Thou warm'st the lover; how severely just
Thou wert to punish, if he burnt to lust;
With what a blush thou didst the maid adorn,
But tempted, with how innocent a scorn;
How epidemic errors by thy play
Were laughed out of esteem, so purged away;
How to each sense thou so didst virtue fit
That all grew virtuous to be thought to have wit.
But this was much too narrow for thy art,
Thou didst frame governments, give kings their part,
Teach them how near to God, while just they be,
But how dissolved, stretched forth to tyranny;
How kingdoms, in their channel, safely run,
But rudely overflowing are undone.
Though vulgar spirits poets scorn or hate,
Man may beget, a poet men create.
Upon Master FLETCHER'S Dramatic Works
WHAT? now the stage is down, dar'st thou appear,
Bold Fletcher, in this tottering hemisphere ?
Yes; poets are like palms, which, the more weight
You cast upon them, grow more strong and streight
'Tis not Jove's thunderbolt, nor Mars his
spear,
Or Neptune's angry trident, poets fear.
Had now grim Ben been breathing, with what rage
And high-swoln fury had he lash'd the age;
Shakspeare with Chapman had grown mad, and torn
Their gentle sock, and lofty buskins worn,
To make their muse welter up to the chin
In blood; of feigned scenes no need had been;
England, like Lucian's eagle, with an arrow
Of her own plumes piercing her heart quite thorough,
? Habington was a poet of no mean powers. In his collection of poems entitled Castara, he displays considerable energy of thought, combined with tenderness of sentiment and very fluent versification. He was born at Hindlip, in Worcestershire, Nov. 5, 1605, and being a catholic, was educated at St Omer's and Paris. He died Nov. 13, 1645. Besides his poems, he was author of several historical works, and of the Queen of Arragon, a tragi-comedy.
Had been a theatre and subject fit
To exercise in real truths their wit:
Yet none like high-winged Fletcher had been found
This eagle's tragic destiny to sound;
Rare Fletcher's quill had soared up to the sky,
And drawn down gods to see the tragedy.
Live, famous dramatist, let every spring
Make thy bay flourish, and fresh bourgeons bring;
And since we cannot have thee trod o' th' stage,
We will applaud thee in this silent page.
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 waked 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 moved spectator could beget
A real passion by a counterfeit :
When first 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 inspired, 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.
8 Bourgeons.] i. e. buds. Fr.
9 This voluminous and well-known writer was born in 1594, at Abermarlis in Caermarthenshire. He was brought up at Jesus-College, Oxford, and after he had travelled through several countries, was employed in various charges. He died in November, 1666. Of all his numerous works the only one which is still in repute is his Familiar Epistles.
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 expired his name;
Despair our joy hath doubled, he is come;
Thrice welcome by this post-liminium.
His loss preserved him; they, that silenced Wit,
Are now the authors to eternize it;
Thus poets are in spite of Fate revived,
And plays by intermission longer-lived.
On the Edition of Mr FRANCIS BEAUMONT's and Mr JOHN FLETCHER'S Plays, never printed before.
I AM amazed; 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
The 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.
return'd! methinks it should not be!
No, not in's works; plays are as dead as he.
'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.
He was the son of Sir Thomas Stanley, knight, and was born at Comberlow in Hertfordshire. He was author of a History of Philosophy, and died 12th April, 1678.
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, 'scape 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 herself is out of tune; and sick
Of tumult and disorder, lunatic.
Yet what world would not chearfully endure
The torture or disease to 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 owe.
Yet great goods have their ills: Should we transmit,
To future times, the power 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 power, 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,
That 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 every specious bait, of every 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 business; 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 I, my self.
On the Dramatic Poems of Mr Joнn Fletcher.
WONDER! Who's here? Fletcher, long buried,
Revived? 'Tis he! he'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 plays are lawful? he hath made them good.
Is any Lover Mad? See, here's Love's Cure
Unmarried? to a Wife he may
A rare one, for a Month; if she displease,
The Spanish Curate gives a writ of ease.
Enquire the Custom of the Country, then
Shall the French Lawyer set you free again,
If the two Fair Maids take it wondrous ill,
(One of the Inn, the other of the Mill)
That th' Lovers' Progress stopt, and they defamed,
Here's that makes Women Pleased, and Tamer Tamed.
3 For the same reason that Sir Aston Cokaine's poem is reprinted, Sir Roger L'Estrange's keeps its place. His name is well known to the learned world, but this copy of verses does no great honour either to himself or our authors.-Seward.
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