Francis Beaumont

“ Hath seiz'd on Wit, good Epitaphs are scant;
We dare not write thy Elegie, whilst each feares
He nere shall match that coppy of thy teares.
Scarce in an Age a Poet, and yet he
Scarce 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 vaine
In 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? ”

“ The way is strow'd with Lawrell, and ev'ry Muse
Brings Incense to our Fletcher: whose Scenes infuse
Such 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. ”

“ How Angels (cloyster'd in our humane Cells) Maintaine their parley, Beaumont-Fletcher tels; Whose strange unimitable Intercourse Transcends all Rules, and flyes beyond the force Of the most forward soules; all must submit Untill they reach these Mysteries of Wit. The Intellectuall Language here's exprest, Admir'd in better times, and dares the Test Of Ours; for from Wit, Sweetnesse, Mirth, and Sence, This Volume springs a new true Quintessence. ”

“ That We rejoyce and glory in thy Wit,
And feast each other with remembring it,
That we dare speak thy thought, thy Acts recite:
Yet all men henceforth be afraid to write.
RICH. LOVELACE. On Master JOHN FLETCHERS
Dramaticall Poems.
Great tutelary Spirit of the Stage!
FLETCHER! I can fix nothing but my rage
Before thy Workes, 'gainst their officious crime
Who print thee now, in the worst scæne of Time. ”

“ Incomparable Playes.
The Poet lives; wonder not how or why Fletcher 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 flings That very Citizens speake handsome things, Teaching their Wives such unaffected grace, Their Looks are now as handsome as their Face. ”

“ A Two-horn'd Crescent then, now one Full-moon.
Joynt Love before, now Honour doth provoke;
So th' old Twin-Giants forcing a huge Oake
One slipp'd his footing, th' Other sees him fall,
Grasp'd the whole Tree and single held up all. ”

“ So 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 Age
Have banish'd your smooth numbers from the Stage?
You shall be gainers by't; it shall confer
To 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 heart
Those Tragick Scenes and Comicke Straines you writ,
Un-imitable both for Art and Wit ”

“ When such rare soules live themselves o're agen.
We erre, that thinke a Poet dyes; for this,
Shewes that tis but a Metempsychosis.
BEAUMONT and FLETCHER here at last we see
Above the reach of dull mortalitie,
Or pow'r of fate: thus the proverbe hitts
(Thats so much crost) These men live by their witts.
ALEX. BROME. On the Death and workes of Mr JOHN FLETCHER.
My name, so far from great, that tis not knowne,
Can lend no praise but what thou'dst blush to own;
And no rude hand, or feeble wit should dare
To vex thy Shrine with an unlearned teare. ”

“ How to each sence thou so didst vertue fit,
That all grew vertuous to be thought t' have wit.
But this was much too narrow for thy art,
Thou didst frame governments, give Kings their part,
Teach them how neere to God, while just they be;
But how dissolved, stretcht forth to Tyrannie.
How Kingdomes, in their channell, safely run,
But rudely overflowing are undone.
Though vulgar spirits Poets scorne or hate;
Man may beget, A Poet can create.
WILL. HABINGTON. Upon Master FLETCHERS Dramaticall Workes. ”

“ I cannot chuse but thinke (now things so fall)
That witt is past its Climactericall;
And though the Muses have beene dead and gone
I know they'll finde a Resurrection.
Tis vaine to prayse; they're to themselves a glory,
And silence is our sweetest Oratory.
For he that names but FLETCHER must needs be
Found guilty of a loud hyperbole.
His fancy so transcendently aspires,
He showes himselfe a witt, who but admires.
Here are no volumes stuft with cheverle sence,
The very Anagrams of Eloquence,
Nor long-long-winded sentences that be,
Being rightly spelld, but Witts Stenographie. ”

“ He must be a bold man that dares undertake to write their Lives. What I have to say is, we have the precious_ Remaines, and as the wisest contemporaries acknowledge they Lived a Miracle, _I am very confident this volume cannot die without one. ”

