for an injury
I never meant, you do the wrong, not I.

A PALINODE
C, You do not feel yourself the pain you give;
But 'tis not that alone for which I grieve;
But 'tis your want of passion that I blame,

HONOURABLE EDWARD HOWARD, ES2. That can be cruel where you own a flame

P. 'Tis you are guilty of that cruelty, Which you at once outdo and blame in me; For, while yon stifle and inflame desire,

It is your pardon, sir, for which my Muse You burn, and starve me, in the self-same fire. Thrice humbly thus, in form of paper, sues; C. It is not I, but you, that do the hurt,

For, having felt the dead weight of your wit, Who wound yourself, and then accuse me for 't; She comes to ask forgiveness, and submit; . As thieves, that rob themselves 'twixt sun and sun, Is sorry for her faults, and, while I write, Make others pay for what themselves have done.

Mourns in the black, does penance in the white:
But such is her belief in your just candour,
She hopes you will not so misunderstand her,
To wrest her harmless meaning to the sense

Of silly emulation or offence.
HONOURABLE EDWARD HOWARD, ES2. No: your sufficient wit does still declare

Itself too amply, they are mad that dare

So vain and senseless a presumption own,
BRITISH PRINCES'.

To yoke your vast parts in comparison :
SIR,

And yet you might have thought upon a way You have oblig'd the British nation more

Tinstruct us how you 'd have us to obey, Than all their bards could ever do before,

And not command our praises, and then blame
And, at your own charge, monuments more hard All that 's too great or little for your fame:
Than brass or marble to their fame have reard: For who could choose but err, without some trick
Por, as all warlike nations take delight

To take your elevation to a nick?
To hear how brave their ancestors could fight, As he that was desir'd upon occasion,
You have advanc'd to wonder their renown, To make the mayor of London an oration,
And no less virtuously improv'd your own:

Desir'd his lordship’s favour, that he might
Por 'twill be doubted whether you do write, Take measure of his mouth to fit it right;
Or they have acted, at a nobler height.

So, had you sent a scantling of your wit, You of their ancient princes have retriev'd You might have blam'd us if it did not fit; More than the ages knew in which they liv'd; But 'tis not just t'impose, and then cry down Describ'd their customs and their rites anew, All that 's unequal to your huge renown; Better than all their Druids ever knew;

For he that writes below your vast desert, Unriddled their dark oracles as well

Betrays his own, and not your want of art. As those themselves that made them could foretell: Praise, like a robe of state, should not sit close For as the Britons long have bop'd, in vain, To th' person 'tis made for, but wide and loose; Arthur would come to govern them again,

Derives its comeliness from being unfit, You have fulfill'd their prophecy alone,

And such have been our praises of your wit; And in this poem plac'd him on his throne. Which is so extraordinary, no height Such magic power has your prodigious pen, Of fancy but your own can do it right; To raise the dead, and give new life to men; Witness those glorious poems you have writ, Make rival princes meet in arms and love, With equal judgment, learning, art, and wit, Whom distant ages did so far remove;

And those stupendious discoveries Por as eternity has neither past

You 've lately made of wonders in the skies : Nor future (authors say) nor first nor last,

For who, but from yourself, did ever hear

The sphere of atoms was the atmosphere? Most of the celebrated wits in Charles the Who ever shut those stragglers in a room, Second's reign addressed this gentleman, in a ban- Or put a circle about vacuum ? tering way, upon his poem called The British What should confine those undetermin'd crowds, Princes, and, among the rest, Butler.

And yet extend no further than the clouds ?

UPON HIS INCOMPARABLE POEM OF THE

Who ever could have thought, but you alone, Had your's been less, all helps had been in vain, A sign and an ascendant were all one?

And thrown away, though on a less sick brain; Or how 'tis possible the Moon should shrowd But you were so far froin receiving hurt, Her face, to peep at Mars behind a cloud,

You grew improv'd, and much the better for 't. Since clouds below are so far distant plac'd, As when th' Arabian bird does sacrifice, They cannot hinder her from being barefac'd ? And burn himself in his own country's spice, Who ever did a language so enrich,

A maggot first breeds in his pregnant um, To scorn all little particles of speech? [found | Which after does to a young phænix turn: For though they make the sense clear, yet they 're So your hot brain, burnt in its native fire, To be a scurvy hindrance to the sound;

Did life renewd and vigorous youth acquire ; Therefore you wisely scorn your style to humble, And with so much advantage, some have guest, Or for the sense's sake to wave the rumble.

