ect abuse.
She did this, 'cause--perhaps--thy love paid thus
Might with my thanks outlive thy cloak, and us.

UPON MR. FLETCHER'S PLAYS, PUBLISHED 1647.

I knew thee not, nor durst attendance strive,
Label to wit, verser remonstrative,
And in some suburb-page--scandal to thine--
Like Lent before a Christmas scatter mine.
This speaks thee not, since at the utmost rate
Such remnants from thy piece entreat their date;
Nor can I dub the copy, or afford
Titles to swell the rear of verse with lord;
Nor politicly big, to inch low fame,
Stretch in the glories of a stranger's name,
And clip those bays I court; weak striver I,
But a faint echo unto poetry.
I have not clothes t'adopt me, nor must sit
For plush and velvet's sake, esquire of wit.
Yet modesty these crosses would improve,
And rags near thee, some reverence may move.
I did believe--great Beaumont being dead--
Thy widow'd Muse slept on his flow'ry bed;
But I am richly cozen'd, and can see
Wit transmigrates: his spirit stay'd with thee;
Which, doubly advantag'd by thy single pen,
In life and death now treads the stage again.
And thus are we freed from that dearth of wit
Which starv'd the land, since into schisms split,
Wherein th' hast done so much, we must needs guess
Wit's last edition is now i' th' press.
For thou hast drain'd invention, and he
That writes hereafter, doth but pillage thee.
But thou hast plots; and will not the Kirk strain
At the designs of such a tragic brain?
Will they themselves think safe, when they shall see
Thy most abominable policy?
Will not the Ears assemble, and think't fit
Their Synod fast and pray against thy wit?
But they'll not tire in such an idle quest;
Thou dost but kill, and circumvent in jest;
And when thy anger'd Muse swells to a blow
'Tis but for Field's, or Swansted's overthrow.
Yet shall these conquests of thy bays outlive
Their Scottish zeal, and compacts made to grieve
The peace of spirits: and when such deeds fail
Of their foul ends, a fair name is thy bail.
But--happy thou!--ne'er saw'st these storms, our air
Teem'd with even in thy time, though seeming fair.
Thy gentle soul, meant for the shade and ease,
Withdrew betimes into the Land of Peace.
So nested in some hospitable shore
The hermit-angler, when