The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes

I Am amaz'd; and this same ExtacyeIs both my Glory and Apology.Sober Joyes are dull Passions; they must beareProportion to the Subject: if so; whereBeaumont and Fletcher shall vouchsafe to beThat Subject; That Joy must be Extacye.Fury is the Complexion of great Wits;The Fooles Distemper: Hee, thats mad by fits,Is wise so too. It is the Poets Muse;The Prophets God: the Fooles, and my excuse.For (in Me) nothing lesse then Fletchers NameCould have begot, or justify'd this flame.Beaumont }Fletcher } Return'd? methinks it should not be.No, not in's Works: Playes are as dead as He.The Palate of this age gusts nothing High;That has not Custard in't or Bawdery.Folly and Madnesse fill the Stage: The ScæneIs Athens; where, the Guilty, and the Meane,The Foole 'scapes well enough; Learned and Great,Suffer an Ostracisme; stand Exulate.Mankinde is fall'n againe, shrunke a degree,A step below his very Apostacye.Nature her Selfe is out of Tune; and SickeOf Tumult and Disorder, Lunatique.Yet what World would not cheerfully endureThe Torture, or Disease, t' enjoy the Cure?This Booke's the Balsame, and the Hellebore,Must preserve bleeding Nature, and restoreOur Crazy Stupor to a just quick SenceBoth of Ingratitude, and Providence.That teaches us (at Once) to feele, and know,Two deep Points: what we want, and what we owe.Yet Great Goods have their Ills: Should we transmitTo Future Times, the Pow'r of Love and Wit,In this Example: would they not combineTo make Our Imperfections Their Designe?They'd study our Corruptions; and take moreCare to be Ill, then to be Good, before.For _nothing but so great Infirmity,Could make Them worthy of such Remedy.Have you not scene the Suns almighty RayRescue th' affrighted World_, and redeeme DayFrom blacke despaire: how his victorious BeameScatters the Storme, and drownes the petty flameOf Lightning, in the glory of his eye:How full of pow'r, how full of Majesty?When to us Mortals, nothing else was knowne,But the sad doubt, whether to burne, or drowne.Choler, and Phlegme, Heat, and dull Ignorance,Have cast the people into such a Trance,That feares and danger seeme Great equally,And no dispute left now, but how to dye.Just in this nicke, Fletcher sets the world cleareOf all disorder and reformes us here.The formall Youth, that knew no other Grace,Or Value, but his Title, and his Lace,Glasses himselfe: and in this faithfull Mirrour,Views, disaproves, reformes, repents his Errour.The Credulous, bright Girle, that beleeves allLanguage, (in Othes) if Good, Canonicall,Is fortifi'd, and taught, here, to bewareOf ev'ry specious bayte, of ev'ry snareSave one: and that same Caution takes her more,Then all the flattery she felt before.She finds her Boxes, and her Thoughts betray'dBy the Corruption of the Chambermaide:Then throwes her Washes and dissemblings By;And Vowes nothing but Ingenuity.

The severe States-man quits his sullen forme Of Gravity and bus'nesse; The Luke-warme Religious his Neutrality; The hot Braine-sicke Illuminate his zeale; The Sot Stupidity; The Souldier his Arreares; The Court its Confidence; The Plebs their feares; Gallants their Apishnesse and Perjurie, Women their Pleasure and Inconstancie; Poets their Wine; the Usurer his Pelfe; The World its Vanity; and I my Selfe.

Roger L'Estrange.

COMMENDATORY

On the Dramatick Poems of Mr JOHN FLETCHER.

Wonder! who's here? Fletcher, long buriedReviv'd? Tis he! hee'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 Playes are lawfull? he hath made them Good.Is any Lover Mad? see here Loves Cure;Unmarried? to a Wife he may be sureA rare one, For a Moneth; if she displease,The Spanish Curate gives a Writ of ease.Enquire The Custome of the Country, thenShall the French Lawyer set you free againe.If the two Faire Maids take it wondrous ill,(One of the Inne, the other of the Mill,)That th' Lovers Progresse stopt, and they defam'd;Here's that makes Women Pleas'd, and Tamer tamd.But who then playes the Coxcombe, or will trieHis Wit at severall Weapons, or else die?Nice Valour and he doubts not to engageThe Noble Gentl'man, in Loves Pilgrimage,To take revenge on the False One, and runThe Honest mans Fortune, to be undoneLike Knight of Malta, or else Captaine beOr th' Humerous Lieutenant: goe to Sea(A Voyage for to starve) hee's very loath,Till we are all at peace, to sweare an Oath,That then the Loyall Subject may have leaveTo lye from Beggers Bush, and undeceiveThe Creditor, discharge his debts; Why so,Since we can't pay to Fletcher what we owe.Oh could his Prophetesse but tell one Chance,When that the Pilgrimes shall returne from France.And once more make this Kingdome, as of late,The Island Princesse, and we celebrateA Double Marriage; every one to bringTo Fletchers memory his offering.That thus at last unsequesters the Stage,Brings backe the Silver, and the Golden Age.Robert Gardiner.

