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Dash'd all my joys, and blasted all my hopes;
Till, wearied by such interchange of weather,
In court and city, I at length confined
All my ambition to the Golden Mean,
The Equinoctial of my fate; to amend
The errors of my life by a good end.

DEDICATIONS

TO FLETCHER'S FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS, WITHOUT DATE; PRESUMED TO BE THE FIRST EDITION [See page 301]1

I.

To that noble and true lover of learning, Sir Walton Aston.

Sir, I must ask your patience, and be true.

This Play was never liked, except by few

That brought their judgments with them; for of late
First the infection, then the common prate

Of common people, have such customs got
Either to silence Plays, or like them not:
Under the last of which this Interlude

Had fal'n, for ever press'd down by the rude
That, like a torrent which the moist South feeds,
Drowns both before him the ripe corn and weeds;
Had not the saving sense of better men
Redeem'd it from corruption. Dear Sir, then
Among the better souls be you the best,
In whom as in a center I take rest,
And proper being; from whose equal eye
And judgment nothing grows but purity.
Nor do I flatter; for, by all those dead
Great in the Muses, by Apollo's head,
He that adds any thing to you, 'tis done
Like his that lights a candle to the sun.
Then be as you were ever, yourself still
Moved by your judgment, not by love or will.
And when I sing again (as who can tell
My next devotion to that holy Well?)
Your goodness to the Muses shall be all
Able to make a work Heroical.

[See Mermaid Series, vol. ii., pp. 318-21. See also p. 533.]

The Plague: in which times, the acting of Plays appears to have been

discountenanced.

II.

To the Inheritor of all Worthiness, Sir William Scipwith.

ODE

I.

If from servile hope or love
I may prove

But so happy to be thought for
Such a one, whose greatest ease
Is to please,

Worthy Sir, I have all I sought for.

II.

For no itch of greater name
Which some claim

By their verses, do I show it
To the world; nor to protest,
"Tis the best;

These are lean faults in a poet :

III.

Nor to make it serve to feed
At my need;

Nor to gain acquaintance by it;
Nor to ravish kind Atturneys
In their journies;

Nor to read it after diet.

IV.

Far from me are all these aims:
Frantic claims,

To build weakness on and pity;
Only to yourself, and such

Whose true touch

Makes all good, let me seem witty.

III.

To the perfect gentleman, Sir Robert Townesend.

If the greatest faults may crave
Pardon, where contrition is,
Noble Sir, I needs must have
A long one for a long amiss.
If you ask me how is this,

Upon my faith I'll tell you frankly;
You love above my means to thank ye.
Yet according to my talent,
As sour fortune loves to use me,
A poor Shepherd I have sent
In home-spun gray, for to excuse me :
And may all my hopes refuse me
But, when better comes ashore,
You shall have better, never more;
'Till when, like our desperate debtors,
Or our three-piled sweet "protesters,"
I must please you in bare letters!
And so pay my debts, like jesters.
Yet I oft have seen good feasters,
Only for to please the pallet,
Leave great meat, and chuse a sallet.

Apologetical Preface, following these:
To the Reader.

o,

If you be not reasonably assured of your knowledge in this kind of Poem, lay down the Book; or read this, which I would wish had been the Prologue. It is a Pastoral Tragic-Comedy; which the people seeing when it was played, having ever had a singular gift in defining, concluded to be a play of Country hired Shepherds, in gray cloaks, with cur-tailed dogs in strings, sometimes laughing together, and sometimes killing one another; and, missing Whitsun ales, cream, wassail, and Morris dances, began to be angry. In their error I would not have you fall, lest you incur their censure. Understand, therefore, a Pastoral to be-a Representation 0, Shepherds and Shepherdesses, with their Actions and Passionsf which must be such as agree with their natures; at least, not exceeding former fictions and vulgar traditions. They are not to be adorn'd with any art, but such improper ones as nature is said teach to bestow, as Singing and Poetry; or such as experience may them, as the virtues of herbs and fountains; the ordinary course of the sun, moon, and stars; and such like. But you are ever to remember Shepherds to be such, as all the ancient poets (and modern of understanding) have received them; that is, the Owners of Flocks, and not Hirelings.-A Tragic-comedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths (which

1 We can almost be not sorry for the ill dramatic success of this Play, which brought out such spirited apologies; in particular, the masterly definitions of Pastoral and Tragi-Comedy in this Preface.

