The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I | Page 6

reward in one good line
For all it
lost, for all it might repine:
Vile and ignobler things are open laid,

The truth of their false colours are displayed:
You'l say the Poet's
both best Judge and Priest,
No guilty soule abides so sharp a test
As
their smooth Pen; for what these rare men writ
Commands the World,
both Honesty and Wit_.
GRANDISON.
IN MEMORY OF Mr. JOHN FLETCHER.
_Me thought our_ Fletcher _weary of this croud,
Wherein so few
have witt, yet all are loud,
Unto Elyzium fled, where he alone

Might his own witt admire and ours bemoane;
But soone upon those
Flowry Bankes, a throng
Worthy of those even numbers which he
sung,
Appeared, and though those Ancient Laureates strive
When
dead themselves, whose raptures should survive,
For his Temples all
their owne bayes allowes,
Not sham'd to see him crown'd with naked
browes_;
Homer _his beautifull_ Achilles _nam'd,
Urging his
braine with_ Joves _might well be fam'd,
Since it brought forth one
full of beauties charmes,
As was his Pallas, and as bold in Armes;
[-King and no King.-] But when he the brave_ Arbases _saw, one

That saved his peoples dangers by his own,
And saw_ Tigranes _by
his hand undon
Without the helpe of any_ Mirmydon,
_He then
confess'd when next hee'd Hector slay,
That he must borrow him
from Fletchers Play;
This might have beene the shame, for which he
bid
His_ Iliades _in a Nut-shell should be hid_:
Virgill _of his_
Æneas _next begun,
Whose God-like forme and tongue so soone had
wonne;
That Queene of_ Carthage _and of beauty too,
Two powers
the whole world else were slaves unto,
Urging that Prince for to
repaire his faulte
On earth, boldly in hell his Mistresse sought; [-The

Maides Tragedy.-] But when he_ Amintor _saw revenge that wrong,

For which the sad_ Aspasia _sigh'd so long,
Upon himselfe, to shades
hasting away,
Not for to make a visit but to stay;
He then did
modestly confesse how farr_
Fletcher _out-did him in a Charactar.

Now lastly for a refuge_, Virgill _shewes
The lines where_ Corydon
Alexis _woes;
But those in opposition quickly met [-The faithfull
Shepherdesse.-] The smooth tongu'd_ Perigot _and_ Amoret:
_A
paire whom doubtlesse had the others seene,
They from their owne
loves had_ Apostates _beene;
Thus_ Fletcher _did the fam'd laureat
exceed,
Both when his Trumpet sounded and his reed;
Now if the
Ancients yeeld that heretofore,
None worthyer then those ere Laurell
wore;
The least our age can say now thou art gon,
Is that there
never will be such a one:
And since t' expresse thy worth, our rimes
too narrow be,
To help it wee'l be ample in our prophesie_.
H. HOWARD.
On Mr John Fletcher, and his Workes, never before published.
_To flatter living fooles is easie slight:
But hard, to do the living-dead
men right.
To praise a Landed Lord, is gainfull art:
But thanklesse
to pay Tribute to desert.
This should have been my taske: I had intent

To bring my rubbish to thy monument,
To stop some crannies
there, but that I found
No need of least repaire; all firme and sound.

Thy well-built fame doth still it selfe advance
Above the Worlds mad
zeale and ignorance,
Though thou dyedst not possest of that same
pelfe
(Which Nobler soules call durt,) the City wealth:
Yet thou
hast left unto the times so great
A Legacy, a Treasure so compleat,

That 'twill be hard I feare to prove thy Will:
Men will be wrangling,
and in doubting still
How so vast summes of wit were left behind,

And yet nor debts nor sharers they can finde.
'Twas the kind
providence of fate, to lock
Some of this Treasure up; and keep a stock

For a reserve untill these sullen daies:

When scorn, and want, and
danger, are the Baies
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 MODY, Baronet.
ON
Mr Fletchers Works.
_Though Poets have a licence which they use
As th' ancient
priviledge of their free Muse;
Yet whether this be leave enough for
me
To write, great Bard, an Eulogie for thee:
Or whether to
commend thy Worke, will stand
Both with the Lawes of Verse and of
the Land,
Were to put doubts might raise a discontent
Between the
Muses and the ----
I'le none of that. There's desperate wits that be

(As their immortall Lawrell) Thunder-free;
Whose personall vertues,
'bove the Lawes of Fate,
Supply the roome of personall estate:
And
thus enfranchis'd, safely may rehearse,
Rapt in a lofty straine, [their]
own neck-verse.
For he that gives the Bayes to thee, must then
First
take it from the Militarie Men;
He must untriumph conquests, bid 'em
stand,
Question the strength of their victorious hand.
He must act
new things, or go neer the sin,
Reader, as neer as you and I have been:

He must be that, which He that tryes will swear
I[t] is not good
being so another Yeare.
And now that thy great name I've brought to
[this],
To do it honour is to do amisse,
What's to be done to those,
that shall refuse
To celebrate, great Soule, thy noble Muse?_
_Shall
the poore State of all those wandring things,
Thy