To the Manes of the celebrated Poets and Fellow-writers, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, upon the Printing of their excellent Dramatick Poems.

Disdaine not Gentle Shades, the lowly praiseWhich here I tender your immortall Bayes.Call it not folly, but my zeale, that IStrive to eternize you that cannot dye.And though no Language rightly can commendWhat you have writ, save what your selves have penn'd;Yet let me wonder at those curious straines(The rich Conceptions of your twin-like Braines)Which drew the Gods attention; who admir'dTo see our English Stage by you inspir'd.Whose chiming Muses never fail'd to singA Soule-affecting Musicke; ravishingBoth Eare and Intellect, while you do eachContend with other who shall highest reachIn rare Invention; Conflicts that begetNew strange delight, to see two Fancies met,That could receive no foile: two wits in growthSo just, as had one Soule informed both.Thence (Learned Fletcher) sung the muse alone,As both had done before, thy Beaumont gone.In whom, as thou, had he outlived, so he(Snatch'd first away) survived still in thee.What though distempers of the present AgeHave banish'd your smooth numbers from the Stage?You shall be gainers by't; it shall conferTo th' making the vast world your Theater.The Presse shall give to ev'ry man his part,And we will all be Actors; learne by heartThose Tragick Scenes and Comicke Straines you writ,Un-imitable both for Art and Wit;And at each Exit, as your Fancies rise,Our hands shall clap deserved Plaudities.John Web.

To the desert of the Author in his most Ingenious Pieces.

Thou art above their Censure, whose darke SpiritsRespects but shades of things, and seeming merits;That have no soule, nor reason to their will,But rime as ragged, as a Ganders Quill:Where Pride blowes up the Error, and transfersTheir zeale in Tempests, that so wid'ly errs.Like heat and Ayre comprest, their blind desiresMixe with their ends, as raging winds with fires.Whose Ignorance and Passions, weare an eyeSquint to all parts of true Humanity.All is Apocripha suits not their vaine:For wit, oh fye! and Learning too; prophane!But Fletcher hath done Miracles by wit,And one Line of his may convert them yet.Tempt them into the State of knowledge, andHappinesse to read and understand.The way is strow'd with Lawrell, and ev'ry MuseBrings Incense to our Fletcher: whose Scenes infuseSuch noble kindlings from her pregnant fire,As charmes her Criticke Poets in desire,And who doth read him, that parts lesse indu'd,Then with some heat of wit or Gratitude.Some crowd to touch the Relique of his Bayes,Some to cry up their owne wit in his praise,And thinke they engage it by Comparatives,When from himselfe, himselfe he best derives.Let Shakespeare, Chapman, and applauded Ben,Weare the Eternall merit of their Pen,Here I am love-sicke: and were I to chuse,A Mistris corrivall 'tis Fletcher's Muse.George Buck.

On Mr BEAUMONT.

(Written thirty years since, presently after his death.)

