RECOMMENDATORY POEMS.

TO THE

RIGHT WORSHIPFUL, THE WORTHILY HONOURED,
ROBERT PARKHURST, ES2.

WERE

ERE these but worthless poems, or light rimes,
Writ by some common scribler of the times,
Without your leave I durst not then engage
You to ennoble 'em by your patronage;
But these though orphans, and left fatherlesse,
Their rich endowments show they do possesse
A father's blessing; whom the Fates thought fit
To make a master of a mine of wit:
Whose ravishing conceits do towre so high,
As if his quill had dropt from Mercury:
But when his fancy chanc'd of love to sing,
You'd sweare his pen were plum'd from Cupid's
He doth an amorous passion so discover,
As if (save Beaumont) none had ere been lover;
Some praise a manly bounty, some incline
More to applaud the vertues feminine;
Some severall graces in both sexes hid,
But only Beaumont's, he alone that did
By a rare stratagem of wit connex

[wing;

What's choice and excellent in either sex. [straine,
Then cherish (sir) these saplings, whose each
Speakes them the issue of brave Beaumont's braine;
Which made me thus dare to prefix your name,
Which will, if ought can, adde unto their fame.
I am, sir,
your most humble and
devoted servant,
L. B'.

IN LAUDEM AUTHORIS.
LIKE to the weake estate of a poore friend,
To whom sweet fortune hath been ever slow,
Which daily doth that happy houre attend,
When his poore state may his affection show:
So fares my love, not able as the rest,
To chant thy praises in a lofty vaine;
Yet my poore Muse, doth vow to do her best,
And wanting wings, she'll tread an humble straine ;
I thought at first her homely steps to raise,
And for some blazing epethites to look:
But then I fear'd that by such wond'rous praise,
Some men would grow suspitious of thy book:
For he that doth thy due deserts rehearse,
Derives that glory from thy worthy verse.
W. B.

TO THE AUTHOR.
EITHER the goddessc draws her troops of loves
From Paphos, where she erst was held devine,
And doth unyoke her tender necked doves,
Placing her seat on this small pap'ry shrine;
Or the sweet Graces through th' Idalian grove,
Led the best author in their danced rings;
Or wanton nymphs in watry bowers have wove,
With faire Mylesian threads, the verse he sings;
Or curious Pallas once againe doth strive
With proud Arachne, for illustrious glory,
And once against doth loves of gods revive,
Spinning in silver twists a lasting story:
If none of these then Venus chose his sight,
To lead the steps of her blind son aright.
J. B.

TO THE TRUE PATRONESSE OF ALL POETRY,

CALIOPE.

It is a statute in deep wisdom's lore,
That for his lines none should a patron choose,
By wealth or poverty, by lesse or more,
But who the same is able to peruse:
Nor ought a man his labour dedicate,
Without a true and sensible desert,
To any power of such a mighty state :
But such a wise defendresse as thou art;
Thou great and powerful! Muse, then pardon me,
That I presume thy maiden cheek to staine,
In dedicating such a worke to thee,
Sprung from the issue of an idle braine;
I use thee as a woman ought to be,
I consecrate my idle hours to thee.

? Lawrence Blaiklock, the bookseller.

TO THE AUTHOR.

THE matchlesse lust of a faire poesie,
Which was erst buried in old Rome's decaies;
Now 'gins with heat of rising majesty,
Her dust wrapt head from rotten tombe to raise,
And with fresh splendour gilds her fearelesse
crest,

Rearing her pallace in our poet's breast.
The wanton Ovid, whose intising rimes
Have with attractive wonder forc'd attention
No more shall be admir'd at: for these times
Produce a poet, whose more rare invention,

Will teare the love-sick mirtle from his brows,
Tadorne his temple with deserved boughs.
The strongest marble feares the smallest rain,
F. B. The rusting canker eates the purest gold;

Honour's best dye dreads envy's blackest stain,
The crimson badge of beauty must wax old:

But this faire issue of thy fruitfull braine, Whether one did contrive, the other write,
Nor dreads age, envy, cankering, rust or raine, Or one fram'd the plot, the other did indite;

J. F. Whether one found the matter, th' other dresse,

Or th’one disposed what the other did expresse;

Where e're your parts between your selves THE AUTHOR TO THE READER.

lay, we

lo all things which you did, but one thread sce, I sing the fortune of a lucklesse paire,

So evenly drawn out, so gently spun, Whose spotlesse soules now in one body be;

