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And grew distracted in most violent fits,
For she had lost the best part of her wits.
In the first year, our famous Fletcher fell,
Of good king Charles, who grac'd these poems well,
Being then in life of action: but they died
Since the king's absence; or were laid aside,
As is their poet. Now, at the report

Of the king's second coming to his court,
The books creep from the press to life, not actior;
Crying unto the world, that no protraction
May hinder sacred majesty to give

Fletcher, in them, leave on the stage to live.
Others may more in lofty verses move;

I only, thus, express my truth and love.

XXIV.St

RICH. BROME.

Upon the Printing of Mr. JOHN FLETCHER'S Works.

WHAT means this numerous guard? or, do we come
To file our names, or verse, upon the tomb
Of Fletcher, and, by boldly making known
His wit, betray the nothing of our own?
For, if we grant him dead, it is as true
Against ourselves, no wit, no poet now;
Or if he be return'd from his cool shade
To us, this book his resurrection's made:
We bleed ourselves to death, and but contrive
By our own epitaphs to shew him alive.
But let him live! and let me prophesy,
As I go swan-like out,52 our peace is nigh:
A balm unto the wounded age I sing;
And nothing now is wanting, but the king.

JA. SHIRLEY,53

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The Commendatory Poems were printed without judgment or order; several of them, (particularly the first as ranked in the late editions) greatly injure our authors by injudicious encomiums, and have too little merit to be republished. Mr. Theobald left several corrections upon these obscure poems, and many others would have been added, had not una iitura appeared the best remedy. All are therefore now discarded but what appeared worthy of the reader's attention, and these are ranged according to the order of time in which they seem to have been wrote. Beaumont himself now leads in defence of his friend Fletcher's charming dramatic pastoral the Faithful Shepherdess, which having been damned at its first appearance on the stage, Beaumont and Jonson, with the spirits of Horace and Juvenal, lash the dull herd for their stupid ingratitude. SEWARD.

In addition to the above, which Mr. Seward makes an introductory note, it may not be amiss to remark, that the first folio had thirty six Commendatory Poems; from which the editors of the second folio selected no more than eleven. In the octavo of 1711, all but one were copied from the first folio; and to these were added Beaumont's and Jonson's Verses on the Faithful Shepherdess. Of these thirty-seven Mr. Seward retained twenty-three, and added Poem IV. signed J. F. We think that Seward, so far from rejecting any pieces worth preservation, has kept some which might very well have been spared: we have, however, adopted his selection, which ends with Shirley's poem; and shall now restore the verses written by Gardiner and Hills, (not because they possess any poetic merit, but that the reader may judge whät respect is due to the testimony of those verses, which are frequently mentioned as ascribing particular plays to Fletcher), and add a passage, relative to our authors, written by the ingenious Mr. Fenton.

52 As I go swan-like out.] This scems to allude to his verses having been the last in the Collection. SEWARD.

53 Mr. Shirley was publisher of the first folio edition in 1647.

By

XXV.

On the Dramatic Poems of Mr. JOHN FLETCHER.

WONDER! who's here? Fletcher, long buried,

Reviv'd? '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 Love's Cure;
Unmarried? to a Wife he may be sure,
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 defam'd,
Here's that makes Women Pleas'd, and Tamer Tam'd.
But who then plays the Coxcomb? or will try
His Wit at Several Weapons, or else die?
Nice Valour, and he doubts not to engage
The Noble Gentleman, in Love's Pilgrimage,
To take revenge on the False One, and run
The Honest Man's Fortune, to be undone
Like Knight of Malta, or else Captain be,
Or th' Humorous Lieutenant; go to sea
(A Voyage for to starve) he's very loath,
"Till we are all at peace, to swear an oath,
That then the Loyal Subject may have leave
To lie from Beggar's Bush, and undeceive
The creditor, discharge his debts; why so,
Since we can't pay to Fletcher what we owe?
Oh, could his Prophetess but tell one Chance,
When that the Pilgrims shall return from France,
And once more make this kingdom, as of late,
The Island Princess, and we celebrate
A Double Marriage; every one to bring
To Fletcher's memory his offering,
That thus at last unsequesters the stage,

Brings back the silver, and the golden age!

XXVI.

ROBERT GARDINER.

Upon the ever-to-be-admired Mr. JOHN FLETCHER, and his Plays.

WHAT's all this preparation for? or why

Such sudden triuinphs? Fletcher, the people cry!

Just so, when kings approach, our conduits run
Claret, as here the spouts flow Helicon :

See, every sprightful muse, dress'd trim and

gay,

Strews herbs and scatters roses in his way.

Thus th' outward yard set round with bayes we've seen,
Which from the garden hath transplanted been;

By publisher we suppose Mr. Seward means editor: this Mr. Shirley certainly was not.

It is true he wrote the Preface; but it would be exceedingly unjust to that great man, to believe he did more for, or at least could be editor of, so incorrect a book.