Beaumont lyes here; and where now shall we haveA Muse like his to sigh upon his grave?Ah! none to weepe this with a worthy teare,But he that cannot, Beaumont, that lies here.Who now shall pay thy Tombe with such a VerseAs thou that Ladies didst, faire Rutlands Herse?A Monument that will then lasting be,When all her Marble is more dust than she.In thee all's lost: a sudden dearth and wantHath seiz'd on Wit, good Epitaphs are scant;We dare not write thy Elegie, whilst each fearesHe nere shall match that coppy of thy teares.Scarce in an Age a Poet, and yet heScarce lives the third part of his age to see,But quickly taken off and only known,Is in a minute shut as soone as showne.Why should weake Nature tire her selfe in vaineIn such a peice, to dash it straight againe?Why should she take such worke beyond her skill,Which when she cannot perfect, she must kill?Alas, what is't to temper slime or mire?But Nature's puzled when she workes in fire:Great Braines (like brightest glasse) crack straight, while thoseOf Stone or Wood hold out, and feare not blowes.And wee their Ancient hoary heads can seeWhose Wit was never their mortality:Beaumont dies young, so Sidney did before,There was not Poetry he could live to more,He could not grow up higher, I scarce knowIf th' art it selfe unto that pitch could grow,Were't not in thee that hadst arriv'd the hightOf all that wit could reach, or Nature might.O when I read those excellent things of thine,Such Strength, such sweetnesse coucht in every line,Such life of Fancy, such high choise of braine,Nought of the Vulgar wit or borrowed straine,Such Passion, such expressions meet my eye,Such Wit untainted with obscenity,And these so unaffectedly exprest,All in a language purely flowing drest,And all so borne within thy selfe, thine owne,So new, so fresh, so nothing trod upon.I grieve not now that old Menanders veineIs ruin'd to survive in thee againe;Such in his time was he of the same peece,The smooth, even naturall Wit, and Love of Greece.Those few sententious fragments shew more worth,Then all the Poets Athens ere brought forth;And I am sorry we have lost those houresOn them, whose quicknesse comes far short of ours,And dwell not more on thee, whose every PageMay be a patterne for their Scene and Stage.I will not yeeld thy Workes so meane a Prayse;More pure, more chaste, more sainted then are Playes,Nor with that dull supinenesse to be read,To passe a fire, or laugh an houre in bed.How doe the Muses suffer every where,Taken in such mouthes censure, in such eares,That twixt a whiffe, a Line or two rehearse,And with their Rheume together spaule a Verse?This all a Poems leisure after Play,Drinke or Tabacco, it may keep the Day.Whilst even their very idlenesse they thinkeIs lost in these, that lose their time in drinkt.Pity then dull we, we that better know,Will a more serious houre on thee bestow,Why should not Beaumont in the Morning please,As well as Plautus, Aristophanes?Who if my Pen may as my thoughts be free,Were scurrill Wits and Buffons both to Thee;Yet these our Learned of severest browWill deigne to looke on, and to note them too,That will defie our owne, tis English stuffe,And th' Author is not rotten long enough.Alas what flegme are they, compared to thee,In thy Philaster, and Maids-Tragedy?Where's such an humour as thy Bessus? prayLet them put all their Thrasoes in one Play,He shall out-bid them; their conceit was poore,All in a Circle of a Bawd or Whore;A cozning dance, take the foole away,And not a good jest extant in a Play.Yet these are Wits, because they'r old, and nowBeing Greeke and Latine, they are Learning too:But those their owne Times were content t' allowA thirsty fame, and thine is lowest now.But thou shalt live, and when thy Name is growneSix Ages older, shall be better knowne,When th' art of Chaucers standing in the Tombe,Thou shalt not share, but take up all his roome.Joh. Earle.

UPON Mr FLETCHERS Incomparable Playes.

The Poet lives; wonder not how or whyFletcher revives, but that he er'e could dye:Safe Mirth, full Language, flow in ev'ry Page,At once he doth both heighten and aswage;All Innocence and Wit, pleasant and cleare,Nor Church nor Lawes were ever Libel'd here;But faire deductions drawn from his great Braine,Enough to conquer all that's False or Vaine;He scatters Wit, and Sence so freely flingsThat very Citizens speake handsome things,Teaching their Wives such unaffected grace,Their Looks are now as handsome as their Face.Nor is this violent, he steals uponThe yeilding Soule untill the Phrensie's gone;His very Launcings do the Patient please,As when good Musicke cures a Mad Disease.Small Poets rifle Him, yet thinke it faire,Because they rob a man that well can spare;They feed upon him, owe him every bit,Th'are all but Sub-excisemen of his Wit.J. M.

On the Workes of Beaumont and Fletcher, now at length printed.

