DR. THOMAS LODGE

(Born, 1556. Died, 1625.) Was of a family in Lincolnshire, and was edu- several plays and other poetical works of con

cated at Oxford. He practised as a physician siderable merit, and translated the works of ! in London, and is supposed to have fallen a mar Josephus into English. : tyr to the memorable plague of 1625. He wrote

ROSADER'S SONETTO.

FROM LODGE'S KOMANCE, CALLED KUPHUES'S GOLDEN LEGACY.

Turn I my looks unto the skies,
Love with his arrows wounds inine eyes ;
If so I look upon the ground,
Love then in every flower is found ;

Search I the shade to Aee my pain,
Love meets me in the shades again ;
Want I to walk in secret grove,
E'en there I meet with sacred love;

ROSALIND'S MADRIGAL.

FROM THE SAME.

If so I bathe me in the spring,
E'en on the brink I hear him sing ;
If so I meditate alone,
He will be partner of my moan;
If so I mourn, he weeps with me,
And where I am there will he be ;
When as I talk of Rosalind,
The God from coyness waxeth kind,
And seems in self-same frame to fly,
Because he loves as well as I.
Sweet Rosalind, for pity rue,
For why, than love I am more true:
He, if he speed, will quickly fly,
But in thy love I live and die.

Love in my bosom, like a bee,
Doth suck his sweet :
Now with his wings he plays with me,
Now with his feet :
Within mine eyes he makes his nest,
His bed amidst my tender breast;
My kisses are his daily feast,
And yet he robs me of my rest :

Ah, wanton, will ye !

ANOTHER

FROM THE SAME.

And if I sleep, then pierceth he
With pretty slight;
And makes his pillow of my knee
The live-long night.
Strike I my lute, he tunes the string,
He music plays if I but sing ;
He lends me every lovely thing,
Yet cruel he my heart doth sting ;

Ah, wanton, will ye!

First shall the heavens want starry light,
The seas be robbed of their waves,
The day want sun, and sun want bright,
The night want shade, the dead men graves,
The April flowers, and leaves, and tree,
Before I false my faith to thee.
First shall the top of highest hill
By humble plains be overpry'd,
And poets scorn the Muses' quill,
And fish forsake the water glide,
And Iris lose her colour'd weed,
Before I false thee at thy need.
First direful Hate shall turn to peace,
And Love relent in deep disdain,
And Death his fatal stroke shall cease,
And Envy pity every pain,
And Pleasure mourn, and Sorrow smile,
Before I talk of any guile.
First Time shall stay his stayless race,
And Winter bless his brows with corn,
And Snow bemoisten July's face,
And Winter spring, and Summer mourn,
Before my pen, by help of Fame,
Cease to recite thy sacred name.

Else I with roses every day
Will whip ye hence,
And bind ye, when ye long to play,
For your offence;
I'll shut my eyes to keep ye in,
I'll make you fast it for your sin,
I'll count your power not worth a pin,
Alas! what hereby shall I win ?

If he gain-say me.

What, if I beat the wanton boy
With many a rod ?
He will repay me with annoy,
Because a God.
Then sit thou safely on my knee,
And let thy bower my bosom be;
Lurk in mine eyes, I like of thee,
0, Cupid, so thou pity me!

Spare not, but play thee.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

(Born, 15:36. Died, 1616.—Born, 1976. Died, 1625.)

Those names, united by friendship and con first year, and the short remainder of his life federate genius, ought not to be disjoined. Francis was devoted to the drama. He married Ursula, Beaumont was the son of Judge Beaumont of daughter and co-heiress of Sir Henry Isley of the Common Pleas, and was born at Grace-Dieu, | Kent, by whom he had two daughters, one of in Leicestershire, in 1586. He studied at Oxford, whom was alive, at a great age, in the year 1700. and passed from thence to the Inner Temple ;' He died in 1616, and was buried at the entrance but his application to the law cannot be supposed of St. Benedict's chapel, near the Earl of Middleto have been intense, as his first play, in con sex's monument, in the collegiate church of St. junction with Fletcher, was acted in his twenty- Peter, Westminster. As a lyrical poet, F. Beau

mont would be entitled to some remembrance rence to their memories, nothing that they have independent of his niche in the drama.

