Of far-renown'd Parnassus he will get,

And there (t' amaze the world) confirm his seat:
When our admired Fletcher vaunts not aught,
And slighted every thing he writ as nought:
While all our English wond'ring world (in's cause)
Made this great city echo with applause.

Read him, therefore, all that can read; and those,
That cannot, learn; if you're not learning's foes,
And wilfully resolved to refuse

The gentle raptures of this happy muse.
From thy great constellation (noble soul)
Lock on this kingdom; suffer not the whole
Spirit of poesy retire to Heaven;

But make us entertain what thou hast given.
Earthquakes and thunder diapasons make;
The seas' vast roar, and irresistless shake
Of horrid winds, a sympathy compose;
So in these things there's music in the close:
And though they seem great discords in our ears,
They are not so to them above the spheres.
Granting these music, how much sweeter's that
Mnemosyne's daughters' voices do create?

Since Heav'n, and earth, and seas, and air consent
To make an harmony, (the instrument,
Their own agreeing selves) shall we refuse
The music which the deities do use?
Troy's ravish'd Ganymede doth sing to Jove,
A Phœbus' self plays on his lyre above.
The Cretan gods, or glorious men, who will
Imitate right, must wonder at thy skill,
(Best poet of thy times!) or he will prove
As mad, as thy brave Memnon was with love.

XXI.

ASTON COKAINE, BART.4*

On the Edition of Mr. FRANCIS BEAUMONT's and Mr. JOHN
FLETCHER'S Plays, never printed before.

I AM amaz'd; and this same extasy

Is both my glory and apology.

Sober joys are dull passions; they must bear
Proportion to the subject: If so, where

Beaumont and Fletcher shall vouchsafe to be
That subject, That joy must be extasy.
Fury is the complexion of great wits;
The fool's distemper: He, that's mad by fits,
Is wise so too. It is the poet's muse;
The prophet's god; the fool's, and my excuse.
For (in me) nothing less than Fletcher's name
Could have begot, or justified, this flame.

45 Aston Cokaine, Bart.] This gentleman who claimed being made a baronet by King Charles I. at a time when the king's distress prevented the creation passing the due forms, was a poet of some repute, for which reason this copy is inserted more than for its intrinsic worth. He was lord of the manors of Pooley in Polesworth-parish, Warwickshire, and of Ashburn in Derbyshire; but with a fate not uncommon to wits, spent and sold both; but his descendants of this age have been and are persons of distinguished merit and fortune. SEWARD. Beaumont

Fletcher

return'd! methinks, it should not } No, not in's works: plays are as dead as he. The palate of this age gusts nothing high, That has not custard in't, or bawdery. Folly and madness fill the stage: The scene Is Athens; where, the guilty, and the mean, The fool 'scapes well enough; learned and great Suffer an ostracism; stand exulate.

Mankind is fall'n again, shrunk a degree,
A step below his very apostacy.

Nature her self is out of tune; and sick
Of tumult and disorder, lunatic.
Yet what world would not chearfully endure
The torture, or disease, t' enjoy the cure?

This book's the balsam, and the hellebore,
Must preserve bleeding Nature, and restore
Our crazy stupor to a just quick sense
Both of ingratitude, and Providence.
That teaches us (at once) to feel and know,
Two deep points; what we want, and what we
Yet great goods have their ills: Should we trans
To future times, the pow'r of love and wit,
In this example; would they not combine
To make our imperfections their design?
They'd study our corruptions; and take more
Care to be ill, than to be good, before.
For nothing, but so great infirmity,
Could make them worthy of such remedy.
Have you not seen the sun's almighty ray
Rescue th' affrighted world, and redeem day
From black despair? how his victorious beam
Scatters the storm, and drowns 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 known,
But the sad doubt, whether to burn, or drown.
Choler, and phlegm, heat, and dull ignorance,
Have cast the people into such a trance,
Thar fears and danger seem great equally,
And no dispute left now, but how to die.
Just in this nick, Fletcher sets the world clear
Of all disorder, and reforms us here.