Great paire of Authors, whom one equall StarreBegot so like in Genius, _that you areIn Fame, as well as Writings, both so knit,That no man knowes where to divide your wit,Much lesse your praise; you, who had equall fire,And did each other mutually inspire;Whether one did contrive, the other write,Or one framed the plot, the other did indite;Whether one found the matter, th'other dresse,Or the one disposed what th'other did expresse;Where e're your parts betweene your selves lay, we,In all things which you did but one thred see,So evenly drawne out, so gently spunne,That Art with Nature nere did smoother run.Where shall I fixe my praise then? or what partOf all your numerous Labours hath desertMore to be fam'd then other? shall I say,I've met a lover so drawne in your Play,So passionately written, so inflamed,So jealously inraged, then gently tam'd,That I in reading have the Person seene.And your Pen hath part Stage and Actor been?Or shall I say, that I can scarce forbeareTo clap, when I a Captain do meet there,So lively in his owne vaine humour drest,So braggingly, and like himself exprest,That moderne Cowards, when they saw him plaid,Saw, blusht, departed guilty, and betraid?You wrote all parts right; whatsoe're the StageHad from you, was seene there as in the age,And had their equall life: Vices which wereManners abroad, did grow corrected there:They who possest a Box, and halfe Crowns spentTo learne Obscenenes, returned innocent,And thankt you for this coznage, whose chaste SceneTaught Loves so noble, so reformed, so cleane,That they who brought foule fires, and thither cameTo bargaine, went thence with a holy flame.Be't to your praise too, that your Stock and VeyneHeld both to Tragick and to Comick straine;Where e're you listed to be high and grave,No Buskin shew'd more solem[n]e, no quill gaveSuch feeling objects to draw teares from eyes,Spectators sate part in your Tragedies.And where you listed to be low, and free,Mirth turn'd the whole house into Comedy;So piercing (where you pleas'd) hitting a fault,That humours from your pen issued all salt.Nor were you thus in Works and Poems knit,As to be but two halfes, and make one wit;But as some things we see, have double cause,And yet the effect it selfe from both whole drawes;So though you were thus twisted and combindAs two bodies, to have but one faire mindeYet if we praise you rightly, we must sayBoth joyn'd, and both did wholly make the Play,For that you could write singly, we may guesseBy the divided peeces which the PresseHath severally sent forth; nor were gone so(Like some our Moderne Authors) made to goOn meerely by the helpe of the other, whoTo purchase fame do come forth one of two;Nor wrote you so, that ones part was to lickThe other into shape, nor did one stickThe others cold inventions with such wit,As served like spice, to make them quick and fit;Nor out of mutuall want, or emptinesse,Did you conspire to go still twins to th' Presse:But what thus joy tied you wrote, might have come forthAs good from each, and stored with the same worthThat thus united them, you did joyne sense,In you 'twas League, in others impotence;And the Presse which both thus amongst us sends,Sends us one Poet in a faire of friends.Jasper Maine.

Upon the report of the printing of the Dramaticall Poems of Master John Fletcher, collected before, and now set forth in one Volume.