Thus,

Thus, at the prætor's feast, with needless costs,
Some must b'employ'd in painting of the posts;
And some, as dishes made for sight, not taste,
Stand here as things for show to Fletcher's feast.
Oh, what an honour, what a grace 't had been,
T have had his cook in Rollo serve them in!

Fletcher, the king of poets! such was he,
That earn'd all tribute, claim'd all sovereignty;
And may he that denies it, learn to blush
At's Loyal Subject, starve at's Beggars' Bush;
And, if not drawn by example, shame, nor grace,
Turn o'er to's Corcomb, and the Wild-Goose Chase.
Monarch of wit! great magazine of wealth!
From whose rich bank, by a Promethean stealth,
Our lesser flames do blaze! His the true fire,
When they, like glow-worms, being touch'd, expire.
'Twas first believ'd, because he always was
The ipse dixit, and Pythagoras

To our disciple-wits, his soul might run
(By the same dreamt-of transmigration)
Into their rude and indigested brain,
And so inform their chaos-lump again;
For many specious brats of this last age
Spoke Fletcher perfectly in every page.
This rous'd his rage, to be abused thus,
Made's Lover Mad, Lieutenant Humorous.
Thus ends of gold and silver-men are made
(As th' use to say) goldsmiths of his own trade;
Thus rag-men from the dunghill often hop,
And publish forth by chance a broker's shop.
But by his own light, now, we have descried
The dross, from that hath been so purely tried.
Proteus of wit! who reads him doth not see
The manners of each sex, of each degree?
His full-stor'd fancy doth all humours fill,
From th' Queen of Corinth to the Maid o'th' Mill;
His Curate, Lawyer, Captain, Prophetess,
Shew he was all and every one of these;
He taught (so subtly were their fancies seiz'd)
To Rule a Wife, and yet the Women Pleas'd.

Parnassus is thine own; claim it as merit,
Law makes the Elder Brother to inherit.

G. HILLS.

Extract

Extract from FENTON'S POEMS.

-like the radiant twins that gild the sphere,
Fletcher and Beaumont next in pomp appear:
The first a fruitful vine, in bloomy pride,
Had been by superfluity destroy'd,
But that his friend, judiciously severe,
Prun'd the luxuriant boughs with artful care:
On various sounding harps the muses play'd,
And sung, and quaff'd their nectar in the shade.
Few moderns in the lists with these may stand,
For in those days were giants in the land:
Suffice it now by lineal right to claim,
And bow with filial awe to Shakespeare's fame;
The second honours are a glorious name.
Achilles dead, they found no equal lord,
To wear his armour, and to wield his sword.

UPON

UPON AN HONEST MAN'S FORTUNES

By Mr. JOHN FLETCHER.

You that can look through Heav'n, aud tell the stars,
Observe their kind conjunctions, and their wars;
Find out new lights, and give them where you please,
To those men honours, pleasures, to those ease;
You that are God's surveyers, and can shew

How far, and when, and why the wind doth blow;
Know all the charges of the dreadful thunder,
And when it will shoot over, or fall under;

Tell me, by all your art I conjure ye,

Yes, and by truth, what shall become of me?
Find out my star, if each one, as you say,

Have his peculiar angel, and his way; 53

Observe my fate, next fall into your dreams,

Sweep clean your houses, and new-line your schemes,
Then say your worst! Or have I none at all?
Or is it burnt out lately? or did fall?
Or am I poor? not able, no full flame?
My star, like me, unworthy of a name?
Is it, your art can only work on those
That deal with dangers, dignities, and clothes?
With love, or new opinions? You all lie!
A fish-wife hath a fate, and so have I;
But far above your finding! He that gives,
Out of his providence, to all that lives,

And no man knows his treasure, no, not you!

He that made Egypt blind, from whence you grew
Scabby and lousy, that the world might see
Your calculations are as blind as ye;

He that made all the stars you daily read,

And from thence filch a knowledge how to feed,

Hath hid this from you; your conjectures all

Are drunken things, not how, but when they fall;
Man is his own star, and the soul that can

Render an honest and a perfect man,

Commands all light, all influence, all fate;

Nothing to him falls early, or too late.

52 These verses are in all former editions printed at the end of the comedy of The Honest Man's Fortune: As they have not the least reference to that play, we have chose to place them here.

53 Have his peculiar angel, and his way:] Way, in its common acceptation, is not nonsense; it may signify his path of life marked out to him by the stars. But Mr. Sympson thinks it certainly corrupt, and conjectures first fay, which, he says, signifies spirit, or saie, which he says, though a very uncommon word, signifies fate: As he quotes no authority, I can only say, that I remember fay used by Spenser, as the same with fairy, but none of my glossaries know such a word as sale; and if an obsolete word must be used, we need not depart at all from the trace of the letters; for wey or way (the spelling of former ages, as well as the present, being extremely uncertain) may signify fate; the weys were the fates of the northern nations, from whence the witches in Macbeth are called weyward sisters. See Mr. Warburton's ingenious and learned note upon them. SEWARD. Our

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