The formal youth, that knew no other grace, Or value, but his title, and his lace, Glasses himself, and, in this faithful mirror, Views, disapproves, reforms, repents his error. The credulous, bright girl, that believes all Language, in oaths (if good) canonical, Is fortified, and taught, here, to beware Of ev'ry specious bait, of ev'ry snare

Save one; and that same caution takes her more,
Than all the flattery she felt before.

She finds her boxes, and her thoughts betray'd
By the corruption of the chamber-maid;
Then throws her washes and dissemblings by,
And vows nothing but ingenuity.

The severe statesman quits his sullen form
Of gravity and bus'ness; the lukewarm
Religious, his neutrality; the hot
Brainsick illuminate, his zeal, the sot,
Stupidity; the soldier, his arrears;

The court, its confidence; the plebs, their fears;
Gallants, their apishness and perjury;
Women, their pleasure and inconstancy;
Poets, their wine; the usurer, his pelf;
The world, its vanity; and 1, my self.

XXII.

ON THE EDITION.

ROGER L'ESTRANGE.49

FLETCHER (whose fame no age can ever waste;
Envy of ours, and glory of the last)

Is now alive again; and with his name
His sacred ashes wak'd into a flame;
Such as before, did by a secret charm
The wildest heart subdue, the coldest warm;
And lend the ladies' eyes a power more bright,
Dispensing thus to either heat and light.

He to a sympathy those souls betray'd,
Whom love, or beauty, never could persuade;
And in each mov'd spectator could beget
A real passion by a counterfeit:
When firft Bellario bled, what lady there
Did not for every drop let fall a tear?
And when Aspatia wept, not any eye
But seem'd to wear the same sad livery;
By him inspir'd, the feign'd Lucina drew
More streams of melting sorrow than the true;
But then the Scornful Lady did beguile
Their easy griefs, and teach them all to 'smile.
Thus he affections could or raise or lay;

Love, grief, and mirth, thus did his charms obey;
He Nature taught her passions to out-do,
How to refine the old, and create new;
Which such a happy likeness seem'd to bear,
As if that Nature Art, Art Nature were.

Yet all had nothing been, obscurely kept
In the same urn wherein his dust hath slept;
Nor had he ris' the Delphic wreath to claim,
Had not the dying scene expir'd his name;
Despair our joy hath doubled, he is come;
Thrice welcome by this post-liminium.

His loss preserv'd him; They, that silenc'd Wit,
Are now the authors to eternize it;

Thus poets are in spite of Fate reviv'd,
And plays by intermission longer-liv'd.

THO. STANLEY.SÓ

of

49 For the same reason that Sir Aston Cockaine's poem is reprinted, Sir Roger L'Estrange's keeps its place. His name is well known to the learned world, but this copy verses does no great honour either to himself or our authors.

SEWARD.

50 Mr. Stanley educated at Pembroke-Hall, Cambridge, was a poet of some eminence, and his verses have merit; and contain a proof of what is asserted in the Preface, of plays being kept unpublished for the benefit of the players. SEWARD.

VOL. I.

To the Memory of the Deceased but ever-living Author, i
Mr. JOHN FLETCHER.

On the large train of Fletcher's friends let me
(Retaining still my wonted modesty)
Become a waiter, in my ragged verse,
As follower to the muses' followers.
Many here are of noble rank and worth,

That have, by strength of Art, set Fletcher forth
In true and lively colours, as they saw him,
And had the best abilities to draw him;
Many more are abroad, that write, and look
To have their lines set before Fletcher's book;
Some, that have known him too; some more, som
Some only but by hear-say, some by guess;