“ Two, full, Congeniall Soules; still Both prevail'd;
His Muse and Thine were Quarter'd not Impal'd:
_Both brought Your Ingots, Both toil'd at the Mint,
Beat, melted, sifted, till no drosse stuck in't,
Then in each Others scales weighed every graine,
Then smooth'd and burnish'd, then weigh'd all againe,
Stampt Both your Names upon't by one bold Hit,
Then, then'twas Coyne, as well as Bullion-Wit.
Thus Twinns: But as when Fate one Eye deprives,
That other strives to double which survives:
So_ BEAUMONT dy'd: yet left in Legacy
His Rules and Standard-wit (FLETCHER) to Thee. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And when thou art sick of this cure, (for the excesse of delight may too much dilate thy soule,) thou shalt meete almost in every leafe a soft purling passion or spring of sorrow so powerfully wrought high by the teares of innocence, and wronged Lovers, _it shall persuade thy eyes to weepe into the streame, and yet smile when they contribute to their owne ruines. ”

“ Ravish our spirits, that entranc't we see
None writes lov's passion in the world, like Thee.
ROB. HERRICK. On the happy Collection of Master FLETCHER'S Works, never before
PRINTED.
FLETCHER arise, Usurpers share thy Bayes,
They Canton thy vast Wit to build small Playes:
He comes! his Volume breaks through clowds and dust,
Downe, little Witts, Ye must refund, Ye must.
Nor comes he private, here's great BEAUMONT too,
How could one single World encompasse Two?
For these Co-heirs had equall power to teach
All that all Witts both can and cannot reach. ”

“ For still your fancies are so wov'n and knit,
'Twas FRANCIS FLETCHER, or JOHN BEAUMONT writ.
Yet neither borrow'd, nor were so put to't
To call poore Godds and Goddesses to do't;
Nor made Nine Girles your Muses (you suppose
Women ne're write, save Love-Letters in prose)
But are your owne Inspirers, and have made
Such pow'rfull Sceanes, as when they please, invade.
Tour Plot, Sence, Language, All's so pure and fit,
Hee's Bold, not Valiant, dare dispute your Wit.
GEORGE LISLE Knight.
On Mr. JOHN FLETCHER'S Workes. ”

“ When_ JOHNSON, SHAKESPEARE, and thy selfe did sit,
And sway'd in the Triumvirate of wit—
Yet what from JOHNSONS oyle and sweat did flow,
Or what more easie nature did bestow
On SHAKESPEARES gentler Muse, in thee full growne
Their Graces both appeare, yet so, that none
Can say here Nature ends, and Art begins
But mixt like th'Elemcnts, and borne like twins,
So interweav'd, so like, so much the same,
None this meere Nature, that meere Art can name:
'Twas this the Ancients meant, Nature and Skill
Are the two topps of their Pernassus Hill.
J. DENHAM. Upon Mr. John Fletcher's Playes. ”

“ They stuffe their page with Godds, write worse then Men.
Thou was't thine owne Muse, and hadst such vast odds
Thou out-writ'st him whose verse made all those Godds:
Surpassing those our Dwarfish Age up reares,
As much as Greeks or Latines thee in yeares:
Thy Ocean Fancy knew nor Bankes nor Damms,
We ebbe downe dry to pebble-Anagrams;
Dead and insipid, all despairing sit
Lost to behold this great Relapse of Wit:
What strength remaines, is like that (wilde and fierce)
Till Johnson made good Poets and right Verse. ”

“ You have here a New Booke; I can speake it clearely; for of all this large Volume of Comedies and Tragedies, not one, till now, was ever printed before. A Collection of Playes is commonly but a new Impression, the scattered pieces which were printed single, being then onely Republished together: 'Tis otherwise here.
Next, as it is all New, so here is not any thing Spurious or impos'd; I had the Originalls from such as received them from the Authours themselves; by Those, and none other, I publish this Edition. ”

