By Shakespeare's, Johnson's, Fletcher's lines
Our stage's lustre Rome's outshines,
These poets near our princes sleep,
And in one grave their mansion keep.
They liv'd to see so many days,
Till time had blasted all their bays:
But cursed be the fatal hour
That pluck'd the fairest, sweetest flower
That in the Muses' garden grew,
And amongst wither'd laurels threw !
Time, which made them their fame outlive,
To Cowley scarce did ripeness give.
Old mother Wit, and Nature, gave
Shakespeare and Fletcher all they have :
In Spenser, and in Johnson, Art
Of slower Nature got the start;
But both in him so equal are,
None knows which bears the happier share.
To him no author was unknown,
Horace's wit and Virgil's state
He did not steal but emulate;
And when he would like them appear,
Their garb but not their clothes did wear.
He not from Rome alone, but Greece,
Like Jason, brought the Golden Fleece,
To him that language (tho' to none
Of th' others) as his own was known.
On a stiff gale (as Flaccus * sings)
The Theban swan extends his wings,
When thro' th' ethereal clouds he flies
To the same pitch our swan doth rise.
Old Pindar's flights by him are reach'd,
When on that gale his wings are stretch'd,
His fancy and his judgment such;
Each to the other seem'd too much;
Strong, full, and high, it doth appear †,
That were immortal Virgil here,
Him for his judge he would not fear.
Of that great portraiture so true
A copy pencil never drew.
My Muse her song had ended here,
But both their Genii straight appear :
Joy and amazement her did strike;
Two twins she never saw so like.
'Twas taught by wise Pythagoras
One soul might thro' more bodies pass:
Seeing such transmigration there,
She thought it not a fable here.
Such a resemblance of all parts,
Life, death, age, fortune, nature, arts,
Then lights her torch at theirs, to tell
And shew the world this parallel :
Fix'd and contemplative their looks,
Still turning over Nature's books;
Their works chaste, moral, and divine,
Where profit and delight combine;
They, gilding dirt, in noble verșe
Rustic philosophy rehearse.
When heroes, gods, or godlike kings,
They praise, on their exalted wings
To the celestial orbs they climb,
And with th' harmonious spheres keep time.
Nor did their actions fall behind
Their words, but with like candour shin'd;
Each drew fair characters, yet none
Of these they feign'd excels their own.
Both by two gen'rous princes lov'd,
Who knew, and judg'd what they approv'd: 90
Yet having each the same desire,
Both from the busy throng retire.
Their bodies, to their minds resign'd,
Car'd not to propagate their kind :
Yet tho' both fell before their hour,
Time on their offspring hath no pow'r :
Nor fire nor Fate their bays shall blast,
Nor death's dark veil their day o'ercast.
MR. JOHN FLETCHER'S WORKS. So shall we joy, when all whom beasts and worms Have turn'd to their own substances and forms ; Whom earth to earth, or fire hath chang'd to fire, We shall behold more than at first entire ; As now we do to see all thine thy own In this my Muse's resurrection,
Whose scatter'd parts from thyown race morewounds
Hath suffer'd than Acteon from his hounds;
Which first their brains and then their belly fed,
And from their excrements new poets bred.
But now thy Muse enraged, from her urn,
Like ghosts of murder'd bodies, does return
T'accuse the murderers, to right the stage,
And undeceive the long-abused age
Which casts thy praise on them to whom thy wit 15
Gives not more gold than they give dross to it :
Who, not content, like felons, to purloin,
Add treason to it, and debase the coin.
But whither am I stray'd? I need not raise
Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise;
Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built,
Nor need thy juster title the foul guilt
Of eastern kings, who, to secure their reign,
Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain.
Then was Wit's empire at the fatal height,
When labouring and sinking with its weight,
From thence a thousand lesser poets sprung,
Like petty princes from the fall of Rome;
When Johnson, Shakespeare, and thyself, did sit,
And sway'd in the triumvirate of wit-
30 Yet what from Johnson's oil and sweat did flow, Or what more easy Nature did bestow
On Shakespeare's gentler Muse, in thee, full grown,
Their graces both appear, yet so that none
Can say here Nature ends and Art begins,
But mix'd like th' elements, and born like twins,
So interwove, so like, so much the same,
None this mere Nature that mere Art can' name.
'Twas this the Ancients meant: nature and skill
Are the two tops of their Parnassus' hill:
WHAT gives us that fantastic fit
That all our judgment and our wit
To vulgar custom we submit?
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