left us has much the appearance of being twice John Fletcher was the son of Dr. Rich: Fletcher, written : and whatever their amiable editor, Mr. bishop of London : he was born probably in the Seward, may say about the correctness of their metropolis, in 1576, and was admitted a pensioner plots, the management of their stories would of Bennet college about the age of fifteen. His lead us to suspect, that neither of the duumvirate time and progress at the university have not troubled themselves much about correctness. been traced, and only a few anecdotes have been | Their charm is vigour and variety, their defects gleaned about the manner of his life and death.

a coarseness and grotesqueness that betray no Before the marriage of Beaumont, we are told circumspection. There is so much more hardi. by Aubrey, that Fletcher and he lived together hood than discretion in the arrangement of their in London, near the Bankside, not far from the

scenes, that if Beaumont's taste and judgment theatre, had one * * * in the same house between

had the disposal of them, he fully proved himself them, the same clothes, cloak, &c. Fletcher

the junior partner. But it is not probable that died in the great plague of 1625. A friend had

their departments were so divided. invited him to the country, and he unfortunately

Still, however, the scanty lights that enable us staid in town to get a suit of clothes for the visit,

to guess at what they respectively wrote, seem during which time he caught the fatal infection.

to warrant that distinction in the cast of their He was interred in St. Saviour's, Southwark, genius which is made in the poet's allusion to where his grave, like that of Beaumont's in Westminster, is without an inscription.

“ Fletcher's keen treble, and deep Beaumont's base." Fletcher survived his dramatic associate ten Beaumont was the deeper scholar. Fletcher is years—so that their share in the drama that said to have been more a man of the world. passes by their joint names was far from equal Beaumont's vein was more pathetic and solemn, in quantity, Fletcher having written between but he was not without humour ; for the mockthirty and forty after the death of his companion*. | heroic scenes, that are excellent in some of their Respecting those which appeared in their common plays, are universally ascribed to him. Fletcher's lifetime, the general account is, that Fletcher muse, except where she sleeps in pastorals, seems chiefly supplied the fancy and invention of their to have been a nymph of boundless unblushing pieces, and that Beaumont, though he was the pleasantry. Fletcher's admirers warmly comyounger, dictated the cooler touches of taste and plimented his originality at the expense of Beauaccuracy. This tradition is supported, or rather mont*, on the strength of his superior gaiety, as

exaggerated, in the verses of Cartwright to if gay thoughts must necessarily be more original ! Fletcher, in which he says,

than serious ones, or depth of sensibility be allied « Beaumont was fain

to shallowness of invention. We are told also To bid thee be more dull; that's write again,

that Beaumont's taste leant to the bard and abstract And bate some of thy fire which from thee came

school of Jonson, while his coadjutor followed In a clear, bright, full, but too large a flame."

the wilder graces of Shakspeare. But if Earle Many verses to the same effect might be quoted, can be credited for Beaumont's having written but this tradition, so derogatory to Beaumonts Philaster, we shall discover him in that tragedy genius, is contradicted by other testimonies of to be the very opposite of an abstract painter of rather an earlier date, and coming from writers character ; it has the spirit of individual life. who must have known the great dramatists them. The piece owes much less to art than it loses by selves much better than Cartwright. Ben Jonson negligence. Its forms and passions are those of

speaks of Beaumont's originality with the empha- romance, and its graces, evidently imitated from psis peculiar to the expression of all his opinions ; Shakspeare, want only the fillet and zone of art

and Earle, the intimate friend of Beaumont, to consummate their beauty. ascribed to him, while Fletcher was still alive, the On the whole, while it is generally allowed exclusive claim to those three distinguished plays, that Fletcher was the gayer, and Beaumont the the Maid's Tragedy, Philaster, and King and No graver genius of their amusing theatre, it is unking ; a statement which Fletcher's friends were necessary to depreciate either, for they were likely to have contradicted, if it had been untrue. both original and creative; or to draw invidious If Beaumont had the sole or chief merit of those comparisons between men who themselves dis. pieces, he could not have been what Cartwright dained to be rivals. would have us believe, the mere pruner of (At the expense of all genius, for in the panegyrical Fletcher's luxuriancies, an assessor, who made poems in which Fletcher is so warmly complimented, him write again and more dully. Indeed, with reve

and to which Mr. Campbell alludes, the writers wrote to

say good things that looked like true, and were satisfied • Fletcher was assisted by Massinger in one instance, when the arrow of adulation was drawn to the head. probably in several; and it is likely that after Beaumont's Commendatory poems at the best reflect very little of death he had other auxiliaries. (Rowley, Middleton, real opinion, and when brought into biography are more and Shirley, were his other assistants.]

apt to mislead than inform.]