And some for fashion-sake would take the hint,
To try how well their wits would shew in print.
You, that are here before me, gentlemen,
And princes of Parnassus by the pen,
And your just judgments of his worth, that have
Preserv'd this author's memory from the grave,
And made it glorious; let me, at your gate,
Porter it here, 'gainst those that come too late
And are unfit to enter. Something I
Will deserve here: For, where you versify
In flowing numbers, lawful weight, and time,
I'll write, though not rich verses, honest rhime.
I am admitted. Now, have at the rout
Of those that would crowd in, but must keep out.
Bear back, my masters; pray keep back; forbear:
You cannot, at this time, have entrance here.
You, that are worthy, may, by intercession,
Find entertainment at the next impression.
But let none then attempt it, that not know
The reverence due, which to this shrine they owe:
All such must be excluded; and the sort,
That only upon trust, or by report,
Have taken Fletcher up, and think it trim
To have their verses planted before him:

Let them read first his works, and learn to know h
And offer, then, the sacrifice they owe him.
But far from hence be such, as would proclaim
Their knowledge of this author, not his fame;
And such, as would pretend, of all the rest,
To be the best wits that have known him best.
Depart hence, all such writers, and before
Inferior ones thrust in, by many a score:
As formerly, before Tom Coryate,
Whose work, before his praisers, had the fate
To perish: for the witty copies took
Of his encomiums made themselves a book.
Here's no such subject for you to out-do,
Out-shine, out-live, (though well you may do too
In other spheres) for Fletcher's flourishing bays
Must never fade, while Phœbus wears his rays.

Therefore forbear to press upon him thus.
Why, what are you, (cry some) that prate to us?
Do not we know you for a flashy meteor?
And stil'd (at best) the muses' serving-creature?
Do you control? Ye've had your jeer: Sirs, no;
But, in an humble manner, let you know,
Old serving-creatures oftentimes are fit
T' inform young masters, as in land, in wit,
What they inherit; and how well their dads
Left one, and wish'd the other, to their lads.
And from departed poets 1 can guess
Who has a greater share of wit, who less.
'Way fool, another says, I let him rail,
And 'bout his own ears flourish his wit-flail,
'Till with his swingle he his noddle break;
While this of Fletcher, and his Works, I speak :
His works? (says Momus) nay, his plays, you'd say:
Thou hast said right, for that to him was play
Which was to others' brains a toil: with ease
He play'd on waves, which were their troubled seas.
Ilis nimble births have longer liv'd than theirs
That have, with strongest labour, divers
Been sending forth the issues of their brains
Upon the stage; and shall, to th' stationer's gains,
Life after life take, till some after-age

years

Shall put down printing, as this doth the stage;
Which nothing now presents unto the eye,
But in dumb-shows her own sad tragedy.

'Would there had been no sadder works abroad,
Since her decay, acted in fields of blood!

But to the man again, of whom we write,
The writer that made writing his delight,

Rather than work. He did not pump, nor drudge,

To beget wit, or manage it; nor trudge

To wit-conventions with note-book, to glean,

Or steal, some jests to foist into a scene:

He scorn'd those shifts. You, that have known him, know

The common talk; that from his lips did flow,
And run at waste, did savour more of wit,
Than any of his time, or since, have writ
(But few excepted) in the stage's way :
His scenes were acts, and every act a play.

I knew him in his strength; even then, when he,
That was the master of his art and me,"

Most knowing Jonson (proud to call him son),
In friendly envy swore he had out-done

His very self. I knew him, till he died;

And, at his dissolution, what a tide

Of sorrow overwhelm'd the stage; which gave
Vollies of sighs to send him to his grave,

51 Master of his art and me.] Mr. Richard Brome was many years a servant to Ben Jonon (an amanuensis, I presume), and learned the art of writing comedy under him: upon his, Ben compliments him in a short poein prefixed to Brome's Northern Lass.

"I had you for a servant once, Dick Brome,
And you perform'd a servant's faithful parts;
Now you are got into a nearer room

Of fellowship, professing my old arts, &c."

THEOBALD.

And