The better cheeses, bring them, or else send

That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,
By their ripe daughters, whom they would commend I mean with great but disproportion’d Muses :
This way to busbands; and whose baskets bear For if I thought my judgment were of years,
An emblem of themselves, in plum or pear.

I should commit thee surely with thy peers, But what can this (inore than express their love) And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine, Add to thy free provisions, far above

Or sporting Kyd or Marlowe's mighty line. The need of such? whose liberal board doth flow And though thou had small Latin and less Greek, With all that hospitality doth know !

Froin thence to honour thee I will not seek Where comes no guest but is allow'd to eat

For nantes ; but call forth thund'ring Eschylus, Without his fear, and of thy lord's own meat: Euripides, and Sophocles to us, Where the same beer, and bread, and self-same wine Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead, That is his lordship's shall be also mine.

To live again, to hear thy buskin tread, And I not fain to sit (as some this day

And shake a stage : or when thy socks were on, At great men’s tables) and yet dine away.

Leave thee alone for the comparison
Here no man tells my cups; nor, standing by, Of all, that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
A waiter doth my gluttony envy:

Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
But gives me what I call, and lets me eat;

Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show, He knows below he shall find plenty of meat ; To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. Thy tables hoard not up for the next day,

He was not of an age, but for all time! Nor, when I take my lodging, need I pray

And all the Muscs still were in their prime, For fire, or lights, or livery; all is there,

When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
As if thou, then, wert mine, or I reign'd here. Our ears, or like a Mercury, to charm!
There's nothing I can wish, for which I stay.

Nature herself was proud of his designs,
This found King James, when hunting late this way And joy'd to wear the dressing of his lines !
With his brave son, the Prince ; they saw thy fires Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
Shine bright on every hearth, as the desires

As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
Of thy Penatcs had been set on flame

The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
To entertain them; or the country came,

Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please ;
With all their zeal, to warm their welcome here. But antiquated and deserted lie,
What (great, I will not say, but) sudden cheer As they were not of nature's family.
Did'st thou then make them! and what praise was Yet must I not give nature all ; thy art,
heap'd

My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part.
On thy good lady then, who therein reap'd

For though the poet's matter nature be, The just reward of her high housewifery ;

His art doth give the fashion ; and, that he To have her linen, plate, and all things nigh,

Who casts to write a living line, must sweat When she was far; and not a room but drest

(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat As if it had expected such a guest !

Upon the Muses' anvil ; turn the same,
These, Penshurst, are thy praise, and yet not all; And himself with it, that he thinks to frame;
Thy lady's noble, fruitful, chaste withal.

Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn ;
His children

For a good poet's made as well as born. have been taught religion ; thence And such wert thou ! Look how the father's face Their gentler spirits have suck'd innocence.

Lives in his issue, even so the race Each inorn and even they are taught to pray, Of Shakspeare's mind and manners brightly shines With the whole household, and may, every day, In his well turned and true filed lines : Read, in their virtuous paren is' noble parts,

In each of which he seems to shake a lance, The mysteries of manners, arms, and arts.

As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance. Now, Penshurst, they that will proportion thee Sweet Swan of Avon ! what a sight it were With other edifices, when they see

To see thee in our water yet appear,
Those proud ambitious heaps, and nothing else, And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
May say their lords have built, but thy lord dwells. That so did take Eliza and our James !

But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
To the Memory of my beloved Master, William Shak- Advanced, and made a constellation there !

Shine forth, thou Star of Poets, and with rage,
speare, and what he hath left us.

Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage, To draw no envy, Shakspeare, on thy name,

Which since thy flight from hence hath mourned liko Am I thus ample to thy book and fame ;

night, While I confess thy writings to be such

And despairs day, but for thy volume's light!
As neither man nor Muse can praise too much.
'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways

On the Portrait of Shakspeare.
Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise ;
For silliest ignorance on these would light,

(Under the frontispiece to the first edition of his works: 1023] Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;

This figure that thou here seest put, Or blind atfection, which doth ne'er advance

It was for gentle Shakspeare cut, The truth, but gropes, and urges all by chance ;

Wherein the graver bad a strife Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,

With nature, to outdo the life : And think to ruin, where it seem'd to raise.

O could he but have drawn his wit, But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,

As well in brass, as he hath hit Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.

His face; the print would then surpass I therefore will begin : Soul of the age !

All that was ever writ in brass : The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage !

But since he cannot, reader, look
My Shakspeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by

Not on his picture but his book.*
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further off, to make thee room :

Thin attestation of Ben Jonson to the first engraved por Thou art a monument without a tomb,

trait of Shakspeare, seems to prove its fidelity as a likenes.. And art alive still, while thy book doth live,

The portrait corresponds with the monumental effigy at StratAnd we have wits to read, and praise to give

forrl, but both represent a heavy and somewbat inelegant

Whose thread exceeds the usual bounds of life, The wind blows out, the bubble dies;
And feels no stroke of any fatal knife!