1

FROM THE MAID'S TRAGEDY.

FROM THE TRAGEDY OF PHILASTER.

*

Aspatia, forsaken by her lover, finds her maid Antiphila Philaster's description of his page to his mistress working a picture of Ariadne. The expression of her

Arethusa. sorrow to Antiphila and the other attendant thus

Arethusa.

How shall we devise concludes:

To hold intelligence, that our true loves, *

On any new occasion, may agree Then, my good girls, be more than women wise,

What path is best to tread ? At least be more than I was : and be sure

Philaster.

I have a boy, You credit anything the light gives light to,

Sent by the gods, I hope, to this intent, Before a man. Rather believe the sea

Not yet seen in the court. Hunting the buck, Weeps for the ruin'd merchant when he roars;

I found him sitting by a fountain side, Rather the wind courts but the pregnant sails,

Of which he borrow'd some to quench his thirst, When the strong cordage cracks ; rather the sun

And paid the nymph again as much in tears : Comes but to kiss the fruit in wealthy autumn,

A garland lay him by, made by himself When all falls blasted. If you needs must love,

Of many several flowers, bred in the bay, Forced by ill fate, take to your maiden bosoms

Stuck in that mystic order that the rareness Two dead cold aspicks, and of them make lovers;

Delighted me. But ever when he turn'd They cannot flatter nor forswear; one kiss

His tender eyes upon 'em, he would weep Makes a long peace for all. But man,

As if he meant to make them grow again. Oh that beast man ! Come, let's be sad, my

Seeing such pretty helpless innocence girls.

Dwell in his face, I ask'd him all his story.
That downcast eye of thine, Olympias,
Shows a fine sorrow. Mark, Antiphila ;

He told me that his parents gentle died,
Just such another was the nymph Oenone,

Leaving him to the mercy of the fields,

Which gave him roots, and of the crystal springs, When Paris brought home Helen. Now a tear,

Which did not stop their courses, and the sun, And then thou art a piece expressing fully

Which still, he thank'd him, yielded him his light. The Carthage queen, when from a cold sea-rock,

Then took he up his garland, and did show Full with her sorrow, she tied fast her eyes

What every flower, as country people hold, To the fair Trojan ships, and having lost them, Just as thine eyes do, down stole a tear. Antiphila! Express's his grief, and to my thoughts did read

Did signify, and how all orderd ; thus
What would this wench do if she were Aspatia ?

The prettiest lecture of his country art
Here she would stand till some more pitying god
Turn'd her to marble ! 'Tis enough, my wench :

That could be wish’d, so that methought I could Show me the piece of needlework you wrought.

Have studied it. I gladly entertain’d him Antiph. Of Ariadne, madam?

Who was as glad to follow, and have got

The trustiest, loving'st, and the gentlest boy Asp. Yes, that piece.

That ever master kept. Him will I send

To wait on you, and bear our hidden love.
Fie, you have miss'a it here, Antiphila.
You're much mistaken, wench ;
These colours are not dull and pale enough

FROM THE SAME.
To show a soul so full of misery
As this sad lady's was ;-do it by me ;

Philaster parting with Bellario, who is to enter the Do it again by me, the lost Aspatia,

service of Arethusa. --Act II, Scene I. And you shall find all true but the wild island. Philaster. And thou shalt find her, honourable Suppose I stand upon the sea-beach now,

Full of regard unto thy tender youth. [boy, Mine arms thus, and mine hair blown with the For thine own modesty, and for my sake, wind,

Apter to give than thou wilt be to ask, Wild as that desert; and let all about me

Ay, or deserve. Tell that I am forsaken. Do my face,

Bellario. Sir, you did take me up when I was If thou hadst ever feeling of a sorrow,

nothing, Thus, thus, Antiphila : strive to make me look

And only yet am something by being yours. Like sorrow's mouument; and the trees about You trusted me unknown, and that which you me,

To construe a simple innocence in me, (were apt Let them be dry and leafless ; let the rocks Perhaps might have been craft the cunning Groan with continual surges, and behind me

of a boy Make all a desolation. Look, louk, wenches, Harden I in lies and theft ; yet ventured you A miserable life of this poor picture.

To part my miseries and me, for which
I never can expect to serve a lady
That Lears more honour in her breast than you.