Though when all Fletcher writ, and the entireMan was indulged unto that sacred fire,His thoughts, and his thoughts dresse, appeared both such,That 'twas his happy fault to do too much;Who therefore wisely did submit each birthTo knowing Beaumont e're it did come forth,Working againe untill he said 'twas fit,And made him the sobriety of his wit;Though thus he call'd his Judge into his fame,And for that aid allow'd him halfe the name,'Tis knowne, that sometimes he did stand alone,That both the Spunge and Pencill were his owne;That himselfe judged himselfe, could singly do,And was at last Beaumont and Fletcher too;Else we had lost his Shepherdesse, a pieceEven and smooth, spun from a finer fleece,Where softnesse raignes, where passions passions greet,Gentle and high, as floods of Balsam meet.Where dressed in white expressions, sit bright Loves,Drawne, like their fairest Queen, by milkie Doves;A piece, which Johnson in a rapture bidCome up a glorifi'd Worke, and so it did.Else had his Muse set with his friend; the StageHad missed those Poems, which yet take the Age;The world had lost those rich exemplars, whereArt, Language, Wit, sit ruling in one Spheare,Where the fresh matters soare above old Theames,As Prophets Raptures do above our Dreames;Where in a worthy scorne he dares refuseAll other Gods, and makes the thing his Muse;Where he calls passions up, and layes them so,As spirits, aw'd by him to come and go;Where the free Author did what e're he would,And nothing will'd, but what a Poet should.No vast uncivill bulke swells any Scene,The strength's ingenious, a[n]d the vigour cleane;None can prevent the Fancy, and see throughAt the first opening; all stand wondring howThe thing will be untill it is; which thenceWith fresh delight still cheats, still takes the sence;The whole designe, the shadowes, the lights suchThat none can say he shelves or hides too much:Businesse growes up, ripened by just encrease,And by as just degrees againe doth cease,The heats and minutes of affaires are watcht,And the nice points of time are met, and snatcht:Nought later then it should, nought comes before,Chymists, and Calculators doe erre more:Sex, age, degree, affections, country, place,The inward substance, and the outward face;All kept precisely, all exactly fit,What he would write, he was before he writ.'Twixt Johnsons grave, and Shakespeares lighter soundHis muse so steer'd that something still was found,Nor this, nor that, nor both, but so his owne,That 'twas his marke, and he was by it knowne.Hence did he take true judgements, hence did strike,All pallates some way, though not all alike:The god of numbers might his numbers crowne,And listning to them wish they were his owne.Thus welcome forth, what ease, or wine, or witDurst yet produce, that is, what Fletcher writ.Another.Fletcher, though some call it thy fault, that witSo overflow'd thy scenes, that ere 'twas fitTo come upon the Stage, Beaumont was faineTo bid thee be more dull, that's write againe,And bate some of thy fire, which from thee cameIn a cleare, bright, full, but too large a flame;And after all (finding thy Genius such)That blunted, and allayed, 'twas yet too much;Added his sober spunge, and did contractThy plenty to lesse wit to make't exact:Yet we through his corrections could seeMuch treasure in thy superfluity,Which was so fil'd away, as when we doeCut Jewels, that that's lost is jewell too:Or as men use to wash Gold, which we knowBy losing makes the streame thence wealthy grow.They who doe on thy worker severely sit,And call thy store the over-births of wit,Say thy miscarriages were rare, and whenThou wert superfluous, that thy fruitfull PenHad no fault but abundance, which did layOut in one Scene what might well serve a Play;And hence doe grant, that what they call excesseWas to be reckon'd as thy happinesse,From whom wit issued in a full spring-tide;Much did inrich the Stage, much flow'd beside.For that thou couldst thine owne free fancy bindeIn stricter numbers, and run so confin'dAs to observe the rules of Art, which swayIn the contrivance of a true borne Play:These workes proclaime which thou didst write retiredFrom Beaumont, by none but thy selfe inspired;Where we see 'twas not chance that made them hit,Nor were thy Playes the Lotteries of wit,But like to Durers Pencill, which first knewThe lawes of faces, and then faces drew:Thou knowst the aire, the colour, and the place,The simetry, which gives a Poem grace:Parts are so fitted unto parts, as doeShew thou hadst wit, and Mathematicks too:Knewst where by line to spare, where to dispence,And didst beget just Comedies from thence:Things unto which thou didst such life bequeath,That they (their owne Black-Friers) unacted breath.Johnson hath writ things lasting, and divine,Yet his Love-Scenes, Fletcher, compar'd to thine,Are cold and frosty, and exprest love so,As heat with Ice, or warme fires mixt with Snow;Thou, as if struck with the same generous darts,Which burne, and raigne in noble Lovers hearts,Hast cloath'd affections in such native tires,And so describ'd them in their owne true fires;Such moving sighes, suc[h] undissembled teares,Such charmes of language, such hopes mixt with feares,Such grants after denialls, such pursuitsAfter despaire, such amorous recruits,That some who sate spectators have confestThemselves transformed to what they saw exprest,And felt such shafts steale through their captiv'd sence,As made them rise Parts, and goe Lovers thence.Nor was thy stile wholly compos'd of Groves,Or the soft straines of Shepheards and their Loves;When thou wouldst Comick be, each smiling birthIn that kinde, came into the world all mirth,All point, all edge, all sharpnesse; we did sitSometimes five Acts out in pure sprightfull wit,Which flowed in such true salt, that we did doubtIn which Scene we laught most two shillings out.Shakespeare to thee was dull, whose best jest lyesI'th Ladies questions, and the Fooles replyes;Old fashioned wit, which walkt from town to townIn turn'd Hose, which our fathers call'd the Clown;Whose wit our nice times would obsceannesse call,And which made Bawdry passe for Comicall:Nature was all his Art, thy veine was freeAs his, but without his scurility;From whom mirth came unforced, no jest perplext,But without labour cleane, chast, and unvext.Thou wert not like some, our small Poets whoCould not be Poets, were not we Poets too;Whose wit is pilfring, and whose veine and wealthIn Poetry lyes meerely in their stealth;Nor didst thou feele their drought, their pangs, their qualmes,Their rack in writing, who doe write for almes,Whose wretched Genius, and dependent fires,But to their Benefactors dole aspires.Nor hadst thou the sly trick, thy selfe to praiseUnder thy friends names, or to purchase BayesDidst write stale commendations to thy Booke,Which we for Beaumonts or Ben. Johnsons tooke:That debt thou left'st to us, which none but heCan truly pay, Fletcher, who writes like thee.William Cartwright.

On Mr FRANCIS BEAUMONT (then newly dead.)