t with feares,
Such grants after denialls, such pursuits
After despaire, such amorous recruits,
That some who sate spectators have confest
Themselves transformed to what they saw exprest,
And felt such shafts steale through their captiv'd sence,
As made them rise Parts, and goe Lovers thence.
Nor was thy stile wholly compos'd of Groves,
Or the soft straines of Shepheards and their Loves;
When thou wouldst Comick be, each smiling birth
In that kinde, came into the world all mirth,
All point, all edge, all sharpnesse; we did sit
Sometimes five Acts out in pure sprightfull wit,
Which flowed in such true salt, that we did doubt
In which Scene we laught most two shillings out._
Shakespeare _to thee was dull, whose best jest lyes
I'th Ladies questions, and the Fooles replyes;
Old fashioned wit, which walkt from town to town
In turn'd Hose, which our fathers call'd the Clown;
Whose wit our nice times would obsceannesse call,
And which made Bawdry passe for Comicall:_
_Nature was all his Art, thy veine was free
As his, but without his scurility;
From whom mirth came unforced, no jest perplext,
But without labour cleane, chast, and unvext.
Thou wert not like some, our small Poets who
Could not be Poets, were not we Poets too;
Whose wit is pilfring, and whose veine and wealth
In Poetry lyes meerely in their stealth;
Nor didst thou feele their drought, their pangs, their qualmes,
Their rack in writing, who doe write for almes,
Whose wretched Genius, and dependent fires,
But to their Benefactors dole aspires.
Nor hadst thou the sly trick, thy selfe to praise
Under thy friends names, or to purchase Bayes
Didst write stale commendations to thy Booke,
Which we for_ Beaumonts _or_ Ben. Johnsons _tooke:
That debt thou left'st to us, which none but he
Can truly pay,_ Fletcher, _who writes like thee._

William Cartwright.

On Mr FRANCIS BEAUMONT
(then newly dead.)

_He that hath such acutenesse, and such witt,
As would aske ten good heads to husband it;
He that can write so well that no man dare
Refuse it for the best, let him beware:_
BEAUMONT _is dead, by whose sole death appeares,
Witt's a Disease consumes men in few yeares._

RICH. CORBET. D.D.

To Mr FRANCIS BEAUMONT (then living.)

_How I doe love thee_ BEAUMONT, _and