“ The text has, therefore, given rise to a fruitful crop of conjectural emendations, but it has not been deemed a part of the editor's duty to garner them. Leaving these on one side, and desirous mainly of collecting every alternative reading in all the Quartos and in the two Folios, the text used in the preparation of the present edition, chosen after careful consideration, is that of the Second Folio, obvious printers' errors being corrected, recorded in the Appendix, and indicated in the text by the insertion of square brackets. ”

“ And it cannot be denied but that the young spirits of the Time, whose Birth & Quality made them impatient of the sowrer wayes of education, have from the attentive hearing these pieces, got ground in point of wit and carriage of the most severely employed Students, while these Recreations were digested into Rules, and the very Pleasure did edifie. ”

“ Fall on a Scene of love and you will never believe the writers could have the least roome left in their soules for another passion, peruse a Scene of manly Rage, and you would sweare they cannot be exprest by the same hands, but both are so excellently wrought, you must confesse none, but the same hands, could worke them. ”

“ Fletcher's workes by themselves, because single & alone he would make a Just Volume: But since never parted while they lived, I conceived it not equitable to seperate their ashes.
It becomes not me to say (though it be a knowne Truth) that these Authors had not only High unexpressible gifts of Nature, but also excellent acquired Parts, being furnished with Arts and Sciences by that liberall education they had at the University, which sure is the best place to make a great Wit understand it selfe; this their workes will soone make evident. I was very ambitious to have got Mr. ”

“ Turne o've to's Coxcomb, and the Wild-goose Chase.
Monarch of Wit! great Magazine of wealth!
From whose rich Banke, by a Promethean-stealth,
Our lesser flames doe blaze! His the true fire,
When they like Glo-worms, being touch'd, expire,
'Twas first beleev'd, because he alwayes was,
The Ipse dixit, and Pythagoras
To our Disciple-wits; His soule might run
(By the same-dream't-of Transmigration)
Into their rude and indigested braine,
And so informe their Chaos-lump againe;
For many specious brats of this last age
Spoke FLETCHER _perfectly in every Page. ”

“ As spight of Malice she shall ne're expire.
Attending, not affecting, thus the crowne
Till every hand did help to set it on,
Hee came to be sole Monarch, and did raign
In Wits great Empire, absolute Soveraign.
JOHN HARRIS. On MR. JOHN FLETC [H] ER's ever to be admired Dramaticall Works.
I've thought upon't; and thus I may gaine bayes,
I will commend thee Fletcher, and thy Playes.
But none but Witts can do't, how then can I
Come in amongst them, that cou'd ne're come nigh?
There is no other way, I'le throng to sit
And passe it'h Croud amongst them for a Wit. ”

“ Beaumont was ever acknowledged a man of a most strong and searching braine; and (his yeares considered) the most Judicious Wit these later Ages have produced; he dyed young, for (which was an invaluable losse to this Nation) he left the world when hee was not full thirty yeares old. Mr. Fletcher survived, and lived till almost fifty; whereof the World now enjoyes the benefit. ”

“ You may here find passions raised to that excellent pitch and by such insinuating degrees that you shall not chuse but consent, and & go along with them, finding your self at last grown insensibly the very same person you read, and then stand admiring the subtile Trackes of your engagement. ”

“ Of the Kings second comming to his Court,
The Bookes creepe from the Presse to Life, not Action,
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 onely, thus, expresse my Truth and Love.
RIC. BROME. Upon the Printing of Mr. JOHN FLETCHERS workes.
What meanes this numerous Guard? or do we come
To file our Names or Verse upon the Tombe
Of Fletcher, and by boldly making knowne
His Wit, betray the Nothing of our Owne? ”

“ TO THE READER. Poetry is the Child of Nature, which regulated and made beautifull by Art, presenteth the most Harmonious of all other compositions; among which (if we rightly consider) the Dramaticall is the most absolute, in regard of those transcendent Abilities, which should waite upon the_ Composer ”

“ 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 buried
Reviv'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 ”