The tale of Atlas (though of truth it miss)
We plainly read mythologiz'd in this;

Orpheus and Amphion, whose undying stories.
Made Athens famous, are but allegories.

'Tis poetry has power to civilize

Men, worse than stones, more blockish than the trees.

I cannot choose but think (now things so fall)

That Wit is past its climacterical;

And though the Muses have been dead and gone,

I know, they'll find a resurrection.

'Tis vain to praise; they're to themselves a glory,

And silence is our sweetest oratory.

For he, that names but Fletcher, must needs be
Found guilty of a loud hyperbole.

His fancy so transcendently aspires,

He shews himself a wit, who but admires.

Here are no volumes stuff'd with cheverel sense,
The very anagrams of eloquence;

Nor long long-winded sentences that be,

Being rightly spell'd, but wit's stenography;
Nor words, as void of reason as of rhime,
Only cæsura'd to spin out the time.
But here's a magazine of purest sense,
Cloth'd in the newest garb of eloquence:

Scenes that are quick and sprightly, in whose veins
Bubbles the quintessence of sweet-high strains.
Lines, like their authors, and each word of it
Does say, 'twas writ b' a gemini of wit.

How happy is our age! how blest our men!
When such rare souls live themselves o'er again.
We err, who think a poet dies; for this
Shews, that 'tis but a metempsychosis.
Beaumont and Fletcher here, at last, we see
Above the reach of dull mortality,

Or pow'r of fate: And thus the proverb hits,

(That's so much cross'd) These men live by their wits.

XVIII.

ALEX. BROME.

On the Death and Works of Mr. JOHN FLETCHER.

My name, so far from great, that 'tis not known,
Can lend no praise but what thou'dst blush to own;

And no rude hand, or feeble wit, should dare

To vex thy shrine with an unlearned tear.

I'd have a state of wit convok'd, which hath

A power to take up on common faith;

That, when the stock of the whole kingdom's spent
In but preparative to thy monument,

The prudent council may invent fresh ways
To get new contribution to thy praise;
And rear it high, and equal to thy wit;
Which must give life and monument to it.

So when, late, Essex died, the public face
Wore sorrow in't; and to add mournful grace

41 So when, late, Essex dy'd.] The Earl of Essex, who had been general for the parlia ment in the civil war against King Charles the First, died on the 14th of September, 1646, and the first folio of Beaumont and Fletcher's works was published in 1647. THEOBALD.

Το

To the sad pomp of his lamented fall,
The commonwealth serv'd at his funeral,
And by a solemn order built his hearse;
-But not like thine, built by thyself in verse.
Where thy advanced image safely stands
Above the reach of sacrilegious hands.
Base hands, how impotently you disclose
Your rage 'gainst Camden's learned ashes, whose
Defaced statua and martyr'd book,

Like an antiquity and fragment look.
Nonnulla desunts legibly appear,

So truly now Camden's Remains lie there.

Vain malice! how he mocks thy rage, while breath

Of Fame shall speak his great Elizabeth!

'Gainst time and thee he well provided hath;
Britannia is the tomb and epitaph.

Thus princes honours; but wit only gives
A name which to succeeding ages lives.

Singly we now consult ourselves and fame,
Ambitious to twist ours with thy great name.
Hence we thus bold to praise: For as a vine,
With subtle wreath and close embrace, doth twine
A friendly elm, by whose tall trunk it shoots
And gathers growth and moisture from its roots;
About its arms the thankful clusters cling
Like bracelets, and with purple ammelling
The blue-cheek'd grape, stuck in its vernant hair,
Hangs like rich jewels in a beauteous ear.
So grow our praises by thy wit; we do

Borrow support and strength, and lend but show.
And but thy male wit,42 like the youthful sun,
Strongly begets upon our passion,

Making our sorrow teem with elegy,

Thou yet unweep'd, and yet unprais'd might'st be.

