II.

That thy theatre's loud noise

May be virgin's chaste applause; And the stoled matron, grave divine, Their lectures done, may tend to thine :

III.

That no actor's made profane,

To debase Gods, to raise thy strain; And people forced, that hear thy Play, Their money and their souls to pay :

IV.

That thou leav'st affected phrase To the shops to use and praise; And breath'st a noble Courtly vein,Such as may Cæsar entertain,

V.

When he wearied would lay down
The burdens that attend a crown;
Disband his soul's severer powers;
In mirth and ease dissolve two hours:

VI.

These are thy inferior arts,
These I call thy second parts.

But when thou carriest on the plot,
And all are lost in th' subtle knot:

VII.

When the scene sticks to every thought,

And can to no event be brought;

When (thus of old the scene betraid)

Poets call'd Gods unto their aid,

VIII.

Who by power might do the thing,
Art could to no issue bring;

As the Pellean Prince, that broke
With a rude and down-right stroke

IX.

The perplext and fatal noose,

Which his skill could not unloose :

Thou dost a nobler art profess;

And the coil'd serpent can'st no less

X.

Stretch out from every twisted fold,
In which he lay inwove and roll'd ;
Induce a night, and then a day,
Wrap all in clouds, and then display

XI.

Th' easy and the even design :
A plot, without a God, divine !-
Let others' bold pretending pens
Write acts of Gods, that know not men's;
In this to thee all must resign;

Th' surprise of th' Scene is wholly thine.

COMMENDATORY VERSES BEFORE THE "FAITHFUL SHEPHERD[ESS]" OF FLETCHER [See page 301]1

press

THERE are no sureties, good friend, will be taken
For works that vulgar good-name hath forsaken.
A Poem and a Play too! Why, 'tis like
A Scholar that's a Poet; their names strike,
And kill outright: one cannot both fates bear.-
But as a Poet, that's no Scholar, makes
Vulgarity his whiffler, and so takes
Passage with ease and state thro' both sides'
Of pageant-seers: or, as Scholars please,
That are no Poets, more than Poets learned,
Since their art solely is by souls discern'd,
(The others' falls within the common sense,
And sheds, like common light, her influence):
So, were your Play no Poem, but a thing
Which every cobbler to his patch might sing;
A rout of nifles, like the multitude,
With no one limb of any art endued,

Like would to like, and praise you: but because
Your poem only hath by us applause;

Renews the Golden Age, and holds through all

The holy laws of homely Pastoral,

Where flowers, and founts, and nymphs, and semi-gods,

And all the Graces, find their old abodes;

[These verses are in Dyce's ed., vol. ii. They are omitted in the Mermaid Series edition. See also page 542.]

[Trifles.]

Where poets flourish but in endless verse,
And meadows nothing-fit for purchasers:
This Iron Age, that eats itself, will never
Bite at your Golden World, that others ever
Loved as itself. Then like your Book, do you
Live in old peace: and that far praise allow.

G. Chapman.

COMMENDATORY VERSES BEFORE THE REBELLION. A TRAGEDY [PUBLISHED 1640]. BY T. RAWLINS [1620 ?-1670]1

To see a Springot of thy tender age
With such a lofty strain to word a Stage;
To see a Tragedy from thee in print,
With such a world of fine meanders in't;
Puzzles my wond'ring soul: for there appears
Such disproportion 'twixt thy lines and years,
That when I read thy lines, methinks I see
The sweet-tongued Ovid fall upon his knee
With "Parce Precor."

2

Every line and word

Runs in sweet numbers of its own accord.
But I am thunderstruck, that all this while
Thy unfeather'd quill should write a tragic style.
This, above all, my admiration draws,

That one so young should know dramatic laws:
"Tis rare, and therefore is not for the span

Or

every

common man.

greasy thumbs of
The damask rose that sprouts before the Spring,
Is fit for none to smell at but a king.

Go on, sweet friend: I hope in time to see
Thy temples rounded with the Daphnean tree;
And if men ask, "Who nurs'd thee?" I'll say thus,
"It was the Ambrosian Spring of Pegasus."

[See Dodsley, vol. xiv.]

Robert Chamberlain.

2[Should be "wonderstruck".]

THE AMBITIOUS STATESMAN. A TRAGEDY [PUBLISHED AND PRODUCED 1679]. BY JOHN CROWNE [DIED 1703?]

Vendome, returning from the wars, hears news, that Louize is false to him.

Ven. (solus). Where'er I go, I meet a wandering rumour,
Louize is the Dauphin's secret mistress.

I heard it in the army, but the sound
Was then as feeble as the distant murmurs

Of a great river mingling with the sea;
But now I am come near this river's fall,
"Tis louder than the cataracts of Nile.

If this be true,

Doomsday is near, and all the heavens are falling.-
I know not what to think of it, for every where
I meet a choking dust, such as is made
After removing all a palace furniture:
If she be gone, the world in my esteem
Is all bare walls; nothing remains in it
But dust and feathers, like a Turkish inn,

And the foul steps where plunderers have been.

Valediction.

[Act ii., end.']

Vendome, (to his faithless Mistress). Madam I'm well assured

you will not send

One poor thought after me, much less a messenger,

To know the truth; but if you do, he'll find,

In some unfinish'd part of the creation,

Where Night and Chaos never were disturb'd,
But bed-rid lie in some dark rocky desart,
There will he find a thing-whether a man,
Or the collected shadows of the desart
Condens'd into a shade,2 he'll hardly know;
This figure he will find walking alone,
Poring one while on some sad book at noon
By taper-light, for never day shone there:
Sometimes laid grovelling on the barren earth,
Moist with his tears, for never dew fell there :

And when night comes, not known from day by darkness,
But by some faithful messenger of time,

He'll find him stretcht upon a bed of stone,

[Dram. of the Restoration, ed. Maidment and Logan. Crowne, vol. iii.] "[Should be "shape ".]

Cut from the bowels of some rocky cave,
Offering himself either to Sleep or Death;
And neither will accept the dismal wretch:
At length a Slumber, in its infant arms,
Takes up his heavy soul, but wanting strength
To bear it, quickly lets it fall again;

At which the wretch starts up, and walks about
All night, and all the time it should be day;
Till quite forgetting, quite forgot of every thing
But Sorrow, pines away, and in small time
Of the only man that durst inhabit there,
Becomes the only Ghost that dares walk there.

Incredulity to Virtue.

[Act iv., p. 215.]

Vendome. Perhaps there never were such things as Virtues, But only in men's fancies, like the Phoenix;

Or if they once have been, they're now but names
Of natures lost, which came into the world,

But could not live, nor propagate their kind.

Faithless Beauty.

Louize. Dare you approach me?

[Act v.]

Vendome. Yes, but with fear, for sure you're not Woman.

A Comet glitter'd in the air o' late,

And kept some weeks the frighted kingdom waking.

Long hair it had, like you; a shining aspect;

Its beauty smiled, at the same time it frighten'd;

And every horror in it had a grace.1

[Act iii., p. 192.]

BELPHEGOR [OR, THE MARRIAGE OF THE DEVIL] A COMEDY [PUBLISHED 1691: WRITTEN 1690]. BY JOHN WILSON [1627?-1696]

Doria Palace described.

That thou'd'st been with us at Duke Doria's garden!
The pretty contest between art and nature;

To see the wilderness, grots, arbours, ponds;

1

1 [For other extracts from Crowne see pages 545, 546-53, 562, 571, 572, 573.)