That art with nature ne're did smoother run. For beauty still is Prodromus to care,

Where shall I fixe my praise then? or what part Crost by the sad stars of nativity:

Of all your numerous labours hath desert And of the strange inchantment of a well,

More to be fram'd than other? shall I say,
Given by the gods; my sportive Muse doth write,

I've met a lover so drawn in your play,
Which sweet lip'd Ovid long ago did tell,
Wherein w hubathes streight turnes Hermaphrodite : So jealously inrag'd, then gently tamd,

So passionately written, so inflam'd,
I hone my poem is so lively writ,

That I in reading have the person seen,
That thou wilt turn halfe mad with reading it.

And your pen hath part stage, and actor been?
Or shall I say, that I can scarce forbeare

To clap, when I a captaine do meet there ;
TO. MR, FRANCIS BEAUMONT

So lively in his own vaine humour drest,

Su braggingly, and like himselfe exprest, (THEN LIVING.)

That moderne cowards, when they saw him plaid,

Saw, blusht, departed guilty, and betraid? How I do love thee Beaumont, and thy Muse,

You wrote all parts right ; whatsoe're the stage That unto me do'st such religion use!

Had from you, was seen there as in the age, How I do feare my selfe, that am not worth

And bad their equall life: vices which were The least indulgent thought thy pen drops forth!

Manners abroad, did grow corrected there: At once thou mak'st me happy, and unmak'st;

They who possess'd a box, and halfe crown spent And giving largely to me, more thou tak’st.

To learne obscenenes, return'd innocent; (scene What fate is mine, that so it selfe bereaves ?

And thank'd you for this coz'nage, whose chast What art is thine, that so thy friend deceives?

Taught loves so noble, so reform'd, so cleane; When even there where most thou praisest me,

That they who brought foule fires, and thither came For writing better, I must envy thee.

To bargaine, went thence with a holy flame.
Ben. Jouxson.

Be't to your praise too, that your stock and veine
Held both to tragic and to comic straine;

Where e're you listed to be high and grave,
M.FLETCHER'S INCOMPARABLE PLAIES.

No buskin show'd more solid, no qull gave

Such feeling objects to draw teares from eyes, APOLLO sings, his harpe resounds; give roome, Spectators sate part in your tragedies. For now behold the golden pompe is come,

And where you listed to be low, and free, Thy pompe of playes which thousands come to see, Mirth turn the whole house into comedy ; With admiration both of them and thee.

So piercing (where you pleas'd) bitting a fault, O volume worthy leafe, by leafe and cover That huniours from your pen issued all salt. To be with juice of cedar washt all over;

Nur were you thus in works and poenis knit, Here's words with lines, and lines with scenes con- As to be but two halfes, and make one wit; sent,

But as some things we see bare double cause, To raise an act to full astonishment;

And yet the effect it sclfe, from both whole drars : Here melting numbers, words of power to move So thongh you were thus twisted and combin'd Young men to swoone, and maids to dye for love. As two bodies, to have but one faire mind; Love lies a bleeding bere, Evadne there

Yet if we praise you rightly, we must say Swels with brave rage, yet comly every where: Both joyn'd, and both did wholly nake the play: Here's a mad lover, there that high designe For that you could write smgly, we may guesse Of King and vo King, (and the rare plot thine) By the divided peeces, which the presse So that when e're we circumvolve our eyes; Hath severally set forth ; nor were goue so Such rich, such fre-b, such sweet varieties, (Like some our moderne alichors) made to go Ravish our spirits, that entranc't we see

On meerely by the help of th' other, who None writes love's passion in the world like thee. To purchase fame do come forth one of two;

Rob. HERRICK. Nor wrote you so, that one's part was to lick

The other into shape, nor did one stick
The other's cold inventions with such wit,

As serv'd like spice, to make them quick aud fit; MEMORY OF THE INCOMPARABLE PAIRE OF AUTHORS, Nor out of mutuall want, or emptinesse, BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

Did you conspire to go still twins to th' presse :

But what thus joyned you wrote, might have come Great paire of authors, whom, one equall star

forth Begot so like in genius, that you are

As good from each, and stor'd with the same worth In fame, as well as writings, both so knit, Thal thus united them, you did joyne sense; That no man koows where to divide your wit, In you 'twas league, in others impotence; Much lesse your praise ; you, who had equall fire, | And the presse which both thus amongst us sends, And did each other mutually inspire;

Seuds us one poet iu a paire of friends

VPON

TO THE

ON THE HAPPY COLLECTION OF

men.