But they're imperfect births; and such are all

Produc'd by causes not univocal,

The scapes of Nature, passives being unfit;
And hence our verse speaks only mother-wit.
Oh, for a fit o'th' father! for a spirit

That might but parcel of thy worth inherit;
For but a spark of that diviner fire,

Which thy full breast did animate and inspire;
That souls could be divided, thou traduce

But a small particle of thine to us!

Of thine; which we admir'd when thou didst sit
But as a joint-commissioner in wit;

When it had plummets hung on to suppress
Its too-luxuriant growing mightiness;

"Till, as that tree which scorns to be kept down,
Thou grew'st to govern the whole stage alone;
In which orb thy throng'd light did make the star,
Thou wert th' intelligence did move that sphere.
Thy fury was compos'd; Rapture no fit
That hung on thee; nor thou far gone in wit

42 And but thy male wit, &c ] Mr. Seward omits this and the nine following lines.

As

As men in a disease; thy fancy clear,

Muse chaste, as those flames whence they took their fire; 43
No spurious composures amongst thine,

Got in adultery 'twixt Wit and Wine.

And as th' hermetical physicians draw

From things that curse of the first-broken law,
That ens venenum, which extracted thence
Leaves nought but primitive good and innocence:
So was thy spirit calcin'd; no mixtures there
But perfect, such as next to simples are.
Not like those meteor-wits which wildly fly
In storm and thunder through th' amazed sky;
Speaking but th' ills and villainies in a state,
Which fools admire, and wise men tremble at,
Full of portent and prodigy, whose gall
Oft 'scapes the vice, and on the man doth fall.
Nature us'd all her skill, when thee she meant
A wit at once both great and innocent.

Yet thou hadst tooth; but 'twas thy judgment, not
For mending one word a whole sheet to blot.
Thou couldst anatomise with ready art,
And skilful hand, crimes lock'd close up i' th' heart.
Thou couldst unfold dark plots, and shew that path
By which Ambition climb'd to greatness hath;
Thou couldst the rises, turns, and falls of states,
How near they were their periods and dates;
Couldst mad the subject into popular rage,
And the grown seas of that great storm assuage;
Dethrone usurping tyrants, and place there
The lawful prince and true inheriter;
Knew'st all dark turnings in the labyrinth
Of policy, which who but knows he sinn'th,
Save thee, who, un-infected didst walk in't,
As the great genius of government.

And when thou laidst thy tragic buskin by,
To court the stage with gentle comedy,

How new, how proper th' humours, how express'd
In rich variety, how neatly dress'd

In language, how rare plots, what strength of wit
Shin'd in the face and every limb of it!

The stage grew narrow while thou grew'st to be
In thy whole life an exc'llent comedy.

To these a virgin-modesty, which first met
Applause with blush and fear, as if he yet
Had not deserv'd; 'till bold with constant praise
His brows admitted the unsought-for bays.
Nor would he ravish Fame; but left men free
To their own vote and ingenuity.

43 Muse chaste, as those frames whence they took their fire;] This seems obscure, for what are those frames whence Fletcher took his fire? The stars? Even if this was meant, I should think flames the better word: But as flames will signify heavenly fire in general, either the stars, sun, angels, or even the spirit of God himself, who maketh his ministers flames of fire: I much prefer the word, and believe it the original. As this poet was a clergyman of character with regard to his sanctity, and much celebrates Fletcher's chastity of sentiments and language, it is very evident that many words which appear gross to us were not so in King Charles the First's age. See pages xliv. and xlv. of the preface. SEWARD.

When

On Mr. JOHN FLETCHER, and his Works, never before published.

To flatter living fools is easy sleight;
But hard, to do the living-dead men right.
To praise a landed lord, is gainful art;
But thankless to pay tribute to desert.
This should have been my task: I had intent
To bring my rubbish to thy monument,
To stop some crannies there, but that I found
No need of least repair; all firm and sound.
Thy well-built fame doth still itself advance
Above the world's mad zeal and ignorance.
Though thou didst not possess'd of that same pelf,
Which nobler souls call dirt, the city, wealth:
Yet thou hast left unto the times so great
A legacy, a treasure so complete,
That 'twill be hard, I fear, to prove thy will:
Men will be wrangling, and in doubting still,
How so vast sums of wit were left behind;
And yet nor debts, nor sharers, they can find.
'Twas the kind providence of Fate to lock