He damns the Town: the Town before damn'd him.-ED.

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is enough to make it no Tragedy); yet brings some near to it (which is enough to make it no Comedy): which must be a Representation of Familiar People, with such kind of trouble as no life can be without; so that a God is as lawful in this, as in a Tragedy; and mean People, as in a Comedy.-Thus much I hope will serve to justify my Poem, and make you understand it; to teach you more for nothing, I do not know that I am in conscience bound

JOHN FLETCHER.

THE WARS OF CYRUS.1 A TRAGEDY. AUTHOR

UNKNOWN, 1594

Dumb Show exploded.

Chorus (to the Audience).

Warrants what we record of Panthea.

It is writ in sad and tragic terms,

-Xenophon

May move your tears; then you content our Muse,
That scorns to trouble you again with toys

Or needless antics, imitations,

Or shows, or new devises sprung o' late;
We have exiled them from our tragic stage,
As trash of their tradition, that can bring
Nor instance nor excuse for what they do,3
Instead of mournful plaints our Chorus sings;
Although it be against the upstart guise,
Yet, warranted by grave antiquity,

We will revive the which hath long been done.

THE MARRIED BEAU. A COMEDY [PUBLISHED 1694]. BY JOHN CROWNE

Wife tempted: she pleads religion.

Lover. Our happy love may have a secret Church Under the Church, as Faith's was under Paul's,

["King of Persia against Antiochus King of Assyria," ed. of 1594. Not divided into Acts or paged. See sig. c 3.]

2 So I point it; instead of the line, as it stands in this unique copy—

Nor instance nor excuse for what they do.

The sense I take to be, what the common playwrights do (or shew by action-the "inexplicable dumb shows [Hamlet, iii, 2, 13] of Shakspeare-), our Chorus

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VOL. IV.-35

Where we may carry on our sweet devotion;
And the Cathedral marriage keep its state,
And all its decency and ceremonies.

[Act iii., p. 287.']

A CHALLENGE FOR BEAUTY. A TRAGI-COMEDY BY T. HEYWOOD [See page 84]

Appeal for Innocence against a false accusation.

Helena. Both have sworn:

And, Princes, as you hope to crown your heads

With that perpetual wreath which shall last ever,
Cast on a poor dejected innocent virgin

Your eyes of grace and pity. What sin is it,
Or who can be the patron to such evil?—
That a poor innocent maid, spotless in deed,
And pure in thought, both without spleen and gall,
That never injured creature, never had heart
To think of wrong, or ponder injury;
That such a one in her white innocence,
Striving to live peculiar in the compass
Of her own virtues; notwithstanding these,
Should be sought out by strangers, persecuted,
Made infamous ev'n there, where she was made
For imitation; hiss'd at in her country;
Abandon'd of her mother, kindred, friends;
Depraved in foreign climes, scorn'd every where,
And ev'n in princes' courts reputed vile:
O pity, pity this!

[Act v., Sc. 1.2]

THYESTES. A TRAGEDY [PUBLISHED 1681]. BY JOHN CROWNE, 1681

Atreus, having recovered his Wife, and Kingdom, from his brother Thyestes, who had usurped both, and sent him into banishment, describes his offending Queen.

Atreus (solus).

"Tis true, in heavy sorrow:

1[Crowne's Works, vol. iv. See also below.

[Heywood's Works, vol. v.

-still she lives:

so she ought,

For another extract from this play, see page 573.

See also page 530.]

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