*

*

Phil. But, boy, it will prefer thee : thou art Now I perceive she loves me ; she does show it And bear'st a childish overflowing love [young, In loving thee, my boy : she's made thee brave. To them that clap thy cheeks and speak thee Bell. My lord, she has attired me past my wish, fair yet.

Past my desert, more fit for her attendant-
But when thy judgment comes to rule those passions, Though far unfit for me who do attend. [women
Thou wilt remember best those careful friends Phil. Thou art grown courtly, boy. Oh, let all
That placed thee in the noblest way of life : That love black deeds learn to dissemble here :
She is a princess I prefer thee to.

Here by this paper, she does write to me
Bell. In that small time that I have seen the As if her heart were mines of adamant
I never knew a man hasty to part (world, To all the world besides, but unto me
With a servant he thought trusty. I remember A maiden snow that melted with my looks.
My father would prefer the boys he kept

Tell me, my boy, how doth the princess use thee? To greater men than he ; but did it not

For I shall guess her love to me by that. Till they were grown too saucy for himself.

Bell. Scarce like her servant, but as if I were Phil. Why, gentle boy, I find no fault at all Something allied to her, or had preserved In thy behaviour.

Her life three times by my fidelity ; Bell. Sir, if I have made

As mothers fond do use their only sons ; A fault of ignorance, instruct my youth ;

As I'd use one that's left unto my trust, I shall be willing, if not apt to learn.

For whom my life should pay if he met harmAge and experience will adorn my mind

So she does use me. With larger knowledge ; and if I have done

Phil. Why, this is wond'rous well ; ! A wilful fault, think me not past all hope

But what kind language does she feed thee with ? For once.

What master holds so strict a hand Bell. Why, she does tell me she will trust I over his boy, that he will part with him

my youth Without one warning? Let me be corrected With all her loving secrets, and does call me To break my stubbornness, if it be so,

Her pretty servant; bids me weep no more Rather than turn me off, and I shall mend. For leaving you-she'll see my services

Phil. Thy love doth plead so prettily to stay, Regarded ; and such words of that soft strain, That, trust me, I could weep to part with thee. That I am nearer weeping when she ends Alas, I do not turn thee off : thou know'st

Than ere she spake. It is iny business that doth call me hence :

Phil. This is much better still. And when thou art with her thou dwell'st with me: Bell. Are you not ill, my lord ? Think so, and 'tis so. And when time is full

Phil. Ill—no, Bellario. That thou hast well discharged this heavy trust Bell. Methinks your words Laid on so weak a one, I will again

Fall not from off your tongue so evenly,
With joy receive thee : as I live, I will.

Nor is there in your looks that quietness
Nay, weep not, gentle boy—'tis more than time That I was wont to see.
Thou didst attend the princess.

Phil. Thou art deceived, boy.
Bell. I am gone.

And she strokes thy head ? And since I am to part with you, my lord,

Bell. Yes. And none knows whether I shall live to do

Phil. And does she clap thy cheeks ? Mure service for you, take this little prayer :

Bell. She does, my lord. Heav'n bless your loves, your fights, all your Phil. And does she kiss thee, boy !- ha ! designs !

Bell. Not so, my lord.
May sick men, if they have your wish, be well; Phil. Come, come, I know she does.
And fleav'n hate those you curse, though I be one ! Bell. No, by my life.

*

Philaster's mind being poisoned with jealousy that his

Mistress is perfidiously attached to the Page, he tries
to extort the supposed secret from Bellario.
Phil.

See-see, you gods !

Enter BELLARIO.
He walks still, and the face you let him wear
When he was innocent is still the same
Not blasted. Is this justice? Do you mean
T'entrap mortality, that you allow
Treason so smooth a brow? I cannot now
Think he is guilty.

Bell. Health to you, my lord :
The princess doth commend to you her love,
! And this, unto you.

[her life, Phil. Oh, Bellario,

Phil. Oh, my heart !
This is a salve worse than the main disease..
Tell me thy thoughts, for I will know the least
That dwells within thee, or will rip thy heart
To know it: I will see thy thoughts as plain
As I do now thy face.

Bell. Why, so you do.
She is (for aught I know), by all the gods,
As chaste as ice ; but were she foul as hell,
And I did know it thus, the breath of kings,
The points of swords, tortures, nor bulls of brass,
Should draw it from me.

Phil. Then it is no tiine
To dally with thee :- I will take thy life,
For I do hate thee. I could curse thee now.