Some of this treasure up; and keep a stock

43 Princes have gather'd since each scatter'd grace,

Each line and beauty of that injur'd face.] This relates to King Charles the First causing the Faithful Shepherdess to be revived, and acted before him. The lines are extremely beautiful, and do honour to the king's taste in poetry, which as it comes from an adversary (though certainly a very candid one, and who before condemned the fire-brand-scribblers and meteor-wits of his age) is a strong proof of its being a very good one. Queen Elizabeth may be called the mother of the English poets; James the First was a pedagogue to them, encouraged their literature, but debased it with puns and pedantry; Charles the First revived a good taste, but the troubles of his reign prevented the great effects of his patronage.

SEWARD.

44 John Harris was of New-College, Oxford, Greek professor of the university, and so eminent a preacher that he was called a second Chrysostom. In the civil wars he sided with the Presbyterians, and was one of the Assembly of Divines, and is the only poet in this collection whom we certainly know to have been for the parliament against the king His poem has great merit; the fine break after the mention of the Earl of Essex, and the simile of the elm and clusters of grapes, deserve a particular attention. After this simile I have struck out some lines that were unequal in merit to their brethren, lest the reader, tired with these, should stop too short; for those which now follow, though unjust with regard to Beaumont, are poetically good. SEWARD. For

For a reserve until these sullen days;

When scorn, and want, and danger, are the bays
That crown the head of merit. But now he,
Who in thy will hath part, is rich and free.

But there's a caveat enter'd by command,

None should pretend, but those can understand.

HENRY MOODY, Bart.45

XX.

On the deceased Author, Mr. JOHN FLETCHER, his Plays; and especially the Mad Lover.

WHILST his well-organ'd body doth retreat
To its first matter, and the formal heat 46
Triumphant sits in judgment, to approve
Pieces above our censure, and our love; 47
Such, as dare boldly venture to appear
Unto the curious eye, and critic ear:
Lo, the Mad Lover in these various times
Is press'd to life, t' accuse us of our crimes.
While Fletcher liv'd, who equal to him writ
Such lasting monuments of natural wit?

Others may draw their lines with sweat, like those
That (with much pains) a garrison inclose;
Whilst his sweet, Aluent, vein did gently run,
As uncontrol'd and smoothly as the sun.
After his death, our theatres did make
Him in his own unequal language speak:
And now, when all the muses out of their
Approved modesty silent appear,

This play of Fletcher's braves the envious light,
As wonder of our ears once, now our sight.
Three-and-four-fold-blest poet, who the lives
Of poets, and of theatres, survives!

A groom, or ostler of some wit, may bring
His Pegasus to the Castalian spring;
Boast, he a race o'er the Pharsalian plain,
Or happy Tempe-valley, dares maintain:
Brag, at one leap, upon the double cliff
(Were it as high as monstrous Teneriffe)

45 Sir Henry Moody was of the number of those gentlemen who had honorary degrees conferred by King Charles the First, at his return to Oxford after the battle of Edgehill. The poem has some strong marks of genius in it, particularly in these lines,

-" until these sullen days;

When scorn, and want, and danger, are the bays
That crown the head of merit."

I confess myself a great admirer of verses in rhime, whose pauses run into each other as boldly as blank verse itself. When our moderns corrected many faults in the measure of our verse by making the accents always fall on right syllables, and laying aside those harsh clisions used by our ancient poets, they mistook this run of the verses into each other after the manner of Virgil, Homer, &c. for a fault, which deprived our rhime of that grandeur and dignity of numbers which arises from a perpetual change of pauses, and turned whole poems into distiches. SEWARD.

46 And the formal heat, &c.] Formal heat, I take to be a metaphysical and logical term for the soul, as the formal cause is that which constitutes the essence of any thing. Fletcher's soul therefore now sits in judgment, to approve works deserving of praise. SEWARD.

47 Pieces above our candour.] Amended by Theobald.

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