And th' alien, if he can but construe it, And, by the court of muses be't decreed, ROBERT STAPYLTON,32 Knt. XIII. To the Memory of my most honoured Kinsman, Mr. FRANCIS BEAUMONT. I'LL not pronounce how strong and clean thou writ'st, Before they can make up six words of thine : Such wise just rage, had he been lately tried, And, where he found false odds, (through gold or sloth) For still your fancies are so wov'n and knit, 'Twas Francis Fletcher, or John Beaumont writ, To call poor gods and goddesses to do't; Such powerful scenes, as, when they please, invade. 32 Sir Robert Stapylton of Carelton in Yorkshire, a poet of much fame, was at the battle of Edgehill with King Charles the First, and had an honorary degree given him at Oxford for his behaviour on that occasion. He wrote the Slighted Maid, a comedy; The Step-Mother, a tragi-comedy; and Hero and Leander, a tragedy; besides several poems and translations. SEWARD. Your plot, sense, language, all's so pure and fit, XIV. GEORGE LISLE,33 KNIGHT. On Mr. JOHN FLETCHER'S Works. So shall we joy, when all whom beasts and worms As now we do, to see all thine, thine own In this thy muse's resurrection: Whose scatter'd parts, from thy own race, more wounds Which first their brains, and then their bellies, fed, But now thy muse enraged from her urn, Like ghosts of murder'd bodies, doth return Which casts thy praise on them, to whom thy wit But whither am I stray'd? I need not raise Yet what from Jonson's oil and sweat did flow, Or what more easy Nature did bestow On Shakespeare's gentler muse, in thee full grown 33 George Lisle, Knight.] This I take to be the same with Sir John Lisle one of King Charles's judges; for Wood in his Index to his Athenæ, calls Sir John by the name of George: He might perhaps have had two Christian names. If this was he, he was admitted at Oxford in the year 1622, seven years after Beaumont's death, and as he was a kinsman might be supposed to know more of his compositions than a stranger. His testimony therefore adds strength to what has been before advanced concerning Beaumont, nay it does so whether Sir George Lisle be the regicide or not. If he was, he was an eminent lawyer and speaker in the House of Commons, and made lord commissioner of the privy seal by the parliament. After the Restoration he fled to Losanna in Switzerland, where he was treated as lord chancellor of England, which so irritated some furious Irish loyalists that they shot him dead as he was going to church. SEWARD. 34 Wit's empire at the fatal height.] i. e. The highest pitch which fate allows it to rise to.-The following account of Shakespeare, Jonson, and Fletcher, though rather too favourable to the last, is as much preferable to all the former poets encomiums as Sir John was preferable to them in abilities as a poet. SEWARD. Can Can say, here Nature ends, and Art begins; XV. Upon Mr. JOHN FLETCHER'S Plays. Out-done by thine, in what themselves have worn: And when I venture at the comic stile, Thy Scornful Lady 35 seems to mock my toil: XVI. To FLETCHER Revived. How have I been religious? What strange good Have I hell-guarded heresy o'erthrown? J. DENHAM. EDW. WALLER. Heal'd wounded states? made kings and kingdoms one? That Fate should be so merciful to me, To let me live t' have said, I have read thee. Fair star, ascend! the joy, the life, the light Of this tempestuous age, this dark world's sight! We, bowing, sing; and whilst we praise, we pray. 35 Thy Scornful Lady.] Many great men, as well as Mr. Waller, have celebrated this. play. Beaumont's hand is visible in some high caricatures, but I must own my dissent to its being called a first-rate comedy. SEWARD. Bright spirit! whose eternal motion In her embroider'd buskins, calls mine eye, T' obey his death, whom thousand lives obey'd; Valentinian. And through his gen'ral's wounds his own doom speaks; The costliest monarch with the cheapest man. Soldiers may here to their old glories add, Who, wilder than his bull, did tear the house; Mad Lover. Virgins, as sufferers, have wept to see So white a soul, so red a cruelty; Joy wip'd it off, laughter straight sprung't agen. Arcas. Bellario. Comedies, Fans ev'ry brow with gladness, while she sings Spanish Curate. Humorous Lieutenant. Nothing but pleasure, love; and (like the morn) Tamer Tam'd. Little French Lawyer. Here, ye foul speakers, that pronounce the air Custom of the Country, So well disguis'd, that 'twas conceiv'd by none, But Cupid had Diana's linen on; And all his naked parts so veil'd, they express 36 Like destiny of poems, who, as she Sings death to all, herself can never die.] This is extremely obscure: He says first, that Fletcher is the spirit of poetry, that he is the god of it, and has decreed the fate of all other poems, whether they are to live or die; after this he is like the destiny of poems, and living only himself signs death to all others. This is very high-strained indeed, and rather self-contradictory, for Fletcher's spirit gives commission how far some shall live and yet signs death to all. A slight change will make somewhat easier and clearer sense. I understand the four last lines thus; Fletcher's poetry is the standard of excellence; whatever is not formed by that model must die, therefore I read, Like destiny, thy poems; i. e. Thy poems being the standard of excellence, are like destiny, which determines the fate of others, but herself remains still the same. I republish this poem as there are strong marks of genius in it, particularly in some of the foll wing paragraphs. SEWARD. That That if this reformation, which we Receiv'd, had not been buried with thee, The stage, as this work, might have liv'd and lov'd; Thus with thy genius did the scene expire, And though from these thy embers we receive And feast each other with rememb'ring it; That we dare speak thy thought, thy acts recite: XVII. RICH. LOVELACE.37 Upon the unparalleled Plays written by those renowned Twins of Poetry, WHAT'S here? another library of praise, 38 My skipping soul surfeits with so much good, A happy chymistry! blest viper, Joy! That through thy mother's bowels gnaw'st thy way? Wits flock in shoals, and club to re-erect, In spite of ignorance, the architect Of occidental poesy; and turn Gods, to recal Wit's ashes from their urn. Like huge Colosses, they've together knit 4 Their shoulders to support a world of wit. 37 Rich. Lovelace.] This gentleman was eldest son of a good family, extremely accomplished, being very eminent for wit, poetry, and music, but still more so for politeness of manners and beauty of person. He had an ample fortune and every advantage that seemned to promise happiness in life; but his steady attachment to the royal cause, and a liberality that perhaps approached too near profuseness, reduced him to extreme poverty. Something of the gaiety of the soldier appears in the beginning of this poem. His poems were published in 1749. Seward. 38 Another ibrary of praise.] This alludes to the numerous commendatory copies of verses on Tom. Coryate's Crudities, which swelled into an entire volume. This is touched at in the 23d copy of verses, by Richard Brome: "For the witty copies took, Of his encomiums made themselves a book." -they've together met THEOBALD. Their shoulders to support a world of wit.] I should not find fault with met and wit being made rhimes here, (the poets of those times giving themselves such a licence) but that two persons meeting their shoulders is neither sense nor English! I am therefore persuaded the author wrote knit. So twice in the eighth copy by Jasper Maine, And again, VOL. I. "In fame, as well as vritings, both so knit, Nor where you thus in works and poems knit," &c. THEOBALD. The |