Thou alwaies best; if ought seem'd to decline,

'Twas the unjudging rout's mistake, not thine : BEAUMONT'S AND FLETCHER'S WORKS. Thus thy faire Shepheardesse, which the bold heap

(False to themselves and thee) did prize so cheape, FLETCHER, arise, usurper share thy bayes,

Was found (when understood) fit to be crown'd, They canton thy vast wit to build small playes :

At worst 'twas worth two hundred thousand pound. He comes ! his volume breaks through clouds and

Some blast thy' works, lest we should track their Down, little wits, ye must refund, ye must. [Cust,

walke

(talke ; Nor comes be private, here's great Beaumont

Where they steale all those few good things they How could one single world encompasse two. [too, Wit-burglary must chide those it feeds on, For these co-heires bad equall power to teach

Por plunder'd folkes ought to be rail'd upon ; All that all wits both can and cannot reach.

But (as stolu goods go off at halfe their worth) Shakespeare was early up and went so drest,

Thy strong sence palls when they purloine it As for those dawning houres he knew was best;

forth. But when the Sun shone forth, you two thought fit when did'st thon borrow? where's the man e're

(read To weare just robes, and leave off trunk-hose wit.

Ought begr'd by thee from those alive or dead? Now, now 'twas perfect; none must looke for new,

Or from dry goddesses, as some who when Manners and scenes may alter, but not you;

They stuffe their page with gods, write worse than Por Fours are not meere humours, gilded strains ;

(odds, 'The fashion lost, your massy sense remaines,

Thou wast thine own Muse, and hadst such vast Some thinke your wit's of two complexions

Thou out-writt'st him whose verse made all those fram'd,

gods: That one the sock, th' other the buskin claim'd;

Surpassing those our dwarfish age upreares, That should the stage embattajle all its force,

As much as Greeks or Latines thee in yeares: Fletcher would lead the foot, Beaumont the horse.

The ocean fancy knew nor bankes nor damms, But, you were both for both ; not semi-rits,

We ebbe down dry to pebble-anagrams; Fach piece is wholly two, yet never splits :

Dead and insipid, all despairing sit, Y are not two faculties (and one soule still);

Lost to behold this great relapse of wit: [fierce) He th' understanding, thou the quick free will;

What strength remaines, is like that (wild and But, as two voices in one song einbrace,

Till Johnson made good poets and right verse. (Fletcher's keen trebble, and deep Beaumont's base)

Such boyst'rous trifies thy Muse would not 'Two, full, congeniall soules; still both prevail'd;

brooke, His Muse and thine were quarter'd, not impald:

Save when she'd show how scurvily they looke; Both brought your ingots, both toyl'd at the mint, No savage metaphors (things rudely great) Beat, melted, sifted, till no drosse stuck in't ;

Thou dost display, not butcher a conceit; Then in each other's scales weigh'd every graine ;

Thy nerves have beauty, which invades and Then smooth'd and burnish'd, then weigh'd all

charmes; againe ;

Looks like a princesse harness'd in bright armes. Stampt both your names upon't at one buld hit,

Nor art thou loud and cloudy; those that do Then, then 'twas coyne, as well as bullion-wit.

Thunder so much, do't without lightning too; 'Thus twinns: but as when Pate one eye deprives, Tearing themselves, and almost split their braine That other strives to double which survives : To render harsh what thou speak'st free and cleane; So Beaumont dy'd : yet left in legacy

Such gloomy sense may passe for high and proud, His rules, and standard-wit (Fletcher) to thee.

But true-born wit still flies above the cloud; Still the same planet, though not fillid 60 soon,

Thou knew'st 'twas impotence what they call A two-born'd crescent then, now one full-moon.

height;

(light. Joynt love before, now honour doth provoke;

Who blusters strong i'th' darke, but creeps i'th' So the old twin-giants forcing a huge oake,

And as thy thoughts were cleare, 80, innocent; One slipp'd his footing, th' other sees him fall, Thy phancy gave no unswept language vent; Grasp'd the whole tree, and single beld up all.