Your after-wit is like to be your best,
Had Homer known this art, he 'ad ne'er been fain And now expect far greater matters of re
To use so many particles in rain,

Than the bought Cooper's Hill, or borrowd Sophy; That to no purpose serve, but (as he haps

Such as your Tully lately dress'd in verse, To want a syllable) to fill up gaps.

Like those he made himself, or not much worse; You justly coin new verbs, to pay for those And Seneca's dry sand unmix'd with lime, Which in construction you o'ersee and lose; Such as you cheat the king with, botch'd in rhyme. And by this art do Priscian no wrong

Nor were your morals less improv'd, all pride When you break 's head, for 'tis as broad as long. And native insolence quite laid aside; These are your own discoveries, which none And that ungovernd outrage, that was wont But such a Muse as your's could hit upon,

All, that you durst with safety, to affront. That can, in spite of laws of art, or rules,

No China cupboard rudely overthrown,
Make things more intricate than all the schools : Nor lady tipp'd, by being accosted, down;
For what have laws of art to do with you,

No poet jeer'd, for scribbleing amiss,
More than the laws with honest men and true? With verses forty times more lewd than his :
He that 's a prince in poetry should strive

Nor did your crutch give battle to your duns, To cry them down by his prerogative,

And hold it out, where you had built a sconce; And not submit to that which has no force

Nor furiously laid orange-wench aboard, But o'er delinquents and inferiors.

For asking what in fruit and love you ’ad scord; Your poems will endure to be try'd

But all civility and complacence, l'th' fire, like gold, and come forth purify'd; More than you ever us'd before or since. Can only to eternity pretend,

Beside, you never over-reach'd the king For they were never writ to any end.

One farthing, all the while, in reckoning, All other books bear an uncertain rate,

Nor brought in false account, with little tricks, But those you write are always sold by weight; Of passing broken rubbish for whole bricks ; Each word and syllable brought to the scale, False mustering of workmen by the day, And valued to a scruple in the sale:

Deduction out of wages, and dead pay For when the paper is charg'd with your rich wit, For those that never liv'd; all which did come, 'Tis for all purposes and uses fit,

By thrifty management, to no small sum. Has an abstersive virtue to make clean

You pulld no lodgings down, to build them worse, Whatever Nature made in inan obscene.

Nor repair'd others, to repair your purse,
Boys find, b' experiment, no paper-kite,

As you were wont, till all you built appear'd
Without your verse, can make a noble fight. Like that Amphion with his fiddle rear'd:
It keeps our spice and aromatics sweet;

For had the stones, like his, charm’d by your sense, In Paris they perfume their rooms with it: Built up themselves, they could not have done rurse: For burning but one leaf of your's, they say, And sure, when first you venturd to survey, Drives all their stinks and nastiness away.

You did design to do 't no other way. Cooks keep their pies from burning with you wit, All this was done before those days began Their pigs and geese from scorching on the spit; In which you were a wise and happy man: And vintners find their wines are ne'er the worse, For who e'er liv'd in such a paradise, When arsenic's only wrapt up in the verse. Until fresh straw and darkness op'd your eves? These are the great performances that raise Who ever greater treasure could command, Your mighty parts above all reach of praise, Had nobler palaces, and richer land, And give us only leave t' admire your worth, Than you had then, who could raise sums as rast, For no man, but yourself, can set it forth,

As all the cheats of a Dutch war could waste, Whose wondrous power 's so generally known, Or all those practis'd upon publie money? Fame is the echo, and her voice your own.

For nothing, but your cure, could have undone ye.

A

temptuous a manner, the character of a poet so

much esteemed as sir John Dephani was. I what PANEGYRIC UPON SIR JOHN DENHAM'She charges him with be true, there is, indeed, some, KECOVERY FROM HIS MADNESS'.

room for sacire; but still there is such a spirit of

bitterness runs through the whole, besides the Sir, you 're outlivd so desperate a fit

cruelty of ridiculing an infirmity of this pature, as As none could do but an immortal wit;

can be accounted for hy nothing but some personal

quarrel or disgust. How far this weakness may 'It must surprise the reader to find a writer of carry the greatest geniuses, we have a proof in what Rutler's judgment attacking, in so severe and con- | Pope has written of Addison.

OF THE ANCIENTS'.

For ever are you bound to curse those quacks Are qualify'd to be destroy'd by Fate,
That undertook to cure your happy cracks; For other mortals to take warning at.
For, though no art can ever make them sound, As if the antique laws of tragedy
The tampering cost you threescore thousand pound. Did with our own municipal agree,
How high might you have liv'd, and play'd, and lost, And serv'd, like cobwebs, but t ensnare the
Yet been no more undone hy being choust,

weak, Nor forc'd upon the king's account to lay

And give diversion to the great to break; All that, in serving him, you lost at play!

