With no one limb of any art endu❜d,

Like would to like, and praise you. But because
Your poem only hath by us applause,

Renews the golden world, and holds through all
The holy laws of homely pastoral,

Where fowers and founts, and nymphs and semi-gods,
And all the Graces find their old abodes,
Where forests 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
Lov'd as itself. Then, like your book, do you
Live in old peace, and that for praise allow.

GEORGE CHAPMAN.

DEDICATIONS TO FLETCHER'S FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS, FROM FIRST QUARTO.

I. To that noble and true lover of learning, SIR WALTER
ASTON.

Sir, I must ask your patience, and be true;
This play was never lik'd, unless by few

That brought their judgments with 'em; for, of late,
First the infection,1 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 fall'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

1 The plague; in which times, the acting of plays appears to have been discountenanced.

Redeem'd it from corruption. Dear sir, then,
Among the better souls, be you the best,
In whom, as in a centre, 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 anything to you, 'tis done
Like his that lights a candle to the sun :
Then be, as you were ever, yourself still,
Mov'd 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.

II. To the inheritor of all worthiness, SIR WILLIAM

SKIPWITH.

ODE.

I. If, from servile hope or love,
I may prove

II.

III.

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

Worthy sir, I've all I sought for:
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 ;

Nor to make it serve to feed

IV.

Far from me are all these aims,
Fittest frames

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 Townsend.
If the greatest faults may crave
Pardon where contrition is,
Noble sir, I needs must have

A long one for a long amiss.
you ask me, how is this?

If

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, newer, more!
'Till when, like our desperate debtors,
Or our three-pil'd 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 choose a sallet.

Apologetical Preface, following these. To the reader.

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 tragi-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.1 Understand, therefore, a pastoral to be a representation of shepherds and shepherdesses with their actions and passions, which must be such as may agree with their natures, at least not exceeding former fictions and vulgar traditions; they are not to be adorned with any art, but such improper ones as nature is said to bestow, as singing and poetry; or such as experience may teach 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 tragi-comedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, which 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 be questioned; 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.

1 He damns the town: the town before damn'd him.-Ed. 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.

WIT WITHOUT MONEY, A COMEDY : BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

The humour of a Gallant who will not be persuaded to keep his Lands, but chooses to live by his Wits rather.

VALENTINE'S UNCLE. MERCHANT, who has his

He's taken up with those that woo the widow. Mer. How can he live by snatches from such people?

He bore a worthy mind.

Unc. Alas, he's sunk!

His means are gone; he wants, and, which is
Takes a delight in doing so.

Mer. That's strange.

Unc. Runs lunatic, if you but talk of states;

worse,

He cannot be brought, now he has spent his own,
To think there is inheritance or means,

But all a common riches, all men bound
To be his bailiffs ;-

Mer. This is something dangerous.

Unc. No gentleman that has estate, to use it

In keeping house or followers; for those ways
He cries against for eating sins, dull surfeits,
Cramming of serving-men, mustering of beggars,
Maintaining hospitals for kites and curs,

Grounding their fat faiths upon old country proverbs,―

"God bless the founders !" These he would have vented

Into more manly uses, wit and carriage,

And never thinks of state or means, the ground

works;

Holding it monstrous, men should feed their bodies, And starve their understandings.