The spring entomb'd in autumn lies;
The destinies enjoin their wheels to run,

The dew dries up, the star is shot;
Until the length of his whole course be spun.

The flight is past—and man forgot.
No envious clouds obscure his struggling light,
Which sets contented at the point of night:

The Dirge.
Yet this large time no greater profit brings,

What is the existence of man's life, Than every little moment whence it springs;

But open war, or slumber'd strife; Unless employ'd in works deserving praise,

Where sickness to his sense presents Must wear out many years and live few days.

The combat of the elements;
Time flows from instants, and of these each one

And never feels a perfect peace
Should be esteem'd as if it were alone
The shortest space, which we so lightly prize

Till Death's cold hand signs his release!
When it is coming, and before our eyes :

It is a storm-where the hot blood Let it but slide into the eternal main,

Outvies in rage the boiling flood; No realms, no worlds, can purchase it again :

And each loose passion of the mind Remembrance only niakes the footsteps last,

Is like a furious gust of wind, When winged time, which fixed the prints, is past.

Which beats his bark with many a ware,

Till he casts anchor in the grave. Sir John also wrote an epitaph on his brother, the

It is a flower—which buds, and grows, dramatist, but it is inferior to the following:

And withers as the leaves disclose;

Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
On my dear Son, Gervase Beaumont.

Like fits of waking before sleep;

Then shrinks into that fatal mould
Can I, who have for others oft compiled
The songs of death, forget my sweetest child,

Where its first being was enroll'd.
Which like a flow'r crush'd with a blast, is dead, It is a dream-whose seeming truth
And ere full time hangs down his smiling head, Is moralis'd in age and youth;
Expecting with clear hope to live anew,

Where all the comforts he can share, Among the angels fed with heavenly dew!

As wandering as his fancies are ; We have this sign of joy, that many days,

Till in a mist of dark decay, While on the earth his struggling spirit stays,

The dreamer vanish quite away. The name of Jesus in his mouth contains

It is a dial—which points out His only food, his sleep, his ease from pains.

The sun-set, as it moves about; O may that sound be rooted in my mind,

And shadows out in lines of night Of which in him such strong effect I find !

The subtle stages of Time's flight; Dear Lord, receive my son, whose winning love

Till all-obscuring earth hath laid
To me was like a friendship, far above

His body in perpetual shade.
The course of nature, or his tender age ;
Whose looks could all my bitter griefs assuage:

It is a weary interlude-
Let his pure soul-ordain'd seven years to be

Which doth short joys, long woes, include ; In that frail body, which was part of me

The world the stage, the prologue tears, Remain my pledge in heaven, as sent to show

The acts vain hopes and varied fears ; How to this port at every step I go.

The scene shuts up with loss of breath,

And leaves no epilogue but death. Dr Henry King, who was chaplain to James I., and did honour to the church preferment which was

FRANCIS BEAUMONT. bestowed upon him, was best known as a religious poet. His language and imagery are chaste and refined. Of his lighter verse, the following song most conspicuous as a dramatist, in union with that

FRANCIS BEAUMONT (1585-1616), whose name is may suffice :

of Fletcher, wrote a small number of miscellaneous

pieces, which his brother published after his death. Song.

Some of these youthful effusions are witty and Dry those fair, those crystal eyes,

amusing; others possess a lyrical sweetness; and Which, like growing fountains, rise,

a few are grave and moralising. The most celeTo drown their banks: grief's sullen brooks brated is the letter to Ben Jonson, which was oriWould better flow in furrow'd looks;

ginally published at the end of the play “Nice Thy lovely face was never meant

Valour,' with the following title : Mr Francis To be the shore of discontent.

Beaumont's letter to Ben Jonson, written before he

and Master Fletcher came to London, with two of Then clear those waterish stars again,

the precedent comedies then not finished, which deWhich else portend a lasting rain ; Lest the clouds which settle there,

ferred their merry meetings at the Mermaid.' Not

withstanding the admiration of Beaumont for · Rare Prolong my winter all the year,

Ben,' he copied Shakspeare in the style of his dramas. And thy example others make

Fletcher, however, was still more Shakspearian than In love with sorrow for thy sake.

his associate. Hazlitt says finely of the premature

death of Beaumont and his more poetical friendSic Vita.

• The bees were said to have come and built their Like to the falling of a star,

hive in the mouth of Plato when a child ; and the Or as the flights of eagles are ;

fable might be transferred to the sweeter accents of Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,

Beaumont and Fletcher. Beaumont died at the age Or silver drops of morning dew;

of five-and-twenty (thirty). One of these writers Or like a wind that chafes the flood,

makes Bellario, the page, say to Philaster, who Or bubbles which on water stood :

threatens to take his life Ev'n such is man, whose borrow'd light

"Tis not a life, Is straight callid in, and paid to-night.

'Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away.

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