To make a less delinquent to be brought For nothing but your brain was erer found To answer for a greater person's fault, To suffer sequestration, and compound.

And suffer all the worst the worst approver Yet you 'are an imposition laid on brick,

Can, to excuse and save himself, discover.
For all you then laid out at Beast or Gleek;

No longer shall dramatics be contin'd
And when you 're rais'd a sum, straight let it fly, To draw true images of all mankind;
By understanding low, and venturing high; To punish in effigie criminals,
Until you have reduc'd it down to tick,

Reprieve the innocent, and hang the false;
And then recruit again from lime and brick. But a club-law to execute and kill,

For nothing, whomsoe'er they please, at will,
To terrify spectators from committing
The crimes they did, and suffer'd for, unwitting.

These are the reformations of the stage,
UPON CRITICS,

Like other reformations of the age,
WHO JUDGE OF MODERN PLAYS PRECISELY BY THE RULES On purpose to destroy all wit and sense,

As th’ other did all law and conscience;

No better than the laws of British plays, WHOEVER will regard poetic fury,

Confirm'd in th' ancient good king Howell's days; When it is once found ideot by a jury,

Who made a general council regulate And every pert and arbitrary fool

Men's catching women by the-you know what, Can all poetic licence over-rule;

And get down in the rubric at what time Assume a barbarous tyranny, to handle

It should be counted legal, when a crime; The Muses worse than Ostrogoth and Vandal; Declare when 'twas, and when 'twas not a sin, Make them submit to verdict and report,

And on what days it went out or came in. And stand or fall to th' orders of a court ?

An English poet should be try'd b' bis peers, Much less be sentenc'd by the arbitrary

And not by pedants and philosophers, Proceedings of a witless plagiary,

Incompetent to judge poetic fury, That forges old records and ordinances

As butchers are forbid to b' of a jury;
Against the right and property of fancies,

Besides the most intolerable wrong
More false and nice than weighing of the weather, To try their matters in a foreign tongue,
To th' hundredth atom of the lightest feather, By foreign jurymen, like Sophocles,
Or measuring of air upon Parnassus,

Or tales, falser than Euripides;
With cylinders of Torricellian glasses ;

When not an English native dares appear Reduce all tragedy, by rules of art,

To be a witness for the prisoner; Back to its antique theatre, a cart,

When all the laws they use t' arraign and try And make them henceforth keep the beaten roads The innocent and wrong'd delinquent by, Of reverend choruses and episodes;

Were made b’ a foreign lawyer and his pupils, Reform and regulate a puppet play,

To put an end to all poetic scruples, According to the true and ancient way,

And, by th' advice of virtuosi Tuscans,
That not an actor shall presume to squeak, Determin'd all the doubts of socks and buskins;
Unless he have a licence for 't in Greck;

Gave judgment on all past and future plays,
Nor Whittington henceforward sell his cat in As is apparent by Speroni's case,
Plain vulgar English, without mewing Latin: Which Lope Vega first began to steal,
No pudding shall be suffer'd to be witty,

And after him the French filou Corneille;
Unless it be in order to raise pity;

And since our English plagiaries nim Nor Devil in the puppet-play b' allow'd

And steal their far-fet criticisms from him,
To roar and spit fire, but to fright the crowd, And, by an action falsely laid of trover,
Unless some god or demon chance t' have piques The lumber for their proper goods recover,
Against an ancient family of Greeks;

Enough to furnish all the lewd impeachers
That other men may tremble, and take warning, Of witty Beaumont's poetry and Fletcher's;
How such a fatal progeny they 're born in; Who, for a few misprisions of wit,
For none but such for tragedy are fitted,

Are charg'd by those who ten times worse commit; That have been ruin'd only to be pity'd:

And, for misjudging some unhappy scenes, And only those held proper to deter,

Are censur'd for 't with more unlucky sense; Who 've had th' ill luck against their wills to err. When all their worst miscarriages delight, Whence only such as are of middling sizes, And please more than the best that pedants Between morality and venial vices,

write.

" This warm invective was very probably occa- find some few inaccuracies to censure in this comsioned by Mr. Rymer, historiographer to Charles II. position; but the reader of taste will either overwho censured three tragedies of Beaumont's and look or pardon them for the sake of the spirit that Fletcher's. The cold, severe critic may perhaps runs through it.

TO THE

PROLOGUE

UPON

PHILIP NYE'S THANKSGIVING BEARDI, QUEEN OF ARRAGON,

A beard is but the vizard of a face,

That Nature orders for no other place; ACTED BEFORE THE DUKE OF YORK, U'PON HIS BIRTH-DAY.