Slaunder'st not laws, prophan'st no holy page, Joiperiall Fletcher! here begins thy raign, (As if thy father's crosier aw'd the stage;) Scenes fiow like sun-beames from thy glorious High crines were still arraiga'd, though they brain ;

made shift Thy swift dispatching soule no more doth stay, To prosper out foure acts, were plagu'd i'th' fift: Than be that built two cities in one day;

All's safe and wise; no stiff-affected scene, Ever brim-full, and sometimes running o're,

Nor swoln, nor flat, a true full naturall veine;

Thy sence (like well-drest ladies) cloath'd as Who creep, and creep, yet ne're above-ground stood,

[blood)

Not all unlac'd, nor city-startcht and pinn'd; (For creatures have most feet which have least

Thou hadst no slo

no rage, no sullen fit, But thou art still that Bird of Paradise

But strength and mirth, Fletcher's a sanguin wit, Which hath no feet, and ever nobly flies :

Thus, two great consul-poets all things sway'd, Rich, lusty sence, such as the poet ought; Till all was English borne, or English made: For poems, if not excellent, are naught;

Miter and coyfe here into one piece spun, Low wit in scenes, io state a peasant goes ; Beaumont a judge's, this a prelat's son. If meane and Aat, let it foot yeoman prose, What strange production is at last displaid, That such may spell as are not readers grown, (Got by two fathers, without female aide) To whom he that writes wit, shows he hath none. Behold, two masculines espous'd each other,

Brave Shakespeare flow'd, yet had his ebbings Wit and the world were born without a mother. Often above himselfe, sometimes below; [too,

1. BERKENALAD.

To feed poore languid wits that waite at dovrei | Thy seskind,

| Pardon me, that with thy blest memory AY

I mingle mine own former miserie: ELEGIE ON THE LADY MARKHAM. Yet dare I not excuse the fate that brought

These crosses on me, for then every thought AS unthrifts groan in straw for their pawn'd beds; That tended to thy love was black and foule, As women weep for their lost maiden-heads;

Now all as pure as a new-baptiz'd soule : When both are without hope or remedy,

For I protest for all that I can see, Such an untimely griefe I have for thee.

I would not lie one night in bed with thee; I never saw thy face, nor did my heart

Nor am I jealous, but could well abide l'rge forth mine eyes unto it whilst thou wert;

My foe to lie in quiet by thy side. But being lifted hence, that which to thee

You wormes (my rivals) whilst she was alive, Was Death's sad dart, prov'd Cupid's shaft to me.

How many thousands were there that did strive Whoever thinkes me foolish that the force

To have your freedome? For their sake forbeare Of a report can make me love a coarse,

Unseemly holes in her soft skin to weare : Kouw he, that when with this I do coinpare

But if you must, (as what worms can abstaine The love I do a living woman beare,

To taste her tender body?) yet refraine I find my selfe most happy: now I know

With your disordered eatings to deface her, Where I can find my mistris, and can go

But feed your selves so as you most may grace her. Unto her trimm'd bed, and can lift away

First, through her ear-tips see you make a paire Her grasse-greene mantle, and her sheet display, Of holes, which, as the moist inclosed aire And touch her naked, and though th' envious mould Turnes into water, may the cleane drops take, In which she lies uncovered, moist and cold, And in her eares a paire of jewels make. Strive to corrupt her, she will not abide

Have ye not yet enough of that white skin, With any art her blemishes to hide,

The touch wboreof, in times past, would have been As many living do, and know their need,

Enough t' have ransom'd many a thousand soule Yet cannot they in sweetness her exceed;

Captive to love? If not, then upward roule, But make a stinke with all their art and skill, Your little bodies, where I would you have Which their physicians warrant with a bill, This epitaph upon her forehead grave. Nor at her doore doth heapes of coaches stay, Foot-men and midwives to bar up my way:

“ Living, she was young, faire, and full of wit ; Nor needs she any maid or page to keep,

Dead, all her faults are in her forehead writ.”
To knock me early from my golden sleep,
With letters that her honour all is gone,
If I not right her cause on such a one.
Her heart is not so hard to make me pay

AN ELEGIE.
For every kisse a supper and a play:
Nor will she ever open her pure lips

Car my poore lines no better office have,
To utter oaths, enough to drown our ships, But like scriech-owls still dwell about the grare?
To bring a plagne, a famine, or the sword, When shall I take some pleasure for my paine,
Upon the land, though she should keep her word ; By praising them that can yeeld praise againe ?
Yet, e're an houre te past, in some new vaine When shall my Muse in love-sick lines recite
Break them, and sweare them double o’re againe. Some lady's worth? which she of whom I write,