ce Valour_, _Night-Walker_, _Prophetess_,
_Pilgrim_, _Philaster, Queen of_ Corinth, _Rule a Wife and have a
Wife_, Spanish _Curate_, _Sea-Voyage_, _Scornful Lady_, _Womans Prize_,
_Women pleased_, _Wife for a Month_, _Wit at several weapons_, and a
_Winters Tale_. Also six Tragedies; _Bonduca_, the _Bloody Brother_,
_False One_, the _Maids Tragedy_, _Thiery and Theodoret_,
_Valentinian_, and _Two Noble Kinsmen_, a Tragi-Comedy, _Fair
Shepherdess_, a Pastoral; and a _Masque of_ Grays-Inn _Gentlemen_.

It is reported of them, that meeting once in a Tavern, to contrive the
rude Draught of a Tragedy, _Fletcher_ undertook to _kill the King_
therein, whose Words being over-heard by a Listner (though his Loyalty
not to be blamed herein) he was accused of High Treason, till the
Mistake soon appearing, that the Plot was only against a Dramatick and
Scenical King, all wound off in Merriment.

Yet were not these two Poets so conjoyned, but that each of them did
several Pieces by themselves, Mr. _Beaumont_, besides other Works,
wrote a Poem, entituled, _Salmacis_ and _Hermaphroditus_, a Fable taken
out of _Ovid's Metamorphosis_; and Mr. _Fletcher_ surviving Mr.
_Beamont_, wrote good Comedies of himself; so that it could not be laid
to his Charge what _Ajax_ doth to _Ulysses_;

_Nihil hic_ Diomede _remoto_,

When _Diomedes_ was gone,
He could do nought alone.

Though some think them inferior to the former, and no wonder if a
single thread was not so strong as a twisted one, Mr. _Fletcher_ (as it
is said) died in _London_ of the Plague, in the first year of King
_Charles_ the First, 1625.

* * * * *

_WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR_.

This eminent Poet, the Glory of the _English_ Stage (and so much the
more eminent, that he gained great applause and commendation, when able
Wits were his Contemporaries) was born at _Stratford_ upon _Avon_ in
_Warwickshire_, and is the highest honour that Town can boast of. He
was one of the _Triumvirate_, who from Actors, became Makers of
Comedies and Tragedies, _viz. Christopher Marlow_ before him, and Mr.
_John Lacy_, since his time, and one in whom three eminent Poets may
seem in some sort to be compounded, 1. _Martial_, in the warlike sound
of his Sirname, _Hastivibrans_, or _Shakespear_; whence some have
supposed him of military extraction. 2. _Ovid_, the most natural and
witty of all Poets; and hence it was that Queen _Elizabeth_ coming into
a Gr