The fringe and tassel of a countenance,

That hides his person from another man's, Sir, while so many nations strive to pay

And, like the Roman habits of their youth, 'The tribute of their glories to this day,

Is never worn until his perfect growth; That gave them earnest of so great a sum

A privilege no other creature has, Of glory (from your future acts) to come,

To wear a natural mask upon his face, And which you have discharg'd at such a rate,

That shifts its likeness every day he wears, That all succeeding times must celebrate;

To fit some other persons' characters, We, that subsist by your bright influence,

And by its own mythology implies, And have no life but what we own from thence,

That men were born to live in some disguise. Come humbly to present you, our own way,

This satisfy'd a reverend man, that clear'd
With all we have, (beside our hearts) a play.

His disagrecing conscience by his beard.
But, as devontest men can pay no more
To deities than what they gave before,

He 'ad been preferr'd i'th' army, when the church

Was taken with a Why not? in the lurch; We bring you only what your great commands

When primate, metropolitan, and prelates, Did rescue for us from engrossing hands,

Were turn'd to officers of horse and zealots, That would have taken out administration

From whom he held the most pluralities Of all departed poets' goods i' th' nation;

Of contributions, donatives, and salaries ; Or, like to lords of manors, seiz'd all plays Was held the chiefest of those spiritual trumpets, That come within their reach, as wefts and strays, 'That sounded charges to their fiercest conibats; And claim'd a forfeiture of all past wit,

But in the desperatest of defeats But that your justice put a stop to it.

Had never blown as opportune retreats, 'Twas well for us, who else must have been glad

Until the synod order'd his departure T'admit of all who now write new and bad;

To London, from his caterwauling quarter, For, still the wickeder some authors write,

To sit among them, as he had been chosen, Others to write worse are encourag'd by 't;

And pass or null things at his own disposing: And though those fierce inquisitors of wit,

Could clap up sonls in limbo with a vote, The critics, spare no flesh that ever writ,

And for their fees discharge and let them out; But, just as tooth-drawers, find, among the rout,

Which made some grandees bribe him with the place Their own teeth work in pulling others out;

Of holding-forth upon thanksgiving-days; So they, decrying all of all that write,

Whither the members, two and two abreast, Think to erect a trade of judging by 't.

March'd to take in the spoils of all-the feast; Small poetry, like other heresies,

But by the way repeated the oh-hones By being persecuted multiplies ;

Of his wild Irish and chromatic tones; But here they 're like to fail of all pretence;

His frequent and pathetic hums and haws, For he that writ this play is dead long since,

He practis'd only t' animate the cause, And not within their power; for bears are said With which the sisters were so prepossest, To spare those, that lie still and seem but dead.

They could remember nothing of the rest.

EPILOGUE TO THE SAME.

TO THE DUTCHESS.

Madam, the joys of this great day are due,
No less than to your royal lord, to you;
And, while three mighty kingdoms pay your part,
You have, what 's greater than them all, his

heart;
That heart that, when it was his country's guard,
The fury of two elements outdar'd,
And made a stubborn haughty enemy
The terrour of his dreadful conduct fly;
And yet you conquerid it-and made your charms
Appear no less victorious than his aris;
For which you oft have triumph'd on this day,
And many more to come Heaven grant you may !
But, as great princes use, in solemn times
Of joy, to pardon all but heinous crimes,
If we have sinn'd without an ill intent,
And done below what really we meant,
We humbly ask your pardon for 't, and pray
You would forgive, in honour of the day.

" As our poet has thought fit to bestow so many verses upon this trumpeter of sedition, it may, perhaps, be no thankless office to give the reader some further information about him, than what merely relates to his beard.—He was educated at Oxford, first in Brazen Nose College, and afterwards in Magdalen Hall; where, under the influence of a puritanical tutor, he received the first tincture of sedition and disgust to our ecclesiastical establishment. After taking his degrees, he went into orders, but soon left England to go and reside in Holland, where he was not very likely to lessen those prejudices which he had already imbibed. In the vear 1640, he returned home, became a furious preshyterian, and a zealous stickler for the parliament; and was thought considerable enough, in his way, to be sent by his party into Scotland, to encourage and spirit-up the cause of the covenant; in defence of which he wrote several pamphlets. However, as his zeal arose from self-interest and ambition, when the independents began to have the ascendant, and power and profit ran in that channel, be faced about, and became a strenuous preacher on that side; and in this situation he was when be fell under